He enlisted in the National Guard after graduation. In a letter of August 5, 1918 he wrote that he was in charge of his company on the front line. 'I went on a patrol in which we crossed No-Man's Land, crawling, and reached a German machine gun emplacement that was doing us a lot of damage. We bombed the place. This was in daylight, and we were fired upon. We ran back to the trenches 150 yards away. My corporal was shot as we ran. This is my first fighting experience.' In a letter to his sister he wrote: 'I captured ten of them myself out of one dugout, and I has to shoot one of them in order to make them behave. I saw men shot to pieces around me and dead everywhere.' He fought with the 33rd British Division at Cambral and St. Quentin. He was wounded when a bullet passed through his right arm in October 1918. He served on active duty throughout World War II in the Air Technical Service Command. Funeral services were held at the US Military Cemetery in Point Loma, CA and in Charlotte. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery.His daughter reported that he saved the lives of about 21 men during WW I.