Chief was a career Army man. He retired after 30 years of Military Service. He received his draft notice the day Japan surrendered in WWII, just a few months after his graduation from high school. His first assignment was in the American occupied sector of Germany. It was there that he met and married Lance Schnurrer. Chief and Lance lived on many different military bases, but it was when he was assigned to Fort Sill Army Base, Lawton, Oklahoma, that he felt he had finally come home.