In 1943, considering the contemplative life of a monk, he became a Benedictine novice at Saint John's Abbey. After nine months as a monk he left the monastery, causing a fellow novice to say, "It was like losing a 20-game winner". He enlisted in the Army, serving as a code breaker for the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department in Washington, D.C. in 1944. He was then an instructor in sociology and economics at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1946 to 1949.