The following year, Demara began his new lives by borrowing the name of Anthony Ignolia, an army buddy, and going AWOL. After two more attempts in monasteries, he joined the Navy where he trained as a hospital corpsman. He did not reach the position he wanted, faked his suicide and borrowed another name, Robert Linton French, and became a religion-oriented psychologist, who taught psychology at Gannon College (now a university) in Erie, Pennsylvania. Afterwards, Demara served as an orderly in a Los Angeles sanitarium, and served as an instructor in St. Martin's College (now a university) in the state of Washington. The FBI captured him, and he served 18 months at the Naval Disciplinary Barracks, San Pedro, California, for desertion.