After the United States entered the war, I joined the Naval Reserve and spent ninety days in a Columbia University dormitory learning to be a naval officer.

The speaker recalls a rapid, improvised transition from civilian life to military service after U.S. entry into a major war, emphasizing the compressed training pipeline (“ninety days”) and the incongruity of learning warfare in an academic setting (a Columbia dormitory). The line underscores how institutions were repurposed for mobilization and how officer training could be accelerated to meet urgent manpower needs. It also conveys a personal tone of matter-of-fact service—joining the Naval Reserve as a response to national events—while hinting at the broader wartime experience of young Americans whose education and early careers were abruptly redirected.