After graduating from the University of Texas in 1938, Jake takes a job that places him in a progression of towns in Central and East Texas as an area supervisor for the National Youth Association, a New Deal agency. His position with the NYA and his friendship with John Connally will lead, in 1940, to Jake’s first job with LBJ, certainly a watershed event.
After Pearl Harbor, Jake enlists in the Navy and, after carving out a few days to marry his girl, Ella Nora “Sugar” Critz, he serves on ships in the South Pacific. He earns the last of the 60 “points” needed for discharge onboard the USS Miami after the war’s end, en route to Okinawa. From Okinawa, he returns stateside and begins to pick up his life.