When the USA entered the war in 1941, Alfred Wochenmark volunteered for the military. He first served as a recruit trainer and was thus able to stay with his wife and son Kenneth, who was born in 1943.

In 1944, he was stationed at a ship repair yard in Guam during the Pacific War. After his return in December 1945, there was a housing shortage in the United States. The small family lived in a cramped basement apartment in New York.

Their second son, Lance, was born in 1951.