While military service poses some serious problems for most young men of draft age these days, one member of our company had to make a more difficult decision than most. He is 21-year-old Alex Hood, who was born in Toronto and came to the U.S. four years ago to work for TIME. A Canadian citizen, he was not necessarily liable to induction here at the time he reached draft age. But if he had refused to serve with the U.S. forces, he would have given up his right to become a citizen of the U.S.

At 18, when he had to make up his mind, he was uncertain about whether he would want to continue working in this country--and, if so, to become a citizen eventually--or to return to Canada some day, retaining his citizenship there. Hoping to keep both doors open, he decided to register for the draft and become eligible for induction. This month he was called into the Army.

If the Army's experience is anything like TIME'S, it will find Hood one of its most persistent and hard-working recruits. Hood decided a long time ago that he wanted to work for TIME. Shortly before his graduation from a Toronto high school, he wrote to ask for a job, in his own version of TIME-ese: "Last week, as it must to some, realization came to Toronto's Alex B. Hood that university would be financially impossible. Young (17) Hood's next best bet: to go to New York and work for TIME Inc."

Dudley Darling, in TIME'S personnel department, wrote to discourage Hood from the expense of making a trip to New York, because of the uncertainty of getting a job when he arrived. But Hood wasn't discouraged for long. He got his old summertime job at a resort hotel (as second chef in the restaurant, and as operator of his own baggage-hauling business on the side), and in August he wrote us again, asking for an employment interview.

He got the appointment and came to New York, but was told there was no job at the time, and that he would need a visa to work in the U.S. anyway. He went home to apply for a visa. While waiting, he went to work in a steel mill, found it monotonous, and got another job as a restaurant dishwasher near the American consulate, where he could keep a close check on the progress of his visa.

Hood got his visa and came back to New York early in January 1949, a few days early for his next appointment. He busied himself making up a list of "the right people to see" about jobs at various newspapers, radio stations, etc., including their phone numbers, addresses and office room numbers, just in case. As it turned out, he never had to use the list. Impressed by his determination and his businesslike manner, Darling hired him as a mail-room messenger. Hood's first assignment was as a courier, bringing pictures of Harry Truman's inauguration from Washington.

Before long, Hood was promoted from messenger to mail sorter. Says Bob Evans. TIME'S mailroom supervisor: "It was soon obvious that Alex could outsort anybody in the place. Some 2,000 names have to be memorized for this job. I have never seen anybody who knew so many domestic and foreign names and addresses, or who was able to learn them so quickly.

He handled the whole load of first-class morning mail, some 1,200 to 1,500 letters, in one hour."

The following June, Hood enrolled at Fordham University, attending classes at night. Last March, after three yeas in the mailroom, he joined TIME's business training program. But he took a part-time in the mailroom, as well, to help with the early morning sorting from 7 to 9 a.m. (and to earn some extra money for college expenses).

The training program has taken Hood into jobs in various parts of the company -- production, research, travel bureau, and business offices of different TIME Inc. publications. In these jobs, he worked at a variety of desks and in temporarily vacant offices. Once, when he was using the office of former FORTUNE Publisher C. D. Jackson, who was away at the time, an insurance salesman came to deliver a policy he had sold Hood. Ushered into the office by a secretary, the salesman looked at Hood with a mixture of perplexity and admiration. Said Hood: "I could just see what was going on in that agent's head: 'Here's a prospect for a lot more insurance.' But now I may be hard for him to find for a while."

Hood graduated from Fordham last month. His college draft deferment would have lasted until June, but he requested immediate reclassification.

Having made up his mind about serving in the U.S. Army, he wanted to be under way.

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