Ford Administration - Career

Career

When Gerald Ford graduated from law school at Yale in 1941, he returned to Grand Rapids, Michigan, passed the bar exam, and became an attorney in a partnership with his college friend, Philip Buchen. In 1942, after the United States entered World War II (1939–45), Ford enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve and received a commission as an ensign. He was assigned to the USS Monterey in the South Pacific and served as an athletic director, a gunnery division officer, and an assistant navigator. Ford was discharged in 1946 as a lieutenant commander and returned to Grand Rapids to join the law firm of Butterfield, Keeney, and Amberg.

With support and encouragement from Republican U.S. senator Arthur Vandenburg (R-Mich.), who had sponsored Ford's application to work as a ranger at Yellowstone National Park in l936 and continued to take an interest in Ford's plans after that initial interaction, Ford decided to challenge...

[The entire page is 621 words long]

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