From the City to the Farm to the Army
His mother was a dancer and emcee, so she was on the road or gone at odd hours – a life the young kid would later become accustomed to. Growing up in a hectic home made it hard for him to focus on his schoolwork.
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Unsurprisingly, he dropped out of high school at 16 and ran away from home. He wound up on a farm in Long Island (the Dengler Family Chicken Farm), working as a farmhand. He would dig up potatoes and drive a truck until he turned 18. At that point, Bruce did what most other young men did in the early ’40s: He joined the Army and fought in World War II.