Centenarian Steve Ellis was barely 16 when he joined the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) at Tulane University—months before the U.S. entered World War II.

Before that leap, the Louisiana native's maritime experience was minimal. "The biggest thing I had ever been on was a canoe," the 100-year-old veteran told Newsweek . Yet soon, he would serve aboard a vessel more than 300-feet long and 50-feet wide.

Ellis grew up in the small town of Amite, and his journey into military service began when his father signed him up for ROTC just months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the strike that propelled America into global conflict.

In February 1944, the war was no longer distant. Administrators "came to my classroom one morning and announced that our class would be com

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