In this video interview, John Agnos speaks of his early childhood under German Occupation during World War II. He recalls great scarcity. His father ran a shoe business called Titan, which was disrupted by the occupation. His family looked forward to liberation as the Greeks advanced into Albania. John left Greece in 1951 to further his education and enrolled in a high school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where his aunt lived. Shortly after he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, where he served for two years. Upon returning, he pursued an electrical engineering degree and went on work for the Defense Department. He was involved in Operation Deep Freeze, a Navy program based in Antarctica.