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When the Second World War broke out, “Little” Alex Kowbel desperately wanted to do his part, but he had a hard time convincing recruiters in Melville, Sask., that he was up to the job.

At the time, Kowbel was 17, stood 5’4’’, and weighed 110 pounds. After the air force turned him down flat, he went to the army, but the medical officer there also declined his services.

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Before he could leave, however, a corporal in the recruiting office noted that Kowbel could type a blazing fast 100 words a minute and said, “I sure could use a typist.”

Kowbel would spend the next three decades in the Canadian military, serving in both the Second World War and Korean War.

“And it’s only because I could type that I got into the military,” laughs Kowbel, now a resident at the Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre. He turned 97 last month.

One of seven children, Kowbel grew up protected from the worst ravages of the Great Depression because his father was a railway mechanic. Alex Kowbel decided that he wanted to be a businessman, so he studied shorthand and typing in high school.