After his wedding to Loretta, Charles was sent to the Pacific to fight world war 2. He spent a year at Christmas Island and a year in Hawaii. While these pictures are all black and white, you can still see the beauty of both islands and the interaction the soldiers had with the islanders. He was on a boat heading to what he believed was Japan when it was announced that the war was over and the boat was turning around. Within a week or two he was in Chicago getting discharged from nearly 5 years of service during World War 2, a war that cost him his younger brother Raymond and made his family a gold star family.

Charles Thomas Kleiber was very proud of his service, he kept his honorable discharge on his desk along with Raymonds Purple Heart.