On January 20, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan gave his Inaugural address as the new U.S. President, 52 American hostages were released at Rhein-Main Air Base in West Germany. John LaPine, then 24-year-old, was among many people who witnessed the historical moment, as the flight landed and the hostages were received by former President Carter and Helmut Schmidt, the then chancellor of West Germany.

“It was my first assignment,” decades later, LaPine recalls, “I grew up in the army. I learned how to be an adult and accept responsibility for my own actions.”

Many may take LaPine’s military aspirations as a spirit inherited from his father, who was a World War II combat veteran. He was only 19 years old when he went through the bloodied waters of Normandy and landed in Nazi-occupied Europe, where he continued to fight in France, Germany and Austria. Wait until they find out he was not LaPine’s biological father.

A native of Chicago, LaPine was born in 1957 at the Cook County Hospital. When his real mother couldn’t afford to take care of him, he was adopted by a couple who later became his parents and gave him a home that he left at 14. “We didn’t get along very well, me and my parents,” says LaPine, “there were a lot of domestic violence in our house.” He moved to downtown Chicago, trying to figure out a way to survive, and he did, though not without a lot of troubles and adventures. At the age of 17, he decided the wanted a different way of life, and that was when he joined the army.

They let him sign the contact and gave him basic trainings, after that, LaPine told them he wanted to go to Germany. In his own words, he just “had a thing for Germany.” When he was a little kid, his parents always played WFMT, a public radio station in Chicago, in their house. Every Saturday morning, they had this program called “Texaco Opera,” sponsored by The Texas Company. Nearly half a century later, LaPine still remembers the tone of Milton Cross when he announced the selection of that day. He was particularly fond of the The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, whose classical music concerts were recored live and broadcasted by Texaco Opera. The army granted his wish and sent him to The Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., where he spent two years learning foreign languages. LaPine was then assigned to West Germany to work as a Russian, Polish and German interpreter.

“I stayed there for nine and a half years. I had a German girlfriend. I spoke the language fluently. I was very comfortable there,” says LaPine, “but it wasn’t home.”

Now working as a Collection Services Manager at Pritzker Military Museum & Library located at 104 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago, LaPine deems his job satisfying. It is a place where he can pursue his greatest passions of his life: literature, history, foreign languages… while making some meaningful contributions for the museum and, by extension, the veterans. According to Dustin DePue, the Director of Museum Collections, their primary mission is to educate the public about the history and tell the stories of those who have served in the army. Since it was founded in 2003, most of the museum’s archival collections they received came directly from the veterans or their family members.

The job was a result of the Great Recession in 2008. LaPine was doing fine in the bookstore he owned when some of his frequent customers suddenly stopped visiting. When they finally reached out to him, they were asking if they can sell him their books – “But I wasn’t making any sells!” LaPine had a very good customer, though. At that time, she was known as “Jim” James Nicolas Pritzker, the founder of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library and the world’s first transgender billionaire. She offered to buy LaPine’s business and asked him to work for her. They continued to run the Printers Row Fine & Rare Bookshop for two years until the selling of rare books ceased to be profitable. That was when LaPine came to the museum.

Most of LaPine’s work now involves managing collections, rare book binding, book conservation and reservation. Books, in LaPine’s view, creates an interior life in his head. When the tension in his childhood home reached a peak, he used to go to his room for safety, and read. LaPine’s great aunt Mariam, a member of the Kroch’s and Brentano’s, gave him all the books he needed for escapism. It was the books that drove him to his multiple degrees and it was the books that taught him everything he faithfully believed.

“We go to college. We get jobs. We work for companies that we don’t like, jobs that we hate, so we have lots of money to buy things we don’t need, and that’s supposed to make us happy. Happiness is in here,” says LaPine, pointing his head, “thankfully I learned that that is what makes my life worth living.”