 Innis had previously served seven and a half years in the Navy Reserve, beginning shortly after high school.Innis' was recruited by the U.S. Army Signal Corp's Alaska Communications System (ACS) and was stationed on an Army operated cable ship in Alaska.Innis oversaw the laying of thousands of miles of the first military submarine telephone communication cables across the ocean using secret military charts aboard the wooden-hulled self-propelled barge, the cable ship Col.