Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Pre-Enlistment Civilian Jobs

Lee worked for the rest of the school year. Between November 10 and January 14, he worked as a messenger boy for Gerald F. Tujague, Inc., a shipping company, earning $130 per month; his employer remembered him as quiet and withdrawn. In January he briefly worked as an office boy for J. R. Michels, Inc., and for several months thereafter was a messenger for the Pfisterer Dental Laboratory. His military record later described his prior civilian jobs as performing clerical duties such as distributing mail, delivering messages, answering the telephone, filing records, and operating ditto and letter-opening/sealing machines.

Fort Worth Residency and Socialist Party Inquiry

Anticipating Lee would join the Marines at 17, Mrs. Oswald moved to Fort Worth in July 1956, taking an apartment at 4936 Collinswood for herself, Lee, and Robert. In September, Lee enrolled in the tenth grade at Arlington Heights High School but attended only a few weeks, dropping out on September 28. A few days later, he wrote a letter dated October 3, 1956, to the Socialist Party of America, stating he was sixteen, a Marxist who had been studying socialist principles for over fifteen months, and requesting information about the Y.P.S.L. youth league. He turned 17 on October 18 and enlisted in the Marines on October 24.

Marine Corps Recruit Training at San Diego

On October 26, 1956, Oswald reported for duty at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, assigned to the Second Recruit Training Battalion. He was 68 inches tall, weighed 135 pounds, and had no physical defects. On October 30, aptitude tests showed him significantly above the Marine Corps average in reading and vocabulary and significantly below average in arithmetic and pattern analysis, with a composite general classification score of 105 (2 points below average). He scored near the bottom in a radio code test. His duty preference was recorded as Aircraft Maintenance and Repair. He trained with the M-1 rifle; his practice scores were not very good, but he scored 212 on the December 21 record fire, qualifying as a “sharpshooter.” He also practiced with a riot gun and .45-caliber pistol, with no scores recorded. He received 4.4 ratings in both “conduct” and “proficiency.”