When Barney was 22-years-old he served in the U.S. Air Force in the European theatre, which operated in England.
In 1948 he interrupted his schooling at Brooklyn College to volunteer in Machal. For a while Barney was stationed at Kibbutz Ma’abarot where he and a handful of other Machalniks were engaged in re-assembling newly-arrived Avia S-199 fighter aircrafts recently acquired from Czechoslovakia. The first four of these planes participated in the IAF’s first sortie, stopping the Egyptian advance on Tel Aviv on 29th May 1948. Barney was later transferred to the Ekron airbase near Rehovot. His duties were to examine, repair and maintain IAF aircraft stationed there.
After the war he worked for the Israel Aircraft Industries and was responsible for training hundreds of new immigrants, many of whom were without any skills.
He was always protective of his roots and his values, and he was quick to counter expressions of evil, injustice or bigotry. Barney’s innate sense of justice prompted his quick response to Israel’s call for help in 1948. He loved Israel and adopted the country as his second home.