 After his expulsion from university, Carliner was drafted into the Army in 1941, where he was prevented from entering Officer Candidate School because of his left-wing politics; he was discharged in 1945 and spent about a year as an assistant JAG.After his time with the Army, Carliner spent a couple of years with the New Council of American Business, a pro-New Deal organization with close links to Henry Wallace.In 1944, he married Miriam Kalter, a refugee from Nazi Germany; she worked for the federal government in various programs on poverty and sex discrimination.