Engel left the university in February 1943, and entered the United States Army as a private in the infantry but was transferred to the Ordnance Department.
He graduated at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and went on to command his own bomb disposal unit in the European Theatre of World War II for two years, seeing action in England, France, Belgium, and Germany.
After World War II, Engel returned to the University of Michigan and received an Artium Baccalaureus degree in political science.
[1] He and his father were active in the management of a Christmas tree farm known as Engelwood Plantations in Lake City, Michigan, from his return from the service until 1969.
[1] Engel was nominated by President Nixon on December 5, 1973, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated by Judge W. Wallace Kent.