[6][7] In 1916–1917, both father and son joined the ranks of the Russian army as it fought against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I: Theodore – as a military chaplain, and 16-year-old Boris – as an artillery private to the 52nd Infantry Division.

[7][6] On 1 July 1920, he married Lydia Vladimirovna Ivanova, and chose to return to the United States when the Bolshevik consolidation of power became apparent.

Pash taught and coached baseball at Hollywood High School in Los Angeles from 1924 until 1940, where students included Lana Turner, Judy Garland, and Mickey Rooney.

[6] Pash was called to active duty with the Army in 1940, and became chief of counter-intelligence at the IX Corps Area headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco.

[6] In that role he became involved with the 1942 Baja Peninsula mission that investigated the possibility of the Japanese establishing a base in Mexico during World War II.

[11] During this mission, he had a heated run-in in Italy with Moe Berg, a former Major League Baseball catcher turned spy.

[12] On the mission in 1944, Pash personally carried harmful materials for seven hours in his pocket, which led to a radium burn (in his own words, it looked "like a map on my hip here").

Instead, Pash organized for the Bishop Benjamin (Basalyga) to arrive in early January 1947 to take the reins, and thus the North American Metropolia, rather than the then Soviet-controlled Moscow Patriarchate, secured influence in the region.

On 9 January, two days after the first sermon of the new bishop, a reception was held at the Dutch embassy at which Pash met his longtime acquaintance, Lieutenant General Derevyanko, who represented the USSR in the Allied Council for Japan.

Shaking the Russian-American's hand that winter day, Derevyanko publicly declared: "Ah, my good friend Colonel Pash has again checkmated me.

[6] During this time, he was in charge of a controversial CIA program called PB-7, which had been formed to handle "wet affairs" like kidnappings and assassinations.

Grilled hard by the judge, Pash did not relent and maintained that the unlawful actions against the American citizens needed to be assessed in the context of the 1940s, rather than in hindsight.