Steiger said of his troubled family background: "If you had the choice of having the childhood you experienced, with your alcoholic mother and being the famous actor you are today, or having a loving, secure childhood and not being famous, which would you take? A loving, secure childhood in a New York minute". During the last 11 years of her life, Steiger's mother stayed sober and regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Steiger recalled: "I was so proud of her. She turned herself around. She came alive again". During his childhood, and owing to his considerable strength and bulk, Steiger became known as "The Rock". Despite being mocked over his mother's alcoholism, he was a popular figure at school and an able softball player. He displayed an interest in writing poetry and acting during his adolescent years, and appeared in several school plays while at West Side High School in Newark. Tired of fighting with his mother, he ran away from home at age sixteen to join the United States Navy during World War II. He enlisted on May 11, 1942, and received his training at the U.S. Naval Training Station in Newport, Rhode Island. He joined the newly commissioned USS "Taussig" (DD-746) on May 20, 1944. While serving as a torpedoman on destroyers, he saw action in the South Pacific, including the Battle of Iwo Jima. Steiger later commented: "I loved the Navy. I was stupid enough to think I was being heroic." His experiences during the war haunted him for the rest of his life, particularly the loss of Americans during the Battle of Iwo Jima, as well as the sinking of vessels by the "Taussig" which were known to have women and children aboard. On December 17, 1944, off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines, Steiger and the "Taussig" encountered a severe typhoon, which became known as "Halsey's Typhoon", with winds reaching one hundred knots (115 mph) and waves. As a result, three U.S. destroyers were lost, but the "Taussig" survived, with Steiger tying a rope to himself on deck and flattening himself as waves engulfed the ship. After the war, the GI Bill paid for his rent at a room on West 81st Street in New York City, an income of just over $100 a month, and four years of schooling. He initially found a job oiling machines and washing floors.