Fathollah Minbashian was 20 years old when he entered the Military Academy (Daneshgadeh Afsari) in the same class as Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s Crown Prince. He left it as an officer in 1938, coincidentally the day of his father’s death. Between 1938 and 1940, he was an officer cadet and then second-lieutenant, commanding the NCOs’ training school. In 1944 he became a lieutenant, and he then passed the exam for the US Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, and having been promoted captain, he went to the United States with his wife.