He ended the war by taking thousands of war-weary veterans on the journey of which they had long dreamed. Born near Minden, Louisiana, Roy joined the Navy in 1944 at age seventeen. He went into the Pacific as a Radar Man Third Class aboard the USS Pickens, APA-190 (Amphibious Personnel Assault), which also served as an Auxiliary Hospital Ship. Roy saw action in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns. He also ferried an army division from San Francisco, bound for the planned invasion of Japan. After hostilities ended, the Pickens crisscrossed the Pacific, in taking veterans home to America in Operation Magic Carpet. He left the service on May 26, 1946, but remained in the reserves for ten years. Roy graduated from Louisiana State University, and then worked as a newspaper editor in Homer, where he also served as the town's mayor. He later served in the state economic development in Baton Rouge, and then finished his career with the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce in economic development.