Born in Shreveport, Paul was drafted in 1942, entered the US Army Air Forces, and trained as an armorer. Sailing to European Theater of Operations on the Queen Mary, he was assigned to the 361^st Fighter Group and based at Bottisham Air Base near Cambridgeshire, England. There, as a sergeant, he serviced the fifty-caliber machine guns on P-51s and P-47s. After his discharge he earned an architecture degree from Tulane University. He was a partner in the architectural firm Wiener, Morgan, O'Neal, Hill and Sutton. He retired in 1989.