Lowry Bowman '75

Lowry Bowman '75, retired owner-editor of the Washington County News, Inc. in Abingdon, VA. Is a member of the Greatest Generation and his is an interesting story.

Lowry writes: "My former comrades-in-arms and I have told each other so many lies over the years that we no longer can recall which lie belongs to which liar. But here is a completely truthful little story from the war years-

"Most of the beardless boys who enrolled for the 1943 fall quarter at the University of Georgia expected to be drafted into the armed forces as soon as they turned 18 years old. Some of us, however, had taken the test for the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and knew our future military careers would be spent in some quiet college classroom acquiring skills which the Army needed. We would become engineers, interpreters, dentists, maybe even physicians' - in uniform but at government expense and safe from shot and shell.

Our first shock on arriving in Athens was the discovery that the military had taken over the dormitories'. Finding a place to live was a real concern. Coeds had been placed in what once were fraternity houses, but the males were on their own. The fortunate ones managed to find rooms at the old brick YMCA building on Lumpkin Street for the sum (if memory serves) of $15 per month.

"The wooden benches in front of the Y became our student center and observation post from which to observe the coeds at a nearby fraternity house. Coffee was a nickel a cup with free refills (up to a point) at the Olde South Restaurant at the bus station. Hot dogs at the Varsity cost a dime. The war was remote. Life was good.

"The war came much closer on one warm November afternoon when several of us were relaxing on those benches. A huge Army convoy pulled into Athens and unloaded hundreds of dirty, bearded, scruffy soldiers from Ft. Jackson, S.C. All wore the patch of the 100th Infantry Division, and many of them also sported the small red insignia which identified them as Rangers. They were on their way to winter maneuvers in Tennessee. After those maneuvers they would regroup at Ft. Bragg, N.C. before heading overseas.

"They had ridden all day in the Army's open, all-purpose 2-1/2 ton trucks, and they were filthy. They needed a bath. The YMCA opened its doors and their showers to them.

"While waiting in line for a shower, they regaled us with horror stories of life in the infantry. Whatever you do, they said, don't let them put you in the infantry. When we told them we were bound for college in the ASTP they congratulated us on our wisdom and our good luck. Then they climbed back on those trucks and headed for Tennessee.

"We were glad to see them go. Each of us expressed the fervent hope that we would never again have to be exposed to those men of the 100th Division. They scared us.

"We were drafted at the end of fall quarter. Those who had been accepted in the ASTP were required to take 13 weeks of basic training before being sent to college. After a couple of weeks at the induction center at Ft. McPherson in Atlanta we were packed off to take that training at Ft. Benning. It took us only a few days to understand why we had been warned against becoming infantrymen.

"Our infantry training had hardly gotten past the manual of arms before we were ordered aboard a troop train. A day and a night later we were ordered to climb down and form a line.

"Is this college?'we asked. 'Are we in college now?'

"It ain't college,' a beefy sergeant growled. 'This is Ft. Bragg and you are in the 100th Infantry Division. Fall in.'

"Faced with vast manpower shortages after the huge casualties at Anzio in Italy, the Army had quietly scrapped the ASTP program and sent its college-bound boys to the infantry. The 100th Division troopers who had frightened us in Athens already had been sent to Italy as replacements for those killed or wounded in the 45th and 3rd Divisions. We were taking their place.

"The 100th was now a division of college boys, and we soon followed those 'Century men' to France and Germany.

"When I started off in what would have been the class of 1947. The military interruption stretched that out. I returned to UGA in 1946, but left again in '49 to use up the GI bill at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and when I returned a year later Dean Tate demanded that I finish up at UGA by taking something called 'Contemporary Georgia.' After some years of argumentation I received a degree in the liberal arts from UGA dated 1978. In one sense, that sounds like 35 years as an undergraduate."