Don Lowe, My Life in the U.S. Army

Senior Logistics Sergeant Don Lowe, 1991

One night after graduating from East, I was at my parent’s house and two schoolmates came by. They asked if I would go to the Army National Guard Armory with them to check it out as they were curious. I immediately asked if they had lost some brain cells. These two fellows were Mike Pace (East ‘60) and Mike Porter, who were in our group of neighborhood friends.

I will explain something that not too many people know about me. We had all attended junior high at Mathewson and when we ended the ninth grade, about half went to East and the remainder went to North. We had a choice because we lived on the boundary between East and North.  I had more friends that chose North, so I also went there. After two and a half years the administrators at North had enough of my trouble making antics and told me to leave. If I wanted to continue in school I would have to attend East High.

So I did. On my third day at East, I was standing on the curb on Grove Street, looking at the hamburger restaurant across the street and thinking about a burger. Mr. Kirby was standing behind me (I was unaware) and he asked me what I was doing. I told him and he said, “Well, I am going to give you until next semester to figure it out.” So I went home thinking my career at East was over in three days. When I arrived home my mom almost had a breakdown, to say the least.

So, I went with Larry Whorton (East ‘59) to check out the Navy Reserve as he was already enlisted. I passed the test and went home to have one of my parents sign for me.  I was 17. Both said out loud “NO.” Your next move is going to be East High. When the next semester started, I was back in school at East. I had decided to change for the better and did graduate with the Class of 1960.

Army National Guard

Now let’s go back to the night the two Mikes came by. I have to say the I owe a great deal of gratitude to Mike Pace (at right)  for getting me to take a look at the National Guard because when I went to check it out, I actually found something I liked. I joined something that had structure and realized that if I didn’t change my trouble-making life, I could end up in real trouble. This action of joining the National Guard set me up for a total change of life. Thanks, Mike. 

(Left: Mike Pace and Don Lowe at Basic Training.) 

We all three left for basic training in January 1961 at Fort (Lost in the Woods) Leonard Wood, Missouri, where the Army makes the weather — miserable! When we returned after our initial training, we attended the weekly Monday night meetings as Weekend Warriors.

Below: Porter, Pace, and Lowe after Basic Training at the Wichita Armory

 I had been trained in communications and was appointed the Battalion Commander’s driver.  That got me out of all extra duties; i.e., KP.  

My last year in the Guard I  transferred over to the East side and was part of the 891st Float Bridge Company. Our summer training was to go to Camp Ripley, Minnesota, and build a footbridge across the mighty Mississippi river. When we finished, we were told to run across the river and return. If we did a good build, we would not fall in.

This was the end of my six-year commitment. Since I was in the middle of a nasty divorce, my dad convinced me to join the regular Army. In August 1968 I was discharged from the Guard and the next day I signed up for the Army. Funny thing is, the Army Recruiting office was at the northeast corner of Grove and Douglas. 

I was in the Army Now

In two days’ time I was on my way back to Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, not one of my favorite places. More training there and then to Fort Jackson, SC, which had to be in contention with Fort Wood for the worst training place. I wasn’t there long before I was on a plane to Panama, where they were in the middle of, I think, their 56th revolution. We weren’t allowed in Panama City because there were machine guns on the roofs. More training to survive!! After a while, I was back on a plane to Puerto Rico and Fort Buchanan, a part of the San Juan Naval Base. I was beginning to wonder what I had got myself into.

Puerto Rico – Finance, Funerals, and Other Extra Duties

This place looked like the South Pacific, a beautiful tropical setting with modern two-story buildings with louvered windows – far better than the buildings at my previous locations.  We got used to the little lizards in our wall lockers and beds. The Army co-existed with the Navy as they were on the 2nd floor and Army on the 3rd floor.

I went to the Personnel Office  and reported to a CWO (Chief Warrant Officer).  After he looked at my personnel folder and my training, he says, “You are going to be my Finance Sergeant.” I had a case of nerves right away and said, “But Sir, math is my worst subject.” He said, “You will catch on and you will have good instruction from a man who is leaving the Army soon.” That was true and that Officer actually did me a favor that worked out for years to come. My job was the only Finance person on the island for the Army, but the Officer didn’t tell me about the extra duties when I wasn’t doing Finance (about three days a week). 

This was during the Vietnam war. Deceased Army members from the island were being shipped back and needed burial. I lost count of how many of these details I was on. In Puerto Rico the traditional funerals include walking through the city behind the casket and up into old cemeteries, making maneuvering very difficult. To make it more difficult, the natives did NOT like the United States even though there were hundreds of military retirees living there. The really bad part was that anti-American independent parties would show up at a funeral and burn the American flag while all the time chanting insulting language at us. One time we were lowering a casket by rope, when the end handle broke and the casket dropped at one end. The natives got all bent out of shape. I could feel one’s breath on my neck. That day, I thought I was going into the grave with the deceased. 

Another extra duty was escorting AWOL’s (absent without leave) back to their  assignments at Army installations in the US.  The CID (criminal detachment) would find them on the island, and someone had to take them back to their posts. Family members would call the CID to report the family member, and we would take them back. These were lower-ranking soldiers who had been drafted and just wanted to stay on the island. They would request Compassionate reassignment, but most were rejected for lying about a family member ready to die. I delivered soldiers to Ft. Dix, NJ; Ft. Sill, OK; Fort Carson, Co; Ft. Stewart, Ga; and Ft. Polk, La.

If I could manage, I would stop in to visit family or friends for just a few hours. One time I arrived at my parents home at 4 a.m. from Ft. Carson, Co. My dad met me at the door and said, “What the xxxx are you doing here? Why aren’t you at your island resort?”  When Wayne Jenkins (East ’59) was killed in Vietnam, I requested permission to attend his funeral in Florida. My request was denied.  My Commanding Officer said, “You have enough to bury here.” On these escorting trips I did manage to drop in on Larry Whorton (East ’59) twice at his Navy assignment in Mayport, Florida.

After about a year of this, I was getting tired of the attitude toward Americans when an incident happened that resolved my unhappiness. One of the anti-American parties had a riot and burned down the ROTC at one of the colleges. So, guess who had to gear up and in force go retrieve the weapons from the ROTC arms vault before the wrong people got to them? That was the last straw for me. I went to my CWO in personnel and said, “I would like to volunteer for Vietnam.” Of course, I never told my parents this but within a couple of weeks I had orders for Southeast Asia. I took a leave and spent time with the family. On August 2, 1970 I left for San Francisco to soon be on a flight to Danang Air Base, Vietnam.  

Vietnam – Offices, Orphans, and War

Not knowing what to expect as a first-timer, I boarded a Boeing 707 stretch with a couple hundred other military personnel and off we went to the war zone. As we landed, the flight attendant on the speaker said, “For those of you that have not been here before, I want to tell you I am about to open the cabin door. Be prepared for a smell you are not used to.” She opened the door and the heat of the country came down the aisle, bringing with it the smell of a hundred sheep farms. No one had told me the smell of the country would gag a person. It took a while to get used to it. We were taken by bus over to the processing center at Bien Hoa for our clothing, records, and medical checks. 

We were there for two days and the Sergeants would move us to different locations for formations to check attendance.  They moved us because the enemy would send rockets our way as a welcome wagon. This is when we knew we were in a whole different world and could relate to statements we had heard about a boy who grew up almost overnight.

My assignment was located outside Saigon at Long Bien Post, where I was to work in the large Finance and Accounting office with about 200 other soldiers and Vietnamese women. These women were the educated ones who had much more schooling than the “hootch maids” that cleaned our clothes and the areas where we slept. The officer workers wore the silk Ao Dai, very clean and pressed, even though some or most lived in shacks in a village. (Left, Vietnamese office women who worked in Finance and Accounting at Danang)

One morning as people were going into the large Finance center, all the women workers were outside the building and refused to go inside. A night guard had found a Pit Viper in the building. He had killed it and placed it in a waste basket. But it only took one woman to see it and she told the rest. They all returned to work when the snake was removed. 

My job was to be in charge of the Allotment Section. As troops arrived in the country, my section of six soldiers processed allotments for troops going to their spouses or family members. I had a very good young Sergeant that I could leave in charge if I was out of the office. That happened when I found out that our unit supported two Vietnamese orphanages for boys. Family members would send clothes, candy, food, etc., from home to us, and we would take the stuff to the kids. We would load up a jeep trailer with ice from the cooks and put the steel canned soda pop in there so the kids would have a cold drink. In the photos at right and below, I am sharing Pepsi with the orphans.

A whole detachment of soldiers would go with us, including an Army doctor, Army medics, and Army nurses, who were from the Medivac hospital located next to our unit.  Also, we usually had a squad of infantry soldiers with us. Everyone was fully armed because the orphanage, which was run by Catholic nuns, was located in the jungle and was subject to being visited by Viet Cong killers.

In the picture at left are the children, an officer and myself. On this visit I thought I had bought the farm, so to speak. It was a bad day but the officer and I saved those kids. It wasn’t our time. 

One day a Captain friend of mine came to me and said, “How would you feel about taking money [Military script, which looked like Monopoly money] to outlying places to the Army and Marines?” I asked how I would travel? He said, “Depending on the requirement, it could be by Huey chopper or C-130 aircraft for larger loads.” I thought it would be the way out of the office and I would have a new experience, so I said yes. This was when I really grew up from the teenager in high school. On certain days there would be a detail of men loading footlockers full of money. This meant a trip provided by the Air Force, including longer trips clear up to the DMZ.  A Huey chopper ride was usually for shorter trips.

On a trip to Hue, the first capital of South Vietnam, we were on a C-130 and when we were leaving the pilot had the brakes on but also had the motors at full throttle. “We are leaving NOW,” he said as small arms fire started hitting the plane. My Lieutenant and I were hanging on by cargo straps as the back gate was lifting while the plane climbed. Many other events happened that I won’t go into now. 

California, Temporarily

My time came to either leave this place or extend as others did, but I decided that I had had enough of this. Orders came for my next assignment, which was at Fort MacArthur, CA right on the peninsula of San Pedro, CA, across from Long Beach. After another 30 day leave at home for a well-earned vacation in August 1972, I went to my new post. The buildings at MacArthur were just like the movie South

Pacific. I had reenlisted, collected $6000.00 in pay, and was assigned to Finance/Disbursing. The funny part came when I showed up for work in my new white Corvette.  In two days I was being investigated by CID. I was driving a newer, better car than my Commander. Go figure. For some reason I received orders assigning to Germany soon thereafter.

Germany – Finance, Travel, and Back to School

So in January, 1973 I said goodbye and flew to Germany (again on my own) and ended up in Goeppingen, Germany, which is not a resort area, It was cold and nasty in the winter and in a unit that was not my style. I thought bad thoughts of being stuck there for three years, but someone was looking out for me. In two days I learned I was being sent to Stuttgart to the Finance Office. This was at the north end of the city; at the south end was Army Headquarters for all of Europe. The location was really good for travel — an hour to France, about the same to Munich and Austria, and the Black Forest was close. I felt I had hit the jackpot.

I met a nurse that worked at the Army hospital and made friends with a Captain and his wife that worked with the nurse. At any time we could all arrange to get off, we would travel somewhere. Captain Dan and Diane, his wife, had a pop-up trailer that he hooked to his car. My girlfriend and I would follow them to locations like Spain, where we spent 11 days in Barcelona on the beach. We traveled to Amsterdam to visit Anne Frank’s house; Liechtenstein; Salzburg; and took a bus tour to Yugoslavia where I had a firsthand look at true Socialism with people in line waiting for a potato truck to show up. The milk truck would come on another day.

Captain Dan had a Mazda at that time and I would sometimes drive him to a city just inside France to get a part for the car. We went to the top of Austria and Germany at the Zugspitze (highest mountain in Germany) in a snowstorm. That seemed like the top of the world, complete with a shack where an old man was checking passports. Unbelievable to see different people and taste the different foods of the world. We joined a German-American walking club called the Volksmarch (peoples walk) and every weekend they had these different walks. I logged a bunch of kilometers and drank beer at the stands where they serve German wurst (sausage), schnapps and beer.

About this time, I was wondering about my career.  Was I going to stay or get out of the Army? I could see going back to Cessna and putting rivets in wings.  That thought soon went away and I re-enlisted again. The Personnel Officer told me that if I wanted to ever be promoted again, I needed to attend the Noncommissioned Officer Academy in Bremerhaven, Germany. All of a sudden I had bad indigestion, knowing what was in store. The Noncom Academy was a small version of West Point with a huge amount of studying at a desk with books in a drawer clear to the top. Again, my high school fears of not being interested or able in academics were back.

Moving Up, On, and Out

But, I managed with the PT, the calisthenics, running in the wind of the North Sea in winter, and the room inspections. With too many demerits, I would have been gone. I somehow graduated number 11 out of 85 students.  I believe this was one of my best accomplishments of my life.

To shorten this story, I will just say that after Germany, I was sent to different assignments. My last hurrahs were Desert Shield and Desert Storm with a job title of Senior Logistics Sergeant at Battalion Headquarters. After this I realized what General Eisenhower went through in this area during WW II. 

Don Lowe & Company at Completion of Desert Storm, 1991

Now for the lowest point of my career. I was nearing the end of my last enlistment and was in Long Beach, CA, when I received a call from a Sergeant in Personnel telling me that my name was next on the list (duty roster) for Notification of Kin. I had to jump through hoops in a matter of two hours and notify a family that their son had been killed in a vehicle crash. To make matters worse, I was told HQ was short on officers and I would have to do this duty ALONE. I will say this is the last duty anyone would ever hope for. It’s not just the notifying, but meeting the remains at Los Angeles airport, acting as an escort to the mortuary and then being with the family until the burial. I am sure you all have seen pictures of a flag-draped casket coming down the ramp of an aircraft. This boy was just out of high school and most of his friends and fellow students were there. I will never forget walking with his mother arm and arm through the cemetery. I was thankful that my parents never had to experience this.

On 30 November 1991 I was discharged at Sixth Army Headquarters at Fort Ord, CA. It was the end of a very satisfying time of my life. As I departed through the front gate at Ft. Ord with my papers in hand, I thought about how time had passed so quickly.  

Senator Bob Dole met every Kansas Honor Flight at the Vietnam Memorial. Below, veterans who came to Washington DC along with Don Lowe at the Honor Flight in May, 2019.

Don Lowe wrote a story for this website about the cars in his life, including that white Corvette. See “Cars I Have Owned, Known, and Greatly Enjoyed.”