BRINKHAVEN — Thomas Jefferson Bowman was named for a great patriot, so perhaps he became a great patriot naturally.
In August, Bowman journeyed with 33 other World War II veterans, and 16 “guardians” who watched over them, to Washington, D.C., on an Honor Flight. The Ohio-based Honor Flight organization specializes in showing elderly veterans the sights and monuments of Washington, where they also meet fellow citizens who wanted to shake their hands and thank them for their sacrifices for their country.
Accompanied by Chuck Murray, his guardian, Bowman met Sen. Bob Dole, shook hands with well-wishers and visited Arlington National Cemetery, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. He was impressed with the tall buildings and the crowds of people but fell nearly speechless when it comes to his experience and the emotions it conjured up. All he will say is, “It was something else. That was something else to see.”
Until he pulled out the photo of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Bowman ducked his head, sat silent, and wiped his teary eyes. But in only seconds, he recovered his composure.
Was he thinking that the Unknown Soldier might be one of the wounded and dying men he tended to?
“You never can tell,” was all he would say. “But that’s something else, I’ll tell you.”
The 91-year-old World War II Army veteran — whom everyone calls TJ — resides with his wife, Irene, on their family farm near Brinkhaven, just over the Knox-Holmes County line. Married 62 years, they live a comfortable life, surrounded by family and quite happy with regular visits from their five children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
But Bowman didn’t always have a comfortable life, although he certainly did have an adventurous one. Born in Holloway, he moved with his family to Louisiana, where he grew up picking cotton. But Bowman was born with a wanderlust that couldn’t be ignored.
“I was 21, and I was going to go look for work,” he said. “My dad and I walked up from the house up to town.”
They met a man who was headed to another town, so Bowman asked if he could come along. Just like that, he left his world behind, and entered the world of the hoboes. He learned to “ride the rails,” to sneak onto moving trains and ride in the boxcars, swinging off the cars as the train slowed down so as not to get caught.
Bowman made his way to Indiana, on into Ohio and then found his way to his Aunt Pearl’s house in Cavallo. She wrote to his parents to let them know his whereabouts.
On April 6, 1942, the 25-year-old Bowman joined the Army to help fight the second world war.
“I was in the Army three years, 10 months and five days,” he said. “I was discharged on February 13, 1946, but I didn’t get out until April 6.”
#Does he still remember his dog-tag number?
“35400847,” Bowman recited.
His children and grandchildren did much research, gathered up old papers and photos he’d tucked away here and there, and created a scrapbook to commemorate his service with the 322nd Medical Battalion, Company D, 97th Infantry Division. He handles them carefully, reminiscing over the words and pictures and a map that traces his route around the world.
“I was in El Paso, Tokyo, La Havre, from New York to France, Czechoslovakia, Seattle, Cuba, Japan,” said the former Private First-Class. “I was a medic, and I was a barber. I still carry my dog-tags on my keychain.”
His wife tells how Bowman used his rail-riding talents to get some whiskey for his fellow soldiers on a troop train.
“He was the fastest runner,” Irene said. “He went up to the engine while the train was moving, jumped off, ran into the liquor store, bought the bottle and ran and jumped back on the train, on the caboose. He didn’t get any of the whiskey, though.”
His honorable discharge paper includes this note: “3 days lost. AW107.”
“A-W-O-L,” said Bowman, and his family laughed out loud with him. This is the stuff of Bowman family legend.
“I was with an MP [military policeman] and we went to a German [liberated] concentration camp. There was a farmer close by with hogs, and when the people at the camp saw the MP’s pistol, they wanted him to shoot a hog so they could have something to eat. So we did that. The MP happened to come by where I happened to be. I got a jeep ready and we just took off for a few days. We just kept on going. We wanted to see places.”
“At one reunion of his unit they were talking about TJ doing that,” said Irene. “His former sergeant said, ‘We tried to cover for him as long as we could, but after he didn’t get back for a few days, we had to report it and try and find him.’”
Bowman didn’t get into trouble for his adventure, but he did get a pin — it’s still on his uniform jacket, which he can still wear — to signify that he once had been AWOL.
When the Honor Flight tour returned to Ohio, more than 150 people held a rousing reception of welcome for them.
Bowman’s son-in-law, Craig Clouston, said of the people Tom Brokaw calls the Greatest Generation, “They have a totally different sense of what commitment means. [The visit to] Washington was the climax of his service. It brought to him a sense of pride. It was like they just came back from Europe. It was validation. Back then, they were ‘just another guy’ coming home. There were no parades or celebrations for them. They really deserved this.”
“I think we deserved it,” admitted Bowman, a little reluctantly. “Took an awful long time to do it, though. I guess we’re more appreciated now. But it was something else.