David Bowen Research Paper

David Bowen was born just in time for the Red Scare in the 1950s that blanketed all of America and pitted neighbors and family against each other. If I was born at the same time in his home town of Virginia, we would have had a similar taste for life and nearly a carbon-copy of career choices. We would have both enlisted in the U.S. Marines and have been shipped off to the jungles of Vietnam. This would have been an unusual and petrifying experience for the both of us. We would have trudged through the mud, run patrols out in the rainy jungles and waist high rice fields, been harassed by the local populace, and routinely prayed to the big guy upstairs that we’d get home in one piece. As the days passed by in country, we would have seen new faces replace the wounded and dead. Those new faces wouldn’t have been known for long. Our faces would have exerted only pity for the unfortunate six foot lanky boys that had to flush out the Viet Cong spider holes and disgust for the men that fell into a bacteria infested punji pit. All the horrors of war, from being burnt alive to being reduced to a …show more content…
Bowen had an interesting bit to tell me about his unit’s name. Apparently the higher ups from the NVA (North Vietnam Army) thought it would fit them because no matter how many Marines they killed there were fresh replacements coming in. In a shortened definition, Mr. Bowen’s unit suffered the most casualties during the entire course of the Vietnam War therefore dubbing them “ The Walking Dead”. Mr. Bowen got out of that terrible war in one piece, more or less. He believed that there were higher powers watching over him, his holy father and Saint Christopher. And to be honest, I couldn’t agree more. Mr. Bowen told me that he never left home without his Saint Christopher pendant even when he was over in Vietnam, and one day that pendant saved his life. It just happened to block an incoming bullet. Of course it hurt like hell, but it beats having a giant hole in your