REDSTONE ARENAL, Ala. -- Timothy Bowers Sr. will be adding some hardware to his collection of awards when he is inducted into the Army Quartermaster Corps Hall of Fame at Fort Lee, Va., in June.
The Aviation and Missile Command logistics automation specialist lead already has a Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Quartermaster Corps Order of St Martins and numerous others in his awards chest. And, he is a Distinguished Member of the Quartermaster Regiment, Acquisition Corps member, Level III Lifecycle Logistics and Level II program management, and is featured in two books on black leaders in the Army.
That's not too bad for a guy who just happened to make the Army his lifelong career.
"I was a good athlete in high school, and I wanted to go to college and play sports. I was the youngest of 10 living on the family farm, and things were different in the late '60s and early '70s. Schools integrated and I was one of two blacks in an all-white school of 400. At first, no one would talk to me, but as a senior I was captain of the football team. We all learned and overcame together," Bowers recalled.
"There wasn't any money to send me to college. I had a brother who joined the Army in 1964, and he suggested I join the Army and go into Supply. He said I could do lots of things and help a lot of people, and I wouldn't have to do much field work. He left the Army after four years and went to work for the U.S. Postal Service. I joined the Army in 1973 because I wanted to have a better life. I made it a 30-year career."
What Bowers didn't know at the time was that as a member of the Quartermaster Corps, he became part of the Army's oldest logistics branch. It was established in June 1775 when the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution providing for a quartermaster general and a deputy. The Quartermaster Corps mission is to support the development, production, acquisition and sustainment of the general supply, mortuary affairs, food and clothing and other items needed for sustaining Soldiers, petroleum and water and material, and to oversee distribution management to provide combat power to the Army.
"The Quartermaster Corps touches all elements of combat support," Bowers said. "I went into the Army to make a better life for myself. But I stayed in the Army because logistics became all I know and giving back to Soldiers is all I know."
Thirty-six months as a quartermaster Soldier in Germany with the 26th Supply and Service Company taught Bowers not only how to do his job but also how to live far from his family and friends in the small South Carolina town where he grew up. He was ready to leave the Army after his three-year enlistment, but his first sergeant had a better idea.
"At the time, I was an acting sergeant, someone they call an 'Acting Jack." My first sergeant told me 'You are a very good NCO and the Army needs people like you. I won't let you get out of the Army because you are too good of a Soldier.' He helped me get reassigned to Fort Gordon, Georgia, which was only 65 miles from home," Bowers said.
"The problem was I was a warehouse man 76V but the job was a 76Y unit supply specialist so I became the supply clerk for a unit armored in a basic training company. That was a big difference. The first sergeant said 'Either you learn it or I'll put you out of the Army.' So, I learned quickly how to issue and manage all the weapons for the company and the job of a unit supply specialist. It showed me that I was smart, strong and flexible, and I could take on any job in logistics. So I received the MOS 76Y as my secondary military occupational specialty which later became my primary MOS."
Once he got settled and learned the job, Bowers worked long, hard hours -- always in early to issue weapons and always working late putting weapons back into inventory -- for the chance to visit home as often as he wanted to on the weekends and holidays. Soon, the Army became more than a three-year stint. It became a career.
"I always loved structure and the Army provided that," he said. "I was rewarded for what I did. It was simple: Do a good job and get rewarded. The Army treated everyone fairly.
"I loved the camaraderie, the standards and the fairness about the Army. Regardless of where you came from or your background, you could do anything in the Army. The opportunities were endless. All they looked at was what you could do as a Soldier, as a person, as a human being. I found my calling. I believed I was put on this earth to be a soldier and to give back to my country."
He went from being a specialist to sergeant at the age of 23, and jumped from sergeant to staff sergeant in eight months. He earned his associate degree in Business Administration from Georgia Military College and his bachelor degree in Business Administration from Paine College while station at Fort Gordon, and a master's degree later in his career from TUI University.
In 1980, Bowers was assigned to serve a year in Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division.
"I was the supply sergeant for a mechanized infantry company," he said. "But I was also a Soldier. So, I did everything the Infantry did. I ran 14 miles. I road marched 21 miles. I patrolled the DMC in Korea. I was still providing logistics support, but I also did everything all the other Soldiers did."
Among his many assignments, Bowers is especially proud of serving as a logistics inspector with the Fort Gordon Inspector General Office and also with the 59th Ordnance Brigade in Germany, where he inspected all the logistics sites for the brigade; as a first sergeant with the 5th Infantry Division at Fort Polk, La. (during which he deployed to Operation Just Cause in Panama); as a chief supply sergeant with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Germany; and as the command sergeant major with the 210th Forward Support Battalion, 10th Mountain Division, and then with the 10th Division Support Command, both at Fort Drum, New York, where he served with Col. Ann Dunwoody who was later the first female four-star general in the Army as commander of the Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal and where he completed the Army Airborne course at age 42. His last assignment was as the command sergeant major for the 13th Corps Support Command at Fort Hood, Texas, consisting of more than 6,000 Soldiers, and where he was charged with providing logistics support for III Corps and Fort Hood, consisting of more than 45,000 Soldiers throughout the corps.
"My brother told me I wouldn't have much field work in this job. But when I was with the 3rd Armored Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Germany, we spent 289 days out of 365 in the field doing rotations at the combat maneuver training center in Hohenfels and Wildflecken, and numerous other field training exercises," Bowers said.
"And, as the brigade S-4 NCOIC, I always got there first to make sure equipment and supplies were prepared and ready for the main body and I was always the last to leave because I had to make sure equipment was turned back in. It was like that throughout my career. There was plenty of field work."
In 2003, as the nation was invading Afghanistan, Bowers was forced to retire due to Army regulations for reaching 30 years of service.
"My wife thinks that saved my life because if I had stayed in I would have deployed with my Soldiers. I've always been involved with what my Soldiers are doing and I always lived for being out front," Bowers said. "I would have been there doing what I was trained to do, right there out in front."
Bowers still misses the Soldier life. But he is happy that he and his family are settled now in Decatur. Their oldest daughter graduated from Alabama A&M this year and has joined the Alabama National Guard as a logistician. Their youngest daughter is a junior in high school at Decatur Heritage Christian Academy, making a name for herself in track, softball, basketball and volleyball.
When he's not working, Bowers is playing adult baseball (his team won a World Championship Ring in 2003) or is officiating at high school baseball, softball and football games. He was named the district umpire of the year for high school baseball last year and umpired the High School State Baseball Championship in Montgomery.
"The Army made me the man I am today. The Army made me grow up. I was a young man building my life, and they helped me," he said.
"I already had a good work ethic when I joined, having been raised on a farm by a dad who was a hard, but fair disciplinarian. The Army was the same way. I learned to adjust and follow my dad's advice of 'Whatever you do, do well and take responsibility.'"
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