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Vets to Share Memories, Pain
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by Jim Boyle, Editor, Star News, Elk River, MN, 04/10/07
There was a time Guy Rowe didn’t talk about the invasion of Iwo Jima.
Memories of the bloody battles were too painful for the former infantryman for the U.S. Marine Corps. The Otsego man, 82, who survived the 36-day battle on the island of Iwo that claimed 25,851 U.S. soldiers, eventually found talking about it helpful.
It got things off his chest.
 This coming Wednesday it will be a chance for others to learn about America’s history, as a cross section of local World War II veterans share their stories.
World War II Night is being sponsored by District 728 Community Education.
Rowe leapt at the chance to speak. Not because he likes all the attention, but because there’s practical purpose.
“I think its important people find out what happened,” Rowe said before questioning how much students are taught about the wars the country has waged in the pursuit of freedoms around the world.
Rowe will share his story about a collision at sea at aboard a ship on D-Day.
He will tell what happened to him and his fellow comrades in the 4th Marine Division got on land.
He will share how he swears to this day he felt an enemy bullet slice through the air just in front of the tip of his nose.
And he will tell about what happened to him and his division after war came to an end with the United States’ bold decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring an end to the Second World War.
If Rowe had more time, he would share even more. If you talk to him long enough you would come to find out perhaps Guy Rowe’s proudest accomplishment was marrying his wife, Evelyn.
“She has said the same to me,” the smiling veteran told the Star News.
He and Evelyn raised two children, George Max Rowe and Harriet Anna Rowe. Each was born premature, and, ironically, each left the hospital at five pounds and one-half ounce. The only difference was George spent his first 41 days of life in the hospital, while Harriet only needed three.
Both went on to grow up healthy as the son and daughter of a career military man who at the time of his retirement from the Marine Corps continued with a career in electronics in supervisory positions.
The former rifleman in his prime could take down a tree of 6 or 7 inches in diameter running a single magazine through his automatic rifle. By career’s end he spent 10 years and eight months enlisted and 11 years, four months as an officer.
He was a captain when he retired and he looked back with a feeling of being blessed. Both to have survived and to have had such a wide range of experiences that managed to breathe life into him along the way.
He entered the war later than Uncle Sam had planned.
Rowe was thrust to the head of the household at the age of 17 when his dad suffered a major heart attack and was put out of work. He delivered groceries for the Kamb and Lynn in the North Como Park area of St. Paul to put food on the table and then tragedy struck again.
His mother died from cancer.
At the time of her death Rowe had gotten a job for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s weather bureau as a weather observer. He watched the skies for B-24s coming in and out of Holman Field in St. Paul.
“I don’t think my mother ever knew I got that job,” Rowe said of its timing, which he admits may have been heaven sent.
Eventually his father, who started in education first as a teacher before becoming a principal, superintendent and director of state high school aid, recovered. Rowe headed off to war and his father ended up heading north to help his sister who lost her husband and was widowed with six children.
This type of unselfish behavior was innate for the Rowes.
“When things had to be done,” Rowe said. “You just did them.”
The same was true when it came to fighting for your country. When Uncle Sam sent a greeting card referencing an invitation by the president of the United States to serve, Rowe went.
Rowe’s first thought was to join the Navy, believing there would be clean sheets and a warm meal most of the time. But the wait was so long at the office in St. Paul where he and a buddy signed up, they got their paperwork back and headed across the street to sign up for the U.S. Marines.
There was not a wait and a hot meal was awaiting them.
“We were hungry,” the then-19 year-old Rowe recalled about that historical day in his life back in May 1944.
Things moved quickly from there and he landed on the island of Maui on Thanksgiving Day later that year. He was right about not having clean sheets and warm meals, but he found military life after the war to be worthwhile and rewarding. He retired from the Marines in 1976 and began a second career in electronics as supervisor of packing and shipping for a company responsible for the world’s foremost fire protection systems.
He hadn’t accumulated enough points to return home after the war was over.
He spent his 21st birthday guarding Japanese prisoners of war. He later spent time reforesting the island of Maui. He worked with Boy Scouts in North Carolina, Okinawa and Tennessee while in the service.
He apparently had a knack for working with kids.
“I didn’t lie to them,” Rowe said. “I set a good example. I did what I said I would do, and I didn’t do what I said I wouldn’t.”
He now cares for Evelyn, who he promised to spend the rest of his life with in sickness and health. He says her mind is still sharp, but her body doesn’t work as well as it once did. Three strokes have landed her in a wheelchair.
The couple, which came to Otsego 27 years ago, liked to travel when they were both well. They share memories of crossing the country.
Rowe still manages to stay busy but not as busy as perhaps he would like. He says he doesn’t read as much as he says he should. He will soon return to teach safe driving courses now that his shoulder has healed from a spill over the top of a scooter in a Maple Grove parade.
The man who as a youth used to check out 13 to 14 books from the library one week to the next says it’s important he keep busy and keep learning.
“I could read 200 pages an hour,” he recalled. Now it takes about four or five hours.
“The day you stop learning you might as well be dead,” he said.
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