Robert H. Dowd, a decorated war hero, meteorologist and author, died on Aug. 5 from kidney failure. He was 81.
Born and raised in Miami, Dowd attended the University of Florida for one year before enlisting in the Army Air Corps. Trained to fly B-26 Marauder bombers, Dowd was sent to Europe a week after D-Day in 1944 to provide air support for ground troops. He received a Purple Heart and a distinguished flying cross.
When the war ended, Dowd joined the research and development division of the Air Force, and flew some of the first hurricane tracking missions. He went back to school to earn a degree in meteorology, and after a brief stint in Korea, was assigned to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland where he gave weather briefings to the pilots flying Air Force One. In the late 1960s, Dowd flew AC-47 Gunships in Vietnam in a special operations squadron. He also monitored launch and recovery weather as the chief meteorologist for six Apollo flights (8-13).
Dowd retired from the military in 1973. He spent a decade as a mortgage banker in Miami, then turned his attention to writing. In 1997, Dowd published “The Enemy Is Us: How to Defeat Drug Abuse and End the ‘War on Drugs.'” He was also one of 75 retired veterans who urged the federal government to reconsider its military involvement in the Colombian civil war.
August 26, 2003 by
Robert H. Dowd
Categories: Military
I didn’t know Lt. Col. Dowd except as the author of
one of the best books ever puplished on the subject
of drug policy reform.
Colonel Dowd’s book: “THE ENEMY IS US” gives us the simple solution to ending the policy that has made the United States the most incarcerated nation on the planet and in history.
Why Colonel Dowd wasn’t four star General Dowd, we’ll never know. By the same token, how former
General Barry McCaffrey made it past the rank of
private, amazes me.