Little is known of this soldier-poet of the First World War. At least three of his poems were originally published in The Stars and Stripes, an eight-page weekly brought out in France by the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) of the United States Army from February 8, 1918, to June 13, 1919. These three poems were also selected for an anthology that came out in book form in 1919: "If I were a Cootie," "The R.T.O," and ""I Love Corned Beef." Bowen signed himself a sergeant radio telephone operator (that is, he went into battle with his company's radio on his back).