A blurry-fast sequence of events one November day at a Killeen military installation taught Dylan Bowles something he never got from a textbook at Eastland High, Ranger Junior College or Texas Tech University.

“I learned never to take anything for granted,” the Cleburne physician and former Army major said of the dark day of Nov. 5, 2009.

One moment he was in the Fort Hood hospital cafeteria line, selecting a garden-fresh vegetable. The next moment, he was in the emergency room, separating life from death.

An American-born Muslim gunman identified as Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan was allegedly in the process of killing 13 and wounding as many as 38 in what was termed an act of terror and insanity.

“It wasn’t uncommon to have mass casualty drills at Fort Hood,” Bowles said. “We’d had those routinely at Fort Bragg, where I was also stationed. In fact, I was involved in a mass casualty at Fort Bragg when a motor vehicle turned over in the field. That day at Fort Hood, they called the code for mass casualties. Pagers went on.

“I had just come walking up from the cafeteria. I didn’t know if it was a drill or the real thing. I got my stethoscope and a couple of other things and started walking to the emergency room with a colleague. As we got closer, we saw more activity.”

They realized it was no drill.

“We did what we typically did. We set out a plan,” Bowles said. “I was the head and neck trauma guy. I told the others I would take this bed and any head and neck injuries. One soldier had been shot in the neck and was bleeding out. We took care of him. We stabilized two patients that day. Both survived.”

The scene was little different from a battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“Because of the severity of that one soldier’s injuries, I was going to ride with him in the helicopter to Scott & White Hospital [in Temple],” said Bowles, who earned the Medal of Valor. “I was out in the middle of the field with sirens going off and people taking cover. It was kind of a surreal experience.

“The odd thing is, you know you’re not in Iraq or Afghanistan. You’re in Texas, at the largest military post in the world. You don’t go to work expecting that kind of stuff.”

Bowles’ extensive training kicked in. He said he was never rattled.

“As chaotic as it was, it was really kind of calm,” he said.



‘Humbly confident’

He who would be calm, it is said, must first appear calm.

“I’m humbly confident, hopefully,” Bowles said. “I think you’ll find a lot of surgeons are confident in their abilities. You wouldn’t want one who second-guesses himself.”

Bowles did an eight-year stint in the Army in payment to Uncle Sam for putting him through medical school. He did his residency in 2003, then was stationed at Fort Bragg and Fort Hood as well as in Korea. Down time was scant for the board-certified oral and maxillofacial specialist.

“I primarily worked stateside,” he said. “We were getting a lot of soldiers flown in from Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of [the injured soldiers] are stabilized in the field and then transported for surgery. So we were actually doing more surgeries stateside.”

How does the Army treat a young, up-and-coming physician?

“It browbeats them,” Bowles said, laughing.

He was kidding.

“The Army paid for my education and residency, and I paid them back with time,” he said. “I highly recommend that. The opportunities in medicine in the military are there if you’re eager enough to go after them. What civilian medicine can’t provide is a war zone. Treating soldiers, you see things you wouldn’t normally see in a civilian setting.”

The civilian setting can be emotional. So can the military stage.

“It’s not necessarily healthy to be sympathetic,” Bowles said. “It’s good to be empathetic.”



‘You can really

make a difference’

Empathy best describes Bowles’ deep feelings for children of rural Mexico needing cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries. Bowles has made four mission trips south of the border for that purpose.

“One of the reasons I wanted to do oral and maxillofacial surgeries is I always had a burning desire to do cleft lip and palate surgeries,” he said. “You can really make a difference in someone’s life.

 “Jeff Moses [facial surgeon trained at Parkland Hospital in Dallas] has given me the opportunity to go to Mexico and work with Smiles International, sponsored through the Rotary Club of California. There are several other surgeons who go down there as well.”

The kids’ parents may express more pleasure over the results than the kids.

“They feel burdened, as though they caused this for the child,” Bowles said. “Down there, they don’t have [medical] capabilities like this. That kid is going to spend his whole life like that. He’s going to be shunned. There are a lot of social issues that go into it.”

Because of his resume, Bowles might have easily found work in the bright lights of a big city. Instead, he joined the medical staff at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Cleburne, where he will be doing facial reconstruction, oral surgery, facial pathology, dental implants, cosmetic surgery and other procedures.

“Dr. Bowles will bring some new and unique services to Texas Health Cleburne,” said Blake Kretz, hospital president. “His expertise in the oral and facial injuries will allow us to offer reconstruction and cosmetic procedures close to home. As a veteran, he has worked on patients with significant war injuries, and we are privileged that he is bringing that level of experience to our area.”



Living the land

Bowles has come a long way from Eastland.

“I rode bareback broncs in high school rodeo,” he said. “I played college baseball. I worked on a farm and ranch for my granddad. I loved being around animals. When I moved to Lubbock [to attend Texas Tech], it was a culture shock. I’ve since evolved. I researched Cleburne, and this was the perfect opportunity.”

He owns land where he can hunt feral hogs to his heart’s content. He declined to elaborate on one expedition friends refer to as “night vision hog hunting.”

“That should probably be off the record,” he said, laughing, “at least the night vision component of it. Actually, we were out star gazing when a feral hog walked across our path and was taken into custody.”

Coon hunting is in his blood and could be in his future. He said his property is swarming with the masked critters.

“My granddad was a coon hunter. Every time I’d ride around with him, it was, ‘Yeah, we used to hunt down in that creek bottom.’ I don’t actively coon hunt, but I have plenty of coons that need to be hunted.”

He favors bird hunting, mostly for a rare species known as quail.

“When I came back from North Carolina, I wanted to hunt quail. I bought some German shorthaired pointers, and unfortunately they are very active dogs, and a couple got run over.

“I finally got a pen to keep them safe. The problem with that is that there aren’t any quail now because of fire ants and predators. The bottom line is that the quail population is down, but I do have good bird dogs.

“Last weekend, I went out about 5 a.m. to watch the sunrise. I took my bird dog with me. A few minutes later, the dog came running by with a coyote right behind him.

“I didn’t have a gun with me.”