Edward Cowley entered the Army infantry at 18, through program called the Army Specialized Training Program. Members of the ASTP expected to complete basic training, then be sent to various colleges to study whatever the army wanted them to study. Cowley completed basic training at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and was assigned to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. The Army changed its plans, however, and Cowley and the rest of the ASTP were reassigned to the 94th Division, based at Camp McCain, Mississippi, and slated for deployment in Europe. Soon after D-Day, Cowley and the rest of the 94th crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth and joined the Allied forced in France. After the war, Cowley became a professor at the University at Albany.