Communications of the ACM
86-Year-Old Student Works Toward Computer Science Degree
Lowell Gardenhour sitting on unarmed bombs at an Air Force base in Haiphong, Vietnam, in 1954.
Credit: West Chester University
At age 86, Lowell Gardenhour is an inspiration to fellow students, veterans, and staffers at the West Chester University community.
Gardenhour, a U.S. Air Force veteran, is a junior majoring in computer science. He has taken one class per semester since 2008.
He was one of only 186 Americans to lead a covert-CIA-spy mission in Indochina, which later became Vietnam, a decade prior to the Vietnam War. The veteran served in Korea, Japan, and Indochina and snapped 500 photos depicting support of French forces at what later became a war zone.
Asked why he takes the courses for credit, Gardenhour said he doesn't want to suffer from "brain freeze."
"I didn't want to become a couch potato," he said. "If you don't keep active, your brain dies."
Gardenhour's photos are published online in the WCU Digital Collections.
From Daily Local News
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