Curt Bowers served as an enlisted man in the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany, where he became a Christian through the influence of Nazarene Chaplain H. J. VanVorce. During his college and seminary training, he pastored a Methodist church for four years. After graduation from Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, he was ordained a Nazarene minister and pastored the Cape May Church of the Nazarene in Cape May, New Jersey, for a year. He then returned to military service and was commissioned a U.S. Army chaplain, serving first at Fort Huachuca, Arizona; then at Fort Hamilton, New York; Fort Carson, Colorado; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Knox, Kentucky; and Fort Stewart, Georgia. He serve as a chaplain in Vietnam where he earned a Silver Star, and also had overseas service in German, Japan, and Korea. He retied from active duty as a colonel, and accepted the position of Director of Chaplaincy Ministries for the Church of the Nazarene.