 He served as a yell leader at Texas A&M and was the first person to deliver the poem "The Last Corps Trip" publicly.He served a two-year tour of duty as a tank officer in the 2nd Armored Division of the U.S. Army and then earned a divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1955.After reading a book by Albert Schweitzer, he changed vocations to medicine and enrolled in the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, from which he received his M.D.