He attended Abbeville High School where he was a star athlete and also worked part-time jobs at a print shop and local mill.

His principles and leadership abilities became evident in his junior year when he led a hunger strike by the Corps of Cadets to protest the poor quality of food in the mess hall.

In the fall of 1928 Howie travelled to Columbia, South Carolina to take the qualifying test for the Rhodes Scholarship then was hurriedly driven back to Charleston by an assistant coach to play in the homecoming football game; he arrived just in time for the opening kickoff, and later scored the winning touchdown as The Citadel beat Clemson 12-7.

On 6 June 1944, the regiment landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day; a little more than a month later, on July 13, 1944, Major Howie was assigned to command the 3rd Battalion.

The photo of Howie's flag-draped body in the rubble of the St. Croix Cathedral was widely circulated in the United States and became one of the most iconic images of the war, coming to symbolize the sacrifices of Americans in the European Theater.

60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney, then a reporter with the Stars and Stripes (newspaper), witnessed the event and called it "one of the truly heartwarming and emotional scenes of a gruesome and frightful war"; years later in a speech he stated “I guess there never was an American soldier more honored by what the people who loved him did for him after he died.

Lo" by Cornelius Ryan; it was made into an episode of the TV show Cavalcade of America that was broadcast on June 5, 1956, with Peter Graves playing the part of Howie.

The character of Captain John Miller in the movie Saving Private Ryan was largely based on Major Howie [8] In 2003 he was enshrined in the South Carolina Hall of Fame.