Gary Tate was born in December 1924 and graduated from high school at 16 years old before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He turned 17 years old three weeks after the Japanese attack. Tate went to work for the Texas Pacific Railroad in March 1942, after he had gotten a minor's release in order to do so. Soon after his eighteenth birthday, he was selected by the draft board to go into the service. He first went to Atlantic City, New Jersey for training with the Army Air Corps. At the same time, his railroad company was forming a battalion in connection with the Army Transportation Corps for service in moving military supplies. Tate requested transfer to that battalion, the 748th Railway Operating Battalion. The request was granted and Tate was transferred to New Orleans to Camp Harahan. Tate rode a Pullman car to New Orleans from Atlantic City. He reached Camp Harahan as the first person in the camp area. He arrived even before Lieutenant Colonel Alva C. Ogg, the commanding officer of the battalion. The assignment to the 748th after training was to go overseas and assist with military supply transfers by train from ports in India to American airbases in northeast India for flight over the Hump [Annotator's Note: the Hump refers to a rugged area of the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains]. Tate's assignment for his two years in India would be as a train controller. After basic training in New Orleans, he transferred to Camp Jesse Turner in Van Buren, Arkansas which was a main rail junction for the Missouri Pacific Railroad which was the parent railroad for the Texas Pacific Railroad. Tate's job there was to teach younger men some of the details of train movements. The next temporary station for Tate was Camp Barkley near Abilene, Texas for determination of the battalion's overseas assignment. When Tate departed Texas, he went to Los Angeles, California in December 1942 for Pacific deployment. Tate did not know where the battalion was headed. They traveled on an unescorted troop transport which was a converted former luxury liner. There were 4,500 railway personnel on the vessel. In transit, the battalion learned that they were going to Bombay, India. The ship used a route south of Australia to avoid Japanese submarines. The voyage took a month. The troops did not have many duties on the ship. Tate had received a promotion to staff sergeant and made a train controller for 96 miles of railroad in the Indian state of Assam.

After arriving in India by troopship, Gary Tate rode a troop train from Bombay to northeast India. It was a difficult two week trip because the rail system was overburdened. The closer the train neared northern India, the slower the progress became because of the heavy flow of military supplies to that region. After Tate arrived in the northeast region of India, his unit, the 748th Railway Operating Battalion, was then in place. Tate always transited by either troop train or troop ship. He never flew during his over three years in the service. He spent over two years in northeast India. The typical work day was 12 hours long in the beginning. After more support arrived for the unit, the work day settled down into an eight hour day. The men were issued side arms for defense. The supplies they moved were to China and Tibet. They used the large U.S. government issued railcars and coal fired engines which were superior to the local equipment the Indians were using. Tate managed 96 miles of railway transporting military supplies in northeast India from Mariani Junction to Tinsukia. There were also branch lines that the 748th Railway Operating Battalion coordinated as they carried supplies to local Allied airbases. Chabua, near Tinsukia, was the major facility of this type. Bengal and Assam was Tate's rail line. At the airbases, coolie labor unloaded the railcars and loaded the airplanes. The coolies were Indian laborers. Tate worked beside an Indian controller who did most communication with the natives although the American personnel were in control of the rail activities. This was the case all along the stations of the rail line. The freight trains had an American engineer and conductor when supplies were handled. This was not the case when Indian passenger trains travelled the line. The cars for the Indian rail service were small compared to the American cars. The braking control for American trains utilized air. There was not the same capability for Indian trains so those trains ran slower. The gauge of the Indian rails was narrow compared to standard gauge. It was challenging for Tate. Supplies were sent out by air to China and Burma. General Claire Chennault headed the Flying Tigers in China. Chennault was a hero in both America and China.

Gary Tate had the opportunity to work with the brother of General Claire Chennault while both of them served in their postwar careers. Chennault's brother was wire chief for Western Union Telegraph and Tate was wire chief for the Texas and Pacific Railway. After spending 39 years in the railroad business, at 56 years old, Tate went to work as an insurance sales agent and claim handler.

Gary Tate and his fellow troops had a recreation hall in Tinsukia, India. They spent quite a bit of time there. Hitler could be heard over the shortwave radio. Fox newsreels shown at the outposts helped the troops keep up with the global progress of the war. Shortwave and newsreels were good tools for communicating progress to the troops. Tate learned ping pong during that time and enjoyed that throughout his life. Learning about the Pearl Harbor attack had a significant impact on him. Before the war had started for the United States, the Chinese had been aided in their fight against the Japanese by the Flying Tigers led by General Claire Chennault who served under the Chinese. Tate saw multiple types of American aircraft in his region of India as the United States totally mobilized to fight the war. The home front fully supported the troops across the globe. Tate came to see the Nazi intent in Dachau. He also visited the Holocaust memorials in Washington and Jerusalem. In visiting China, Tate saw the location of the Japanese counterpart to the Holocaust when they visited Nanking, China where over 300,000 people were killed.

Gate Tate knew he would be drafted so he volunteered in order to be able to select the branch that he would serve in. After serving in India, he returned to the United States through Puget Sound in Seattle and Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington. From Fort Lewis he rode a train to San Antonio, Texas and was discharged before he reached the age of 21. He used the GI Bill to obtain an Associate's Degree from a junior college. He met his wife after the war. They met in the place where he worked on the railroad. He did not know her before going into the service. Tate took the lead in later years in organizing reunions for the 748th Railway Operating Battalion. He hosted the first reunion in Midland, Texas. It was attended by 14 to 18 veterans. Later reunions were held across the country and would draw as many as 100 veterans plus their spouses. The reunions were discontinued after too many veterans aged to the point that travel was not easy. Tate also worked with people in India to develop their capability to communicate in English by learning more about Christianity. He had as many as 750 Indians communicating with him via mail. He returned to India five times and also went to China.

Gary Tate became a world traveler as a result of his military service. It also helped him on his path to evangelism. He continued to work with missions in northeast India for years after the war. Without the war, Tate would never have gotten the ties to India that he maintained through his life. He has studied the history of not only India but Burma and China. He had a particular concern with the needs of the Third World. He helped reduce those needs through his church. He aided children's homes and schools in India. Tate remembers the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan and the subsequent surrender of the Japanese. The surrender brought significant celebration with his comrades. The bombs saved hundreds of thousands of lives because the Japanese were committed to fighting to the very end even if the United States sent a land force to invade the home islands. It was a command decision.