Lt. Thomas Shannon
U.S. Army – Combat Engineer Unit Commander
630th Light Equipment Co. – 14th Engineer Bn. Combat
Quang Tri Province, Vietnam 12/70-11/71
U.S. Army – Combat Engineer Unit Commander
630th Light Equipment Co. – 14th Engineer Bn. Combat
Quang Tri Province, Vietnam 12/70-11/71
“As luck would have it.” – and English idiom describing luck or chance in the happening of an event.
Family Life
Thomas Shannon was born January 27, 1947 in New London, CT. Tom and his older brother Daniel grew up in Ivoryton, CT. His father was a machinist, and his mother was a librarian. The brothers grew up in the 1950’s which was a time when families and extended families settled in close proximity to one another. Tom recalled that both sets of grandparents as well as aunts, uncles and cousins all lived within walking distance, a short bicycle ride or a quick car ride away. Daniel was 9 years older than Tom, served 21 years in the Marine Corp and retired as a Gunnery Sargent. Daniel was a role model for Tom. Daniel joined the Army National Guard in high school and Tom remembers him marching in the holiday parades. Tom decided to follow in Daniel’s footsteps but in 1965 there were no openings in the National Guard and Tom decided to go to college
University of Connecticut ROTC
He enrolled as an Engineering major at the University of Connecticut and joined the Air Force ROTC with the hope of becoming a fighter pilot. A routine eye exam discovered that Tom had an eye defect in his Stereoscopic Vision. The flight surgeon summed it up for Tom, “Young fella, you don’t want to be trying to land an airplane if you can’t tell how high off the damn ground you are.” If he couldn’t fly he decided he should join the Army ROTC and “become a leader of men.”
Tom enjoyed his time in the ROTC was employed as a supply clerk and an armorer for the ROTC detachment at UCONN. “My job was to maintain 418 M-1 rifles.” Tom changed his major from Engineering to Soil Science and ended up 3 credits shy of the graduation requirement and had to spend an extra semester to take one class to graduate. As luck would have it was during this 9th semester that he met the love of his life, Judith Gutkowski, from Worcester, Massachusetts.
Tom graduated and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in February of 1970. In March he headed to Fort Belvoir for EOBC, Engineering Officer Basic Training. During semester breaks and college summers he worked for a Marine construction company building docks and jetties. He had experience with bulldozers, cranes, compressors, and other heavy equipment. This experience would pay tremendous dividends in his assignment in the Republic of Vietnam.
Orders to Vietnam
Tom received orders to Vietnam around Thanksgiving of 1970. In December he departed from Fort Dix, New Jersey on a civilian DC8 under contract to the US Department of Defense. The first refueling stop was Anchorage, Alaska in the middle of a blinding blizzard. Tom remembered the landing. He credited the pilot with keeping the plane on the runway for most of the landing. The next refueling stop was Yokohama, Japan before landing at the Ton Son Nhut airbase in Vietnam on Christmas Eve. Unlike many others GI’s initial memories of the smell and the heat when they landed in Vietnam, Tom had a very pleasant impression. The replacement transient building was air conditioned, there was a bar with cold beer and there was a color TV showing The Johnny Carson Christmas Special. “Vietnam ain’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be.” This first impression proved the point that first impressions can be VERY deceiving.
A few short hours later it was back to Ton Son Nhut to board a C130 transport aircraft to Cam Ranh Bay. It was now Christmas Day and all the administrative personnel had the holiday off. After the Christmas holiday it was back to the airstrip for a C130 ride further north to Da Nang. Tom’s brother, a career NCO in the Marines was on his second Vietnam tour of duty and was stationed at a fire base in the Da Nang area. The replacement transient hootch was across the street from the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force headquarters. Since it was apparent to Tom that the Army was in no big hurry to assign him to a new unit he entered the Marine headquarters to see if anyone might know where he might find his brother. In the headquarters building he saw the sign “Communications” with a Gunnery Sargent sitting at his desk talking on a land line phone. The Gunny broke away from his phone call and asked Tom if he could help him. “Well, Sargent, it’s a very long shot but I’m looking for my brother, his name is Gunnery Sargent Daniel Shannon. Do have any idea where I might find him?” The Gunny gave him a quizzical look and said into the phone, “hey Shannon, there is someone here who wants to talk to you.” As luck would have it, the Gunnery Sargent was talking with Gunnery Sargent Shannon. It worked out well and Tom and Dan Shannon got to spend a couple of days together.
The Sullivan Act
The WW2 Sullivan Act forbid all males in a family from serving in a combat zone at the same time. Together the brothers decided Dan would request to be stationed elsewhere because he was married, and Tom was not. Tom boarded a C130 for his final flight to Quang Tri and arrived during a monsoon rain. A short walk across QL1 Tom found the headquarters of the 14th Engineer Bn. It was now New Years Eve and the Executive Officer (XO) and the troops were in a celebratory mode. There was a short discussion related to what job assignment he was interested in. Tom said he was interested in being around heavy equipment and preferably involved with marine construction (ports, harbors, etc.). Unfortunately for Tom all of the port and harbor construction was complete, but the XO said there was an opening in the 630th Light Equipment Company.
The Engineers in Vietnam
Tom was assigned to the 630th Light Equipment Company as 2nd Platoon leader at fire base Nancy, about 12 kilometers south of Quang Tri. “In typical military fashion the definition of light equipment in Vietnam included bulldozers, cranes, rock crushers, scrapers and five-ton dump trucks. It suited me to a T.” Tom recalled his first assignment was to build a helipad in Dong Ha, further north near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). “Get it done quick.” Tom recalled the typical helipad would accommodate 2 helicopters. “This thing was big enough for hundreds.” When the project was complete, he returned to Fire Base Nancy. Then the primary mission was upgrading the road between Fire base Nancy and Fire Base Barbara.
Tom recalled, “We owned the daytime and the enemy owned the nighttime.” US troops would return to the fire base at dusk and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and/or Viet Cong would plant land mines in the road. The first order of business each morning was to sweep for mines. In case the mine sweepers missed a mine, the proofing vehicle, usually a Caterpillar tractor would drive down the road and the bulldozer would detonate the mine. Tom explained if the mine was small the bulldozer could take the punishment, but it was tough duty for the bulldozer operator. “It takes a toll on your nerves.”
Tom recalled one bulldozer operator refusing to operate the bulldozer. Tom warned him he was disobeying a direct order, and he would be court martialed. Still, he refused. The platoon did not know Tom knew how to operate the bulldozer. Tom jumped up on the bulldozer, put on his helmet and started driving. After 100 feet the soldier ran after Tom and yelled up to him to stop and he would drive it. “No, you made your decision. I’d rather court martial you.” After some pleading Tom told him this was his one chance. “If you give me any shit ever again, I’ll have your ass in jail.”
Lam Son 719 and Dewey Canyon II
After a few weeks in country Tom sensed “something big is coming up. You could tell by the amount of truck traffic on the highway.” It turned out to be operations Lam Son 719 and Dewey Canyon II. “It was the invasion of Laos and we were going to lead the invasion.” This was a joint operation between the U.S. troops and The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the objective was to assist the ARVN transition to “Vietnamization”. Vietnamization was the change in U.S. policy that shifted the responsibility of the actual fighting and strategy of the war to the government of South Vietnam. The U.S. would provide air and artillery support, but no U.S. ground troops were allowed beyond the border between RVN and Laos. The primary objective was to disrupt the flow of supplies and enemy troops along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Tom characterized the next two and a half, or three months as “unequivocally, the most interesting time I spent in Vietnam….living underground in a bunker that we made.” The engineers’ primary mission was to keep the road passable for U.S. convoys delivering supplies and equipment to the ARVN in Laos. Tom recalled, “the only thing that could go across the border were helicopters. Those helicopter pilots and air crews had the balls of a brass monkey. I would watch in the morning when they were flying west bound. I would count them. At the end of the day, sunset, returning maybe 75 %. After being shot down, sometimes they were able to rescue the pilots and they would get in another helicopter and return to Laos. That takes courage above and beyond the call of duty in my eyewitness opinion.”
Snipers, Friendly Fire and Snakes
Not all danger came from the NVA. Tom recalled eating lunch on an otherwise peaceful and beautiful day. While listening to Paul Harvey on his AM radio he suddenly heard a whistling sound and in quick succession three mortar rounds landed 50 to 75 feet from where he was sitting inside the engineer perimeter. They learned that a small unit of the 101st Airborne was registering their mortars. “It was very unsettling and ruined my lunch, but that is the way it is in a combat zone. One minute all is serene and the next minute all hell breaks loose.”
Tom recalled one occasion when his unit was operating on a road and he was talking with the ARVN Captain in charge of providing security for Tom’s unit. Suddenly the captain was shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet. As luck would have it, the gun truck, “Eve of Destruction” suddenly arrived and they cut loose with all their machine guns and called for reinforcements. “Shortly 5 M48 A3 tanks arrived, and they started cutting loose with cannister and fleschette rounds from their 90 mm main guns. I was impressed. I’d never seen jungle vaporized into a green mist by cannon fire.”
On another occasion Tom recalled stopping on a bridge near CamLo to watch some kids playing in the river. Tom saw a snake he estimated to be 15 feet long headed toward the kids. Tom grabbed his machine gun and shot the snake in the head “and I worked my way down to his tail. All that was left, were pieces of snake floating in the river.” The villagers were initially shocked but then saw the pieces of snake floating in the river and stood and clapped for Tom.
During Operation Dewey Canyon II it was at least a month before the men got to bath and change out of filthy uniforms. The Battalion Commander gave the unit a half day off to go down to the Quang Tri River to bath and wash their dirty uniforms in the river. It was the most memorable day of the operation and the troops really got into it. The bucket loaders of the 630th provided the diving platform for the swim participants. What a wonderful feeling to get rid of two pounds of Vietnam dirt from your body, not to mention the body odor.
Winding Down the Deployment
In June a directive was issued that anyone with less than six months remaining on the tour of duty would be eligible for an “early out” and go back to the “world”. Tom had a little over six months and therefor was reassigned to the 137th LE Company in Chu Lai in southern I Corps. As to be expected Tom was sent to an Engineer compound on the Batangan Peninsula overlooking the South China Sea. “The view was spectacular and enjoyable if you could ignore the war and other distractions. For example, one beautiful evening of sitting on the ground shooting the breeze, one of my older Sargents leaned back and put his hand on a scorpion. He went into cardiac arrest, but fortunately we got him medevac’d quickly and he was saved by our excellent medical personnel.”
In October the 137th was being deactivated. A lot of time was being spent preparing the equipment to be shipped to Japan. As Tom’s deployment wound down, he reached the 30-day mark and became a short timer. A major focus for a short timer is to keep away from dangerous situations if possible. One evening after enjoying happy hour, perhaps too much, Tom was driving his jeep to the Officer’s Club and he went off the road and turned his jeep over. He found himself trapped under the jeep in a ditch filled with water to within 6 inches of nose. Miraculously, he was able to squeeze out of a very precarious situation and stumble back to his hootch and began thinking of creative reasons why his jeep was overturned. As luck would have it, the next day one of the biggest typhoons on record hit Chu Lai. There was the perfectly believable excuse….the typhoon lifted the jeep and turned it over.
The Return Home
On November 11th 1971, Tom left Vietnam one-month early courtesy of the typhoon. They loaded the equipment onto a transport ship and jumped on for a ride up the South China Sea to Da Nang. After out-processing Tom and other GI’s headed for the states boarded a DC8 civilian flight to Fort Lewis in Washington. From there he headed to San Diego for a few days to visit his brother and then it was back to Connecticut. He arrived at Logan Airport in Boston at 3:30am and was greeted by his fiancée, Judith. They were able to avoid anti-war protestors whose convictions apparently waned in the early morning hours. Perhaps protesting was a 9 to 5 job. Tom and Judith were married in April of 1972 and 52 years later Judith is still the love of his life and they enjoy two grandchildren.
Back in the civilian world Tom transitioned from Army Combat Engineer to Civil Engineer. Tom described his engineering career as being a generalist. He eventually bought a small engineering company, in Avon, CT after the Army Veteran owner passed away. The company had a diversified base of loyal repeat customers. Tom really enjoyed his work and his customers and didn’t retire until January 2024 at the age of 77.
I asked Tom if he would recommend serving in the military and he said yes. He talked about how soldiers fight for one another and develop strong bonds forged through the shared perils of combat.
“I have really no complaints. I’ve had a very fortunate military career and civilian life. Nothing comes to mind that I would change.” Tom likes to reference a quote from Winston Churchill, “Do not wish health and wealth but wish good luck. Why wish good luck? Because on the Titanic everyone was rich and healthy, and only a few were lucky.”
Tom, thank you for all that you endured in the jungles of Vietnam. As luck would have it, you were able to handle many difficult situations with competence, good luck, and the help of your guardian angel. Furthermore, the deep satisfaction of completing his duty was evidenced by a quote by Lt. General Sutherland, the CG of Operation Dewey Canyon II, “Other than I, there is probably no person who participated in the operation who can really appreciate the contribution of those engineers. It was the most outstanding performance that I observed in my thirty-four years of service.”
Tom purchased a letter from a collector written by Dwight Eisenhower on February 20, 1948. His message seems timely, so I include here:
Dear Mr. Lord,
The single purpose of this letter is to tell you why my experiences in the war have excited my interest in Brotherhood Week, sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
In its basic philosophy and waging among nations war is a renunciation and denial of human brotherhood. But those who bear its heaviest brunt gain a deep and enduring appreciation of the ties that join them with their fellows. I have seen and marveled at the flawless human unity it has wrought among men whose common denominator was comradeship in the defense of freedom.
In the assembly area before a dawn assault, on the ready line of a forward airfield, there was no thought of a man’s antecedents, creed or race. It was enough then that he was an American – that his heart was strong, his spirit willing – that he was big enough to place the cause above himself.
It is in such a spirit of brotherhood that Americans must unite to combat the problems of the peace. Our own tranquility and continued productiveness can be assured only through harmony and fellowship, and these attributes, faithfully sustained, may well prove our greatness contribution to a civilization paralyzed and wasted by dissension.
Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Family Life
Thomas Shannon was born January 27, 1947 in New London, CT. Tom and his older brother Daniel grew up in Ivoryton, CT. His father was a machinist, and his mother was a librarian. The brothers grew up in the 1950’s which was a time when families and extended families settled in close proximity to one another. Tom recalled that both sets of grandparents as well as aunts, uncles and cousins all lived within walking distance, a short bicycle ride or a quick car ride away. Daniel was 9 years older than Tom, served 21 years in the Marine Corp and retired as a Gunnery Sargent. Daniel was a role model for Tom. Daniel joined the Army National Guard in high school and Tom remembers him marching in the holiday parades. Tom decided to follow in Daniel’s footsteps but in 1965 there were no openings in the National Guard and Tom decided to go to college
University of Connecticut ROTC
He enrolled as an Engineering major at the University of Connecticut and joined the Air Force ROTC with the hope of becoming a fighter pilot. A routine eye exam discovered that Tom had an eye defect in his Stereoscopic Vision. The flight surgeon summed it up for Tom, “Young fella, you don’t want to be trying to land an airplane if you can’t tell how high off the damn ground you are.” If he couldn’t fly he decided he should join the Army ROTC and “become a leader of men.”
Tom enjoyed his time in the ROTC was employed as a supply clerk and an armorer for the ROTC detachment at UCONN. “My job was to maintain 418 M-1 rifles.” Tom changed his major from Engineering to Soil Science and ended up 3 credits shy of the graduation requirement and had to spend an extra semester to take one class to graduate. As luck would have it was during this 9th semester that he met the love of his life, Judith Gutkowski, from Worcester, Massachusetts.
Tom graduated and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in February of 1970. In March he headed to Fort Belvoir for EOBC, Engineering Officer Basic Training. During semester breaks and college summers he worked for a Marine construction company building docks and jetties. He had experience with bulldozers, cranes, compressors, and other heavy equipment. This experience would pay tremendous dividends in his assignment in the Republic of Vietnam.
Orders to Vietnam
Tom received orders to Vietnam around Thanksgiving of 1970. In December he departed from Fort Dix, New Jersey on a civilian DC8 under contract to the US Department of Defense. The first refueling stop was Anchorage, Alaska in the middle of a blinding blizzard. Tom remembered the landing. He credited the pilot with keeping the plane on the runway for most of the landing. The next refueling stop was Yokohama, Japan before landing at the Ton Son Nhut airbase in Vietnam on Christmas Eve. Unlike many others GI’s initial memories of the smell and the heat when they landed in Vietnam, Tom had a very pleasant impression. The replacement transient building was air conditioned, there was a bar with cold beer and there was a color TV showing The Johnny Carson Christmas Special. “Vietnam ain’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be.” This first impression proved the point that first impressions can be VERY deceiving.
A few short hours later it was back to Ton Son Nhut to board a C130 transport aircraft to Cam Ranh Bay. It was now Christmas Day and all the administrative personnel had the holiday off. After the Christmas holiday it was back to the airstrip for a C130 ride further north to Da Nang. Tom’s brother, a career NCO in the Marines was on his second Vietnam tour of duty and was stationed at a fire base in the Da Nang area. The replacement transient hootch was across the street from the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force headquarters. Since it was apparent to Tom that the Army was in no big hurry to assign him to a new unit he entered the Marine headquarters to see if anyone might know where he might find his brother. In the headquarters building he saw the sign “Communications” with a Gunnery Sargent sitting at his desk talking on a land line phone. The Gunny broke away from his phone call and asked Tom if he could help him. “Well, Sargent, it’s a very long shot but I’m looking for my brother, his name is Gunnery Sargent Daniel Shannon. Do have any idea where I might find him?” The Gunny gave him a quizzical look and said into the phone, “hey Shannon, there is someone here who wants to talk to you.” As luck would have it, the Gunnery Sargent was talking with Gunnery Sargent Shannon. It worked out well and Tom and Dan Shannon got to spend a couple of days together.
The Sullivan Act
The WW2 Sullivan Act forbid all males in a family from serving in a combat zone at the same time. Together the brothers decided Dan would request to be stationed elsewhere because he was married, and Tom was not. Tom boarded a C130 for his final flight to Quang Tri and arrived during a monsoon rain. A short walk across QL1 Tom found the headquarters of the 14th Engineer Bn. It was now New Years Eve and the Executive Officer (XO) and the troops were in a celebratory mode. There was a short discussion related to what job assignment he was interested in. Tom said he was interested in being around heavy equipment and preferably involved with marine construction (ports, harbors, etc.). Unfortunately for Tom all of the port and harbor construction was complete, but the XO said there was an opening in the 630th Light Equipment Company.
The Engineers in Vietnam
Tom was assigned to the 630th Light Equipment Company as 2nd Platoon leader at fire base Nancy, about 12 kilometers south of Quang Tri. “In typical military fashion the definition of light equipment in Vietnam included bulldozers, cranes, rock crushers, scrapers and five-ton dump trucks. It suited me to a T.” Tom recalled his first assignment was to build a helipad in Dong Ha, further north near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). “Get it done quick.” Tom recalled the typical helipad would accommodate 2 helicopters. “This thing was big enough for hundreds.” When the project was complete, he returned to Fire Base Nancy. Then the primary mission was upgrading the road between Fire base Nancy and Fire Base Barbara.
Tom recalled, “We owned the daytime and the enemy owned the nighttime.” US troops would return to the fire base at dusk and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and/or Viet Cong would plant land mines in the road. The first order of business each morning was to sweep for mines. In case the mine sweepers missed a mine, the proofing vehicle, usually a Caterpillar tractor would drive down the road and the bulldozer would detonate the mine. Tom explained if the mine was small the bulldozer could take the punishment, but it was tough duty for the bulldozer operator. “It takes a toll on your nerves.”
Tom recalled one bulldozer operator refusing to operate the bulldozer. Tom warned him he was disobeying a direct order, and he would be court martialed. Still, he refused. The platoon did not know Tom knew how to operate the bulldozer. Tom jumped up on the bulldozer, put on his helmet and started driving. After 100 feet the soldier ran after Tom and yelled up to him to stop and he would drive it. “No, you made your decision. I’d rather court martial you.” After some pleading Tom told him this was his one chance. “If you give me any shit ever again, I’ll have your ass in jail.”
Lam Son 719 and Dewey Canyon II
After a few weeks in country Tom sensed “something big is coming up. You could tell by the amount of truck traffic on the highway.” It turned out to be operations Lam Son 719 and Dewey Canyon II. “It was the invasion of Laos and we were going to lead the invasion.” This was a joint operation between the U.S. troops and The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the objective was to assist the ARVN transition to “Vietnamization”. Vietnamization was the change in U.S. policy that shifted the responsibility of the actual fighting and strategy of the war to the government of South Vietnam. The U.S. would provide air and artillery support, but no U.S. ground troops were allowed beyond the border between RVN and Laos. The primary objective was to disrupt the flow of supplies and enemy troops along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Tom characterized the next two and a half, or three months as “unequivocally, the most interesting time I spent in Vietnam….living underground in a bunker that we made.” The engineers’ primary mission was to keep the road passable for U.S. convoys delivering supplies and equipment to the ARVN in Laos. Tom recalled, “the only thing that could go across the border were helicopters. Those helicopter pilots and air crews had the balls of a brass monkey. I would watch in the morning when they were flying west bound. I would count them. At the end of the day, sunset, returning maybe 75 %. After being shot down, sometimes they were able to rescue the pilots and they would get in another helicopter and return to Laos. That takes courage above and beyond the call of duty in my eyewitness opinion.”
Snipers, Friendly Fire and Snakes
Not all danger came from the NVA. Tom recalled eating lunch on an otherwise peaceful and beautiful day. While listening to Paul Harvey on his AM radio he suddenly heard a whistling sound and in quick succession three mortar rounds landed 50 to 75 feet from where he was sitting inside the engineer perimeter. They learned that a small unit of the 101st Airborne was registering their mortars. “It was very unsettling and ruined my lunch, but that is the way it is in a combat zone. One minute all is serene and the next minute all hell breaks loose.”
Tom recalled one occasion when his unit was operating on a road and he was talking with the ARVN Captain in charge of providing security for Tom’s unit. Suddenly the captain was shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet. As luck would have it, the gun truck, “Eve of Destruction” suddenly arrived and they cut loose with all their machine guns and called for reinforcements. “Shortly 5 M48 A3 tanks arrived, and they started cutting loose with cannister and fleschette rounds from their 90 mm main guns. I was impressed. I’d never seen jungle vaporized into a green mist by cannon fire.”
On another occasion Tom recalled stopping on a bridge near CamLo to watch some kids playing in the river. Tom saw a snake he estimated to be 15 feet long headed toward the kids. Tom grabbed his machine gun and shot the snake in the head “and I worked my way down to his tail. All that was left, were pieces of snake floating in the river.” The villagers were initially shocked but then saw the pieces of snake floating in the river and stood and clapped for Tom.
During Operation Dewey Canyon II it was at least a month before the men got to bath and change out of filthy uniforms. The Battalion Commander gave the unit a half day off to go down to the Quang Tri River to bath and wash their dirty uniforms in the river. It was the most memorable day of the operation and the troops really got into it. The bucket loaders of the 630th provided the diving platform for the swim participants. What a wonderful feeling to get rid of two pounds of Vietnam dirt from your body, not to mention the body odor.
Winding Down the Deployment
In June a directive was issued that anyone with less than six months remaining on the tour of duty would be eligible for an “early out” and go back to the “world”. Tom had a little over six months and therefor was reassigned to the 137th LE Company in Chu Lai in southern I Corps. As to be expected Tom was sent to an Engineer compound on the Batangan Peninsula overlooking the South China Sea. “The view was spectacular and enjoyable if you could ignore the war and other distractions. For example, one beautiful evening of sitting on the ground shooting the breeze, one of my older Sargents leaned back and put his hand on a scorpion. He went into cardiac arrest, but fortunately we got him medevac’d quickly and he was saved by our excellent medical personnel.”
In October the 137th was being deactivated. A lot of time was being spent preparing the equipment to be shipped to Japan. As Tom’s deployment wound down, he reached the 30-day mark and became a short timer. A major focus for a short timer is to keep away from dangerous situations if possible. One evening after enjoying happy hour, perhaps too much, Tom was driving his jeep to the Officer’s Club and he went off the road and turned his jeep over. He found himself trapped under the jeep in a ditch filled with water to within 6 inches of nose. Miraculously, he was able to squeeze out of a very precarious situation and stumble back to his hootch and began thinking of creative reasons why his jeep was overturned. As luck would have it, the next day one of the biggest typhoons on record hit Chu Lai. There was the perfectly believable excuse….the typhoon lifted the jeep and turned it over.
The Return Home
On November 11th 1971, Tom left Vietnam one-month early courtesy of the typhoon. They loaded the equipment onto a transport ship and jumped on for a ride up the South China Sea to Da Nang. After out-processing Tom and other GI’s headed for the states boarded a DC8 civilian flight to Fort Lewis in Washington. From there he headed to San Diego for a few days to visit his brother and then it was back to Connecticut. He arrived at Logan Airport in Boston at 3:30am and was greeted by his fiancée, Judith. They were able to avoid anti-war protestors whose convictions apparently waned in the early morning hours. Perhaps protesting was a 9 to 5 job. Tom and Judith were married in April of 1972 and 52 years later Judith is still the love of his life and they enjoy two grandchildren.
Back in the civilian world Tom transitioned from Army Combat Engineer to Civil Engineer. Tom described his engineering career as being a generalist. He eventually bought a small engineering company, in Avon, CT after the Army Veteran owner passed away. The company had a diversified base of loyal repeat customers. Tom really enjoyed his work and his customers and didn’t retire until January 2024 at the age of 77.
I asked Tom if he would recommend serving in the military and he said yes. He talked about how soldiers fight for one another and develop strong bonds forged through the shared perils of combat.
“I have really no complaints. I’ve had a very fortunate military career and civilian life. Nothing comes to mind that I would change.” Tom likes to reference a quote from Winston Churchill, “Do not wish health and wealth but wish good luck. Why wish good luck? Because on the Titanic everyone was rich and healthy, and only a few were lucky.”
Tom, thank you for all that you endured in the jungles of Vietnam. As luck would have it, you were able to handle many difficult situations with competence, good luck, and the help of your guardian angel. Furthermore, the deep satisfaction of completing his duty was evidenced by a quote by Lt. General Sutherland, the CG of Operation Dewey Canyon II, “Other than I, there is probably no person who participated in the operation who can really appreciate the contribution of those engineers. It was the most outstanding performance that I observed in my thirty-four years of service.”
Tom purchased a letter from a collector written by Dwight Eisenhower on February 20, 1948. His message seems timely, so I include here:
Dear Mr. Lord,
The single purpose of this letter is to tell you why my experiences in the war have excited my interest in Brotherhood Week, sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
In its basic philosophy and waging among nations war is a renunciation and denial of human brotherhood. But those who bear its heaviest brunt gain a deep and enduring appreciation of the ties that join them with their fellows. I have seen and marveled at the flawless human unity it has wrought among men whose common denominator was comradeship in the defense of freedom.
In the assembly area before a dawn assault, on the ready line of a forward airfield, there was no thought of a man’s antecedents, creed or race. It was enough then that he was an American – that his heart was strong, his spirit willing – that he was big enough to place the cause above himself.
It is in such a spirit of brotherhood that Americans must unite to combat the problems of the peace. Our own tranquility and continued productiveness can be assured only through harmony and fellowship, and these attributes, faithfully sustained, may well prove our greatness contribution to a civilization paralyzed and wasted by dissension.
Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower