Posted by Jeff Wilcox on October 24, 2011:

I am class of '68 and did not know Tom at West Point. I met him when I joined A Co 2/506th Inf 101st Abn in Vietnam. He was our FO and we bonded quickly and spent some nights in a foxhole together. When I was promoted to CPT, I was reassigned and Tom's good friend Bill Pahissa was my replacement as First Platoon Leader. Bill was killed in the course of the campaign surrounding FSB Ripcord. In the late 1970's I looked up ahead as I was walking in New York City and spotted a man with red hair and jug ears and I thought, "That's got to be Tom". I trotted to overtake him and, sure enough, I was correct. At the time Tom was in med school at Yale. We chatted for a bit and established that we were both basically OK and expressed our regard for each other. In the late 1990's a small history of the Ripcord campaign was written and it brought many of us back together. Tom and I exchanged some actual letters about our lives and situations and I am grateful now to have those letters. I had the highest regard for Tom as a soldier and a person.

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