Posted by Mike Chritton on August 13, 2004:

I am sorry that it has taken so long to find this page and post a response. Tom was a fellow A-3 Avenger and an all-around great guy. His way too early demise predated the desktop computer era and this great West-Point.org website; it took the recent parting of classmate Jody Fink to lead me to this site and see that Tom has not yet been adequately commemorated. I have two most vivid memories of Tom. The first was during winter of Cow year. Snow was falling outside and we were on the second floor of Ike Barracks. Above the sally ports you could open the windows and gather enough snow from the stonework ledges to make several great snowballs. A small group of us formed a wolfpack one weekend afternoon. One person would quietly open the door to a classmate's room; if someone was inside, the door would be flung open and 4 or 5 snowballs would be unleashed in a sudden barrage. We caught Tom sitting at his desk intently studying some textbook. To our surprise, he did not give chase but yelled rather calmy, "I don't get mad, I just get even!" I heard those same words spoken quietly by Tom just a few hours later -- it was about 0230 and I had just been awakened by a trashcan full of snow being dumped into my bed and onto my bare chest. Despite the unexpected and severe shock of the snow between the sheets, I found it a very funny and appropriate retaliation. The second memory involved working as a team on a physics project making holograms using laser light. The lab work was completed, but Tom was nearly as bad a procrastinator as I am so writing the report had been put off until the wee hours of the night preceding the day we had to submit the final report. We found a small room to avoid keeping our roomies awake while we worked, and sat on the floor composing the report using Rough Draft = Final Copy. Tom had the tiniest typewriter I have ever seen, but even with that dinky thing precariously perched on his lap he could furiously type away faster than anyone I have ever seen. The only problem was a broken stop on the carriage -- if Tom slammed the manual return lever too aggressively the carriage would go skittering across the floor costing us precious seconds in our attempt to finish as quickly as possible so we could get under our Green Girl. It has now been over 23 years since starman Tom joined the Ghostly Assemblage. Gripping hands, though it be from the shadows, I hope he has seen just how well we have come together as a class at the 25th Reunion and the 02July2004 mini-reunion in DC. I know he would be just as happy and proud of the Class of 1977 as I am. Be thou at Peace, Tom.

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