Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Mary Junell | These wings were pinned to all three generations of the North Carolina National Guard...... read more read more
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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA - Less than one percent of the American population currently serves in the United States Armed Forces, but for one North Carolina National Guardsman, it is the only life he has ever known.
“Because of my family, this is all I’ve ever known. I don’t really know what it would be like to be a civilian and have that type of commitment outside the commitment to this Nation,” said North Carolina Army National Guard Capt. Timothy Thomas, who currently serves as the logistics officer for the 1-130th Attack Reconnaissance Battalion. “So I read the statistics and I read that number and I honestly don’t know what the rest of America is doing if they’re not signing up to serve.”
Thomas, who deployed to Iraq in 2009, is the fourth generation of his family to join the military, continuing a tradition that starts with his great-grandfather who initially joined the Army Air Corps, which later became the Air Force, and served in WWII and Korea. He retired as a Chief Master Sgt. after more than 26 years as a Petroleum Oils Lubricants Specialist.
Thomas’s grandfather, William Thomas, continued the tradition by joining the Army as a Warrant Officer after the start of the Vietnam War.
“He joined the Army and went straight to flight school,” said Timothy Thomas. “He came out of flight school and two weeks later was in Vietnam and had a battlefield promotion to 1st Lt., completely skipping 2nd Lt. and that’s his claim to fame, that he was never a butter bar [2nd Lt.].”
William Thomas retired as a Lt. Col. in 1992 and over the course of his career was qualified to fly several aircraft, including the Huey helicopter and at one point, from 1979-1982, served as the active duty advisor to the unit where his grandson would later serve.
At the time, the 28th Attack Helicopter Company was transitioning to Cobra Helicopters. They would later become the first reserve component to have Apache Helicopters and be known as 1st Battalion, 130th Aviation Regiment, and the unit the youngest Thomas has served in for the past 10 years.
“It’s pretty neat that before I was born my grandpa advised the unit where I would later serve a larger portion of my military career,” Timothy Thomas said.
Thomas’s father, Kelly Thomas, remembers his dad going off to Vietnam and the impact it had on him as a young man, leading him to also join the Army as an Aviator.
“I didn’t understand what Vietnam was,” said Kelly Thomas, who has served in Grenada, Bosnia and Afghanistan. “I really didn’t understand the war, but I understood the year, two years plus that he was gone and the team of teams that Army Aviators have with all the infantry and all the ground forces. That was what really impressed me about being a tactical helicopter pilot, the respect those branches have on each other.”
Kelly Thomas retired as a brigadier general in 2013 and like his father was qualified to fly several aircraft including the Cobra and Kiowa Warrior Helicopters. He said he is proud that his son is the third in the line to become an Army Aviator.
“I think the common theme with the three generations of aviators is that we fly something that shoots and that’s what we all take very much pride in,” he said. “Our standard is that it has to hover and it has to have guns on it, besides that, we’ll fly it. I think that’s our proudest tradition.”
When the youngest Thomas of the four generations qualified as an Apache Helicopter pilot the two previous generations of Thomas pilots were there to congratulate him and pin his newly earned wings to his chest.
His father, Kelly Thomas, pinned on the wings, which were the same wings his father pinned onto him. Those wings had the date of all three generations of Thomas pilots on them.
“I’m very, very proud of him,” Kelly Thomas said of his son. “It really is a proud day.”
The newest Thomas said he could not remember one specific time that started him on his journey to join the service but that it was part of his everyday life.
“I just remember always seeing the uniform and thinking it was dad, even if it wasn’t dad,” Timothy Thomas said. “I always thought that the Thomas is a military family and we understand that it’s bigger than us and we’re committed to serve. I think that is the understanding that we can serve and do our part because we know that it is bigger than us and we’re just a small part of that puzzle, but it’s a great feeling.”
The commitment to service that runs though the Thomas family has also branched to include Don Ray Thomas, brother to Kelly Thomas, who retired from the Air Force as a Major in 2011. Like his father and nephew, Don Ray Thomas took to helicopters and flew the Pave Hawks as a combat search and rescue pilot serving in Afghanistan and Iraq on multiple deployments.
“Even his [Capt. Thomas] sister served as an Army civilian,” Kelly Thomas said of his daughter. “That’s the kind of dedication that this Thomas family has strong ties to, it’s to God and country and we want to continue to serve.”
The youngest of the Thomas men currently works full-time for the North Carolina National Guard. He said that growing up he remembers having to move a lot and wanted to be able to raise his family in North Carolina.
“It was kind of a blessing that I was hired as Active Guard and Reserve, but the intent was that I was going to be a traditional Guardsmen,” said Timothy Thomas who initially joined 2004 while attending East Carolina University thinking he would just serve one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer like many Guard Soldiers. “But then the opportunity was afforded to me that I could be full-time.”
Thomas got the best of both worlds by being able to serve full-time like the generations before him but stay in one location to raise a family. He and his wife reside in Holly Springs, with their two daughters.
Although he said he would never pressure his children to join the military, he hopes that he can teach them the commitment to service that he learned from his father and grandfather.
“I just want them as kids to understand the service aspect,” Timothy Thomas said. “I feel like the Thomas family, we serve this country. I’ve seen my dad, my grandpa, these dedicated military men and wanted to do that for my country and wanted to do that for my family and carry on the tradition and that honor of being able to serve. So, I want my kids to see that and obviously if they want to continue with serving, then that would be awesome.”
| Date Taken: | 01.19.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 01.19.2017 14:26 |
| Story ID: | 220707 |
| Location: | RALEIGH, NC, US |
| Web Views: | 1,167 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NC Guardsman follows in family tradition, commits to a life of service, by SFC Mary Junell, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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