Thomas left early in the school year and joined the US Marines and then off to the Army. He was involved in the Lebanon peace keeping force, served on the DMZ in Korea, fought in the Iraqi war were he was injured. Later in 2004 he went to Baghdad as an Army instructor where he spent his off time performing combat triage. On Sept 4th 2004 he was injured in a mortar attack and was life flighted out of county. After 3 month of recovery he returned to finish his contract. Thomas spent more then 10 years serving the US Armed Forces and was also employed by the DOD. He earned more then 20 awards and medals for his duties.his many deployments lead him to Okinawa, Korea, Spain, Italy, France, Africa, Gibraltar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraqi, Florida, California, Texas, Alaska, Kentucky, Tennessee, Germany both east and west.
Some of his training included marine sniper school, repel master
combat engineer, trainer of explosives and booby traps, combat medical and life flight. As a civilian he was a volunteer to Bessemer VFD, West middlesex VFD, and Haws run crash and rescue in North Carolina. His hobbies are flying, building race cars and restoring cars and scuba diving. He married Beverly Rendes, having three daughters, a son and a granddaughter. Thomas now lives on the coast of North Carolina enjoying retirement. His son Thomas III leaves for US Army basic training on 9-14-09 for 6 years where he will be in airborne school and then to ranger school.