Highland Springs Veteran Honored at 80th Anniversary Normandy Commemoration

In 2023, World War II Air Force veteran Thomas "Tom" Garner moved to Highland Springs, an Erickson Senior Living community in North Dallas, Tex. So, when he was preparing for an international trip in June, all he had to do was lock the door to his apartment home and go.

He was joining fellow WWII veterans for the 80th anniversary commemoration of D-Day at Normandy American Cemetery in France.

"I am really fortunate to have been picked, and I so appreciate it. It was really an experience," Tom says, regarding the 12-day trip organized by the Best Defense Foundation. "It was great. I couldn't believe it. And I still feel that way!"

Tom and his travel mates participated in parades, visited museums and churches, and toured the Normandy beaches by Jeep--the same beaches that more than 7,000 Allied ships and 130,000 Allied troops approached on June 6, 1944, launching the invasion that turned the course of the war in battle-torn Europe.

A world away

During the landings on Normandy beach, Tom was serving on the other side of the world, supporting the war in the Pacific Theater.

Following the Battle of Guam, Tom, a member of the 20th Air Force squadron, was deployed to the island. While the Marines fought the Japanese on the island's north side, Tom served on the south side of the island, where the Army Corps of Engineers constructed a massive airfield--capable of handling the B-29 Superfortress aircraft.

"The runway was huge," Tom recalls. "It went from one end of the island to the other."

He operated the oxygen-generating plants necessary to supply oxygen to the high-elevation pilots, the hospital, and welders repairing planes.

Enlisting in March of 1943 and serving more than a year in Guam, Tom was discharged from the Air Force in 1946. He headed home to Oklahoma and reunited with his mom and dad, both of whom worked at Tinker Air Force Base.

"You've heard of Rosie the Riveter?" Tom asks. "Well, my mother was involved in the war effort, too. She ran a tool shop on base."

Following his return home, Tom began taking college classes, but his heart belonged to the military. He told his parents he was reenlisting and headed to the recruitment office.

Forming a family

Returning to the Air Force, Tom requested assignment to South America and was sent to a Panama Canal Zone airfield with the 20th Troop Carrier Squadron. There, serving as a master sergeant, he worked as an Aircraft Loadmaster, ferrying equipment and personnel to multiple U.S. embassies across South America.

"We'd fly to Jamaica, where they spoke the King's English. Then to Haiti, where they all spoke French. In the evening, we'd return to Panama, where they spoke Spanish," he recalls.

After a 13-month assignment supplying the Berlin Airlift, Tom returned to Panama where he met his future wife Lou, the head nurse at the base hospital where he was treated for appendicitis.

In 1951, Tom and Lou married and were stationed in Florida before being quickly reassigned to Mobile, Ala., where their daughter Joette was born. From there, he was sent to the chilly mountains of Niigata, Japan, a strategic site just across the Sea of Japan from Russia--at the height of the Cold War.

"By the end of two years, Joette spoke more Japanese than English!" Tom says.

Decades of service

After returning to the U.S. for a year, Tom was assigned to Wake Island, an aircraft refueling station between Japan and Guam. There, he had the honor of leading former Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson on a tour of the base and island.

Then, Tom and his squadron received their assignment to Vietnam.

"We landed in Saigon, and as soon as I get off the plane, they're paging me in the terminal," Tom recalls. "They told me, 'Get back on that plane. Your orders have been rescinded!'"

Tom was the only one of his squadron sent on to Bangkok, Thailand, where he spent the next year overseeing cargo and passenger movement at the airbase.

In 1972, after 30 years of service, Tom retired from the Air Force. He then worked a civil service position in Fort Worth, Tex., for 20 years, while concurrently serving 20 years in the Texas State Guard. By the time Tom fully retired in 1993, he was a colonel--logging 70 years of combined service.

In 2011, Tom received the Inaugural Congressional Veteran Commendation for the Third District of Texas from U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson.

Living worry free

After a long career of serving his country throughout the world, Tom now enjoys a worry-free lifestyle in his Highland Springs apartment home, as all maintenance is taken care of and amenities like restaurants and a medical center are just steps from his door.

Since moving in, he's also met other veterans among his neighbors and joined the community's veterans' group.

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