Thomas H Disch, Jr

Thomas Harold Disch, Jr., USAF, Ret., was born in Tacoma, Washington to Marie and Thomas Harold Disch, Sr. He was the second of eleven children : Irene, Tom, Gerry, Lorraine, Judy, Denny, Therese, Sally, Diane, Sue & Gary. He worked from age 13 on to help support his family. Graduated from high school at age 16. Also, at that age Tom took up flying and obtained an FAA pilot rating. At 17 he obtained a Private Pilot license, which allowed him to carry passengers.

While still 17 he enlisted in the Air Force (to avoid the draft) and became a control tower operator. After a year, or so, he had his duty schedule arranged so that he could attend college during the day and work at nights. He completed two years at San Antonio (Texas) college. He had decided to leave the Air Force and complete schooling, but the Air Force informed him that he would be extended for a fourth year, because we were fighting a war in Korea.

“To heck with that” he said and applied and was accepted for Pilot Training. He spent thirteen months in intensive training, flying T-6s and B-25s. Tom was an honor graduate and was awarded a Regular commission in the USAF. This type of award was bestowed upon about one percent of the graduates.

Immediately following graduation he attended training in the four engine DC-4 (C-54) and flew missions to Alaska and Greenland. Shortly thereafter he was transferred to Alaska where he flew a large Grumman Tri-phibian (SA-16).

This was exciting duty which took him to all areas of Alaska and western Canada, flying search and rescue efforts and operating off lakes, glaciers and remote strips.

After two years he was rotated to Massachusetts and began flying the giant C-124, a two-deck transport, which could carry two hundred fully, equipped troops, or a Greyhound bus. His missions took him to Greenland, Iceland, Bermuda, Europe, North Africa, and the middle east.

It was in Anchorage where he met his future bride, who had gone there to become a school marm, after deciding that Montana and Bend weren’t exciting enough. That contract was short-lived and she returned to her home in Tualatin to marry her man.

Tom was a crewmember on a C-124 that flew into a mountain at Thule Greenland. All on board walked away from the crumpled and burned wreckage. That is another story ... Tom did receive an early promotion to Captain because of his actions in that event.

After only about 20 months in that duty, Tom took some questionable advice and volunteered for a training project, called “Blue Flame,” a program initiated by General Curt LeMay. Six months later Tom was awarded aeronautical ratings of Navigator and Bombardier and was assigned to a B-47 unit at El Paso, Texas. The B-47 was a six engine jet bomber, was very fast, had a tendency to blow up in flight, or crash on takeoff.

After two and a half years of varied duties, including flying the B-47, the base was temporarily closed, to install a new runway for B-52s. Tom and about fifty others were sent to England to man command posts at about seven bases in southern England. The primary duty was to transmit launch orders to about twelve or fourteen B-47s at each base to rain nuclear bombs on Russia. It was an extremely tense, trying environment, compounded by twelve to fifteen hour shifts. The first year of off-duty proficiency flying was in the Douglas “Racer,” also known as the DC-3 (C-47). Then Tom was selected to become an Instructor Pilot in the DC-4 (C-54). This duty, while insuring a one hundred work week, was a wonderful experience and trips to Denmark and western Europe, but most of all it provided relief from the pain of the command post duty.

At the end of the three-year tour, Tom and many of the fifty others were sent to Tucson, Arizona to man B-47s. Too many people, too few airplanes. As a result, Tom became the Base Operations Officer, which became a challenging, exciting, and fulfilling duty. During those early years of the 1960s, that base was building Titan Two missile sites, had an enormous mix of airplanes: B-47s, F-101s, a training wing for F-4s (Vietnam), U-2s, C-47s (got to fly the Douglas Racer again), and others, plus the giant aircraft bone yard for retired aircraft from all the military services.

Thence on to a six-year tour at Strategic Air Command (SAC), Omaha, Nebraska. Tom was an instructor pilot for two years and the got time off to complete undergraduate degree work at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. On graduation he was assigned to SAC Headquarters and for four years did design and analysis of organizational structures at all levels of command. This was an education that few people were allowed to get.

During the last year and a half of that assignment Tom took graduate level courses at the University of Oklahoma. He was reassigned with six hours of study remaining. During the next three years he was moved six times, including two tours in Vietnam- all that concluded the pursuit of a masters degree.

Tom then checked out in the C-130 and was assigned to the Philippines. From there he went on thirty-day tours in Vietnam. This was exciting work and Tom found the (airplane) love of his life- the C-130. It was a great airplane to fly and performed it assigned maneuvers faithfully (it did precisely what one directed it to do, every time. Not many airplanes will do that).

A few months after his arrival in the Philippines, Tom’s family joined him. His first effort was to have four hours of back surgery. Two weeks later the same surgeon performed a three-hour biopsy on his twelve-year-old daughter, Sheryl, to determine that she had a bone cancer that would be fatal. Three weeks later Tom and Sheryl were both on stretchers in an Air Evac to San Antonio, Texas. Sheryl passed away six months later.

Meanwhile, Tom was assigned as Director of Plans and Programs for a 30,000 man training center. Another great experience. But, after one year in that job, Air Force said “Disch, you haven’t completed your tour in Vietnam, and now you will return.” He really pissed off somebody.

The new job was at Saigon, in the Air Force Advisory Group (AFAG), under MACV (the big dog in Vietnam). AFAG was the counter-part of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) and was an advisor. His job was to program and direct transfer of all the USAF facilities (bases and equipment) to the VNAF. In March of 1973 he was honored to make the transfer and shortly thereafter went home. Half way through that tour he had decided the honeymoon of twenty-five years was over and put in his retirement papers and retired on May 1, 1973.

What to do? Halfway through his second tour in Vietnam Tom made the decision to obtain a Village Inn franchise. While his wife was very unhappy with that decision, she didn’t fight hard enough to reverse the course of events. After three years of struggling they hit the break-through and started making some money. During the latter part of the seventies, a partner and Tom acquired the land, which became the Sunnyside Inn Restaurant, Motel, and the Sunnybrook crossing. They built the Restaurant building (now Gustav’s) in 1980.

As time passed, Tom acquired another Village Inn and two Pie Houses. By 1996 he had disposed of all five of the properties, and legal challenges, and had regained his freedom.

In April of 1999 Tom’s wife, Shirley Anne, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was subjected to all the procedures: mastectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, and various after effects. In July of 2003 she was diagnosed with Stomach cancer. She passed away on August 14, 2004.

During his years in the local community he served several years on the North Clackamas Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, Clackamas Community College Foundation, and of course, the number one Rotary club… anywhere.

In the last years of his life, he made it look easy as he overcame numerous health challenges. In the end, glioblastoma took his life.

He is preceded in death by his wife of nearly 50 years, Shirley Anne (Koch), and their daughter, Sheryl Lee. He is survived by their three daughters, Donna, Nancy, and Wendy, their husbands, 4 grandchildren, Marlies Berney, Ryan Price, Thomas Berney, and Benjamin Owen, 6 siblings, Irene Kirpes, Judy Skipworth, Diane Figgins, Sally Johnson, Sue Stranik, and Gary Disch and their families, along with Tom’s good friend, Kim Hicks.

Funeral Services are scheduled for Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:00am at Lincoln Memorial Funeral Home, followed by committal with full military honors at Willamete National Cemetery at 11:30am.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to some of Tom's favorites:

* Clackamas Rotary Foundation will continue the Smoke Alarm Project. This will be their tribute to him. PO Box 601 Clackamas, Oregon 97015 - or http://pdxchat.com/clackamasrotaryfoundation/about-us/

* Clackamas Community College Foundation: http://depts.clackamas.edu/foundation/

* Sisters of Reparation of the Sacred Wounds of Jesus: http://www.reparationsisters.org/

* Tualatin Historical Society: http://www.tualatinhistoricalsociety.org/join_us.html

* United Cerebral Palsy of Oregon and SW Washington: http://www.ucpaorwa.org/

* Cystic Fibrosis Foundation: http://www.cff.org/

Arrangements under the direction of Lincoln Memorial Funeral Home, Portland, OR.