Thomas Peterson

Ancestors

Son of [private father (1920s - unknown)] and Mary (Corey) Peterson

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Biography

My Youth I was born at St Josephs Hospital in Sioux City Iowa at 1200 pm with a weight of 9 lbs 13 oz's and 23" long. I attended Washington Elementary School, East junior High, and East High School all in Sioux City. I started my first job at age 9 as a paper boy for the Sioux City Journal. I had 60 houses that I delivered to every day until age 13. My brother Tim and I worked the paper route together for several years along with our father who would drive us on the coldest days. Tim and I were both in boy scouts together and enjoyed all the merit badges and projects. I played the Flute from 3rd grade to 7th and was made fun of for playing a girl instrument so I switched to trumpet. I played that for a few years but was asked to help out in the band with the Tuba on parades. I also enjoyed sports and choir. I wrestled at the weight 155 lbs and ran track. Our family attended church every Sunday at Nativity Catholic Church in Sioux City. At age 8 my mother started to invite Foreign Exchange Students to live with us. We had a total of 23 students at our house spanning twenty years. My mother felt it was important to always give back to the community and the world. She felt it was our duty to help others always. She felt very strongly about giving to charities, volunteering, giving to others, politics. and being an ambassador to other countries. I worked on my brothers farm in Scotland South Dakota for many summers farming, and also de-tasseled corn and hoed beans for money. I started working for Hyvee groceries stores at age 15 and worked my way up from Bottle Boy to Cashier, and doing every job in the store. I graduated in 1984 from East with a pastoral scholarship to Briar Cliff College. I had $16,000 in my savings at that time and spent all of it paying for my first few years of school. I attended Briar Cliff from 1984 until 1987 were I transferred to the University of South Dakota (USD). I started as one of the first fifty employees for a small phone company called Pioneer Tele Technologies which founded MCI World Com. I made the mistake of not going full time with them. My parent said AT&T would never break up. They were wrong and I would have been a millionaire if I had gone against their wishes. My friend Tedd Wait asked me to be his 5th employee for his little computer company Gateway 2000 at that time. If I had gone to work for him I would have also been a millionaire.

My College Days In College i would worked for MCI, and Hyvee during the school year and at Container Corp of America during the summers. My dad was the planner for Container and I could earn union wages for $9 per hour and minimum wage at that time was $3.10 per hour. I joined the Army to help pay for school. My plan was to go to the Army just long enough to help pay for school and then get out. I then set my sites on becoming an E4 or SPC in the Army. The ROTC department said they would give me more money if I did the SMP program. I now was a SGT and so I joined ROTC for even more money. I was dating Angela at the time and she informed me that she was pregnant. We moved into Married Student Housing in Vermillion after Zach was born in 1989 at 9 lbs 1/2 once and 19 inches long. Angela and I were only married for two years and she started to enjoy college life too much and other people so I was forced to divorce and keep Zach with me. Zachary and I were inseparable at that time. We did everything together and I had no money. I was driving home from working a few days at the Army Reserves Center, when I got home the phone rang. I was asked to go to the Sioux City Airport for a airplane that was going to crash in less then 50 minutes. It was United Flight 232 a DC 10 airplane that crashed before my eyes. I would spend the next three solid days helping. The first day was getting people to the hospital. The second day was looking for the fan disk from the engine up in Buena Vista county and the third day was working with all the dead bodies in the morgue. i then met Susan Jones who we dated for a few months and she broke up with me. I called her parents house to ask were she was and they said she didn't want to date me anymore. So I moved on with my life. A year and a half later Susan showed up at my door with a six month old baby telling me Sabrina was my daughter at over 8lbs. I could tell by looking that was true but I did an DNA test just to confirm. Susan was engaged to marry a friend of mine from college. His name was Dallas Schnack who used to work security at USD. He was a good guy and Susan was afraid to mess up my life I think. She was in love with Dallas and asked me when Sabrina was 2 years old if he could adopt her. It would be the hardest decision of my entire life. It took me two weeks to decide and many tears but I wanted what my parents had. A nuclear family for Sabrina. I made the right choice because she couldn't have turned out any better.

Early Adult Years I moved to Sioux Falls for a few years to work for a small vending company as a manager. The boss sold the business after one year and i was stuck looking for another job. I called my friend Tedd Wait because now his little computer company was a global giant powerhouse and he had 15,000 employees. I called him on a Wednesday and started on a Friday. The only job he had open was Computer Tech which started at $13 and hour and even more if I worked nights. It was hard being a single parent and being in the military and working full time, but I survived. I got the day job at Gateway and was able to manage. I then signed up for OCS to finally become an officer in the military at eleven years of service. I drove for two years 350 miles one way to Des Moines Iowa to get my commission. In 1996 i was commissioned a 2LT and the Army asked if I could come teach computers in Little Falls, Minnesota. I moved Zachary and myself to Little Falls. We lived in an Apartment but soon met Jessica Kolb. We were married and bought the house on 2nd street SE in little Falls. It was a beautiful brick home with all of those chimneys. On 911 i was working at the 175th RTI as an instructor with an office next door to General John Veasey who was the retired Joint Chief under President Reagan. He would come over and chat and tell war stories. I was in the breakroom getting my coffee when FOX News said the first tower was struck of the world trade center in New York. That became a land mark day for everyone. Soon people were put on airport duty. My nephew Nick had gotten deployed on the initial invasion of Iraq and was involved in the now famous ambush with Jessica Lynch and the 507th MAINT. He was in the 2nd vehicle. We had Newman who was a monster sized baby at 10 lbs and 13 ounces and arrived two weeks early because of his size. When he turned three I was deployed to Bosnia. Jessica was unfaithful and we got divorced upon my return. I publicly humiliated her and Dan in the Town Newspaper out of pure anger and spite. I bought the house two doors down and flipped the house for some spending money and moved to Texas to be near my parents. I started working for the USPFO for Texas and never looked back.

CPT and Beyond I never imagined making CPT in the Army as a young private but I had command in Little Falls and right after that my Bosnia rotation where I was the assistant operations officer conducting humanitarian de-mining and training missions long with weapons storage site inspections on Serbian and Croat sites. I took down the flag from the HQ of Camp Comanche brought it home. The flag has been on every tour of duty with me. I met Claudia on the internet. She would be the one true love of my life and we have enjoyed every single minute together. I wished I has met her first. I took the warehouse and established myself in the Texas Guard. I soon made Major upon the transfer to Texas. I would get deployed to Iraq in 2008 with the 949 BSB were I was the LOGCAP OIC for that area of Iraq, the DOL, the BN S4 and many other titles. I was so busy I only got a few hours a night of sleep. I was awarded my first bronze star and a combat action badge for all the crap on Taji. In 2012 I went on a cool mission as an advisor to Afghanistan out in a little village of Arghandaub. The Army wanted me to teach police officers how to be police officers. I knew nothing about police but I was the excutive officer, operations, logistics and whatever we needed on a little twelve man team in the middle of no where. Taking shooting classes from Jim Smith of the famous Black Hawk Down movie. He spent two weeks teaching me how to shoot and undoing everything the Army had taught me in correctly. So many things happened and I have to keep in my head until i die.

LTC and Beyond I made LTC in September of 2013 after coming home from my first tour of Afghanistan. BG Henry called me and asked if I would go to Afghanistan with him. Going on the TACC-S working for BG Henry as his logistics adviser working with the 101st Air Borne dropping in to the villages conducting advising missions was one of my favorite things. In August 2018 I became the 536 BSB Battalion Commander which has nine companies and 1300 Soldiers. We had over 100 on the horn of africa and President Trump ordered 1,000 Soldiers on the border. The 536th BSB stood up Task Force Lionheart which assisted in the running of Detention Centers along with border helping on US Customs and Border Patrol. In April of 2020 COVID virus hit and the 536th BSB was ordered to support COVID Testing and Food Banks. The 536th BSB stood up the largest food bank in the USA feeding 10,000 families per day and 84 lbs of food per family for three and 1/2 months totaling over 16 million lbs of food. In December 6 2020 I left a highly successful command. I await another granddaughter to be born in just two weeks.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Thomas Peterson at registration.