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It is with great regret and sorrow that I must notify you of the death of our
classmate, Tom Gordon, on September 2, 2024, in Clearwater, FL. His wife
of 57 years, Francy, was by his side.
Tom is survived by his wife, Francy; their son, Thomas, Jr., and his wife,
Sarah; their son Steven and his wife, Sarah; their son, Robert (USMA 2000), and
his wife, Mariangela; their grandchildren, Joseantonio, Hayden, Justin, Tyler,
Brooke, Claire, Jillian, Mia, Abigail, Blake, and Teagan.
Visitation and Celebration of Life will be at 2:30 PM on September 13, 2024, at
Memorial Park Funeral Home, 5750 49th Street N, St. Petersburg, FL
33709.
Burial will be at a time and date to be determined at Bay Pines National
Cemetery, 10000 Bay Pines Boulevard, St. Petersburg, FL 33708.
Condolences may be sent to Francy at 13883 Tern Lane, Clearwater, FL
33762-4553
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in Tom’s memory be sent to the
Veteran’s organization of your choosing, in honor of Tom's faithful service to
our Nation.
Well done, Tom. Be thou at peace.
Remembrances:
Class Memorial Pages/B-2 Tom Gordon.pdf
Obituaries:
Obituary for Thomas "Tom" Richard Gordon
 Colonel
(Retired) Thomas Richard Gordon, PhD, was born on April 29,
1939 in St. Louis, Missouri, the firstborn of Edgar Gordon
and the former Ruth Harney. He was joined by his younger
sister, Diana Ruth, two years later. When the children were
just 9 and 7, their mother passed away unexpectedly, so Tom
and Diana spent most of the remainder of their youth living
with both sets of grandparents: the Gordons in Missouri, and
the Harneys in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tom graduated from
Admiral Farragut Academy in 1957. Having attained
appointment offers to both the U.S. Military Academy and the
U.S. Naval Academy, he wisely opted to go Army (Beat Navy!),
a choice which set into motion enough adventures to fill ten
lifetimes.
Tom graduated from West Point in 1961 and was commissioned
as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery. Upon
graduating from his Officer Basic Course at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma, he was assigned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where
he served in the heralded 101st Airborne Division, along
with his best friend from West Point, Glynn Mallory. In
addition to airborne training, deploying to Florida in
preparation for a possible invasion of Cuba during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, as well as supporting desegregation efforts
in southern schools where military support was requested,
Tom spent much of his downtime on the golf course with
Glynn. As Tom had been in the West Point choir, singing at
two services every Sunday, he reasoned that he had “banked
enough hours with God” to earn some time to work on his golf
game.
Tom would eventually serve three tours in Vietnam, earning
multiple Bronze Stars (including one with “V” device for
extraordinary valor), Air Medals, Campaign medals, and a
Purple Heart. After his second tour in Vietnam, he was
assigned as a battery commander at Fort Sill, Oklahoma,
where he met his future wife, Frances Adkins. Francy had
been invited to a party by Tom’s roommate, and when Tom met
her and saw that her glass of Coca-Cola was empty, he said,
“Looks like you could use a refill,” and poured his beer
into her glass. It was love at first sight.
Tom and Francy married in 1967 and moved to West Lafayette,
Indiana, where Tom earned his master’s degree in psychology
from Purdue University. He then spent two years teaching at
West Point, at the end of which he deployed again to
Vietnam, earning more accolades, including a Combat
Infantryman’s Badge and another Bronze Star.
Tom and Francy then moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where
Tom attended the Command & General Staff College and, in
1972, they welcomed their firstborn, Thomas Richard, Junior
(Tommy). In later years, Tommy would tell his younger
brothers that he was born during a tornado warning, and amid
all the confusion of moving the babies into the basement,
there was a mix-up; he was supposed to be an only child, and
a General’s son.
After that, Tom moved his little family to Virginia, where
Tom worked in the Pentagon. Their second son, Steven Glynn
(Steve), was born at Fort Belvoir, Virginia in 1974. Baby
Steve had a life-threatening digestive condition that would
eventually require surgery to correct. Prior to the surgery,
every night while Steve was sleeping, Tom and Francy’s
faithful poodle Caesar would sleep under Steve’s crib, and
if he started crying, Caesar would bark until Mom or Dad
came to check on the baby. Thankfully, Steve survived, and
the family grew.
A few years later, Tom was awarded the honor of his Army
career – he would be the Commander of the 6th Battalion, 9th
Field Artillery Regiment in Giessen, Germany. When he gave
up command after two years, his Soldiers would refer to him
as “the best darned commander they ever had, and one who
would be remembered for years to come.” After he gave up
command, Tom and Francy welcomed their youngest child. Tom
was convinced that they would have a girl, and he was
excited to name her Rebecca (Becky) Sue. His prediction
failed though, and Robert Douglas (Bobby) was born in 1978.
Tommy and Steve would never let Bobby forget that he was
“supposed to be a girl,” though.
After a year at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle
Barracks, Pennsylvania, Tom embarked on the next phase of
his career, which would be spent building Joint Operations
teams, first at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, and then at MacDill
Air Force Base in Tampa Florida. During this time, he would
make countless trips to countries in Asia, Africa, Europe,
and the Middle East. Years later, during the Iraq War, Tom
would attend a reunion with fellow members of the first
staff of Ready-Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), the
precursor to today’s U.S. Armed Forces Central Command. In
welcoming the retired team to lunch, General Abizaid, the
CENTCOM Commander quipped, “I just want to thank you all for
creating this big damn mess for us!”
Meanwhile, Tom’s family continued to grow, as did his role
as a Dad. Tom’s kids like to joke that “Dad didn’t have much
use for us until we were old enough to golf,” but in
reality, he did create several lasting memories with them
during those years at the end of his Army career. As the
boys all became year-round competitive swimmers, Tom became
a certified USA Swimming Official. From 1983 until 1995, if
the boys had a swim meet, and he wasn’t out of the country,
he was standing on that pool deck, dressed all in white,
sweating his socks off.
And of course, if there was a weekend without a swim meet,
he took the boys golfing. There, he would dispense all kinds
of wisdom, from “Never leave a birdie putt short,” to “Next
time, hit it with your purse, Alice.” Some of those words of
advice were more valuable than others. But the hours with
Dad on the course and afterward in the clubhouse were times
the boys will always treasure.
Tom’s final assignment in the Army brought the family back
to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he served as the
Secretary of the Command & General Staff College. It was a
bittersweet time, because even though Francy and the boys
finally had Tom home every night, Tom had to come to terms
with the fact that his dream of being a lifelong Soldier was
coming to an end. And even though Tom would later refer to
his time in the Army as “a chapter in a book I once read,”
it was evident that this chapter included some of his
fondest memories.
Like many veterans, Tom struggled to find his professional
purpose in his first years after retirement. He tried his
hand at financial planning, but found after a few years that
this was unfulfilling, and not what he was meant to do. He
knew what he wanted to do, but he also knew that he couldn’t
do it alone, with a wife and three sons to support. He
leaned heavily on Francy, his lifelong partner and love, who
would support him and the family with her teddy bear
business while he followed his own dream.
As a lifelong learner, Tom decided to follow his only other
calling beyond the military and went back to school. Tom
enrolled as a doctoral candidate at the University of South
Florida and wrote his dissertation on the behavior of teams
in the U.S. Air Force’s Airborne Warning and Control System.
If you’re going to become a doctor, Tom reasoned, why not do
it by studying something you love? In 2000, just a few
months after his last son had graduated from college, Tom
earned his PhD in Industrial Organizational Psychology, and
he would continue to teach at USF for the next 15 years.
During those years, Tom watched and supported and cheered on
his sons, as they followed in his footsteps, each in their
own way. He beamed with pride as Tommy and Bobby became Army
officers, and showed equal exuberance for Steve as he earned
his medical degree and became “a real doctor,” a distinction
which Steve often pointed out to his Dad.
Beyond his own professional accomplishments and those of his
sons, however, Tom’s deepest pride and joy in his later
years came from watching his family continue to grow. Tom’s
subtle, rare smiles were replaced by silly, toothy grins as
he watched his sons find and marry their soulmates. The
tough, reserved patriarch transformed into a jolly, jovial
grandparent, with each of his eleven grandchildren chipping
away the armor of so many years of soldiering, until he was
left as a truly happy, grateful, and caring Granddad, loved
by all of his family.
In 2016, Tom suffered a heart attack at his home in
Clearwater. He survived, but his health continued to
deteriorate in the succeeding years, due mostly to damage
done to his body throughout his lifetime of adventures. As
it turns out, smoking for 40+ years, exposing your body to
Agent Orange in Vietnam, breaking your back on a parachute
jump, and just plain living the life of a Soldier for nearly
three decades, leaves you with a pretty rough bill of health
later in life. “Getting old sucks, but it’s better than the
alternative,” Tom would often say. And in his last years, he
began to leave off the last six words of that adage.
Tom passed away at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg
early in the morning on September 2, 2024. Francy was by his
side.
Tom leaves behind multitudes of stories, advice, and above
all, love.
He is survived by his loving and devoted wife of 57 years,
Francy; his sister, Diana; his son, Tommy, and Tommy’s wife
Sarah, and their children: Hayden (21), Justin (20), Tyler
(18), Jillian (16), and Blake (9); his son, Steve, and
Steve’s wife Sarah, and their children: Brooke (17), Claire
(17), and Teagan (8); his son, Bobby, and his wife
Mariangela, and their children: Joseantonio (26), Mia (13),
and Abigail (11).
Cemetery Details
10000 Bay Pines BlvdBay Pines, FL 33708
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