Tom Croft - Healing the Wounds of War
Tom Croft was our speaker for the September 5th meeting. Tom is a Financial Advisor at Edward Jones and a Past President of the Santa Rosa Rotary East club. He is also a founder, along with Peter Treleaven and others, of the Rotary/Kiwanis annual Veteran’s Day salute. Most importantly for purposes of his talk, Tom is a veteran of the Vietnam War, having served nearly one year as a medic in some of the toughest locations of the war. Tom lived and worked every day with the risk of bombardment and the knowledge that each day could be his last. He was told early on not to make friends with Marines, since those friendships didn’t last. Tom learned this lesson the hard way. Fifty years later, Tom returned to Vietnam on a visit with other Vietnam war survivors. He was impressed with the friendliness of the people and the progress they’d made. It seemed to him as if the Vietnam war was less memorable to the Vietnamese people than it was to him and his countrymen, but believes that can be explained, in part, by the fact that the Vietnamese have been in a constant state of warfare for centuries.
The seminal moment of Tom’s trip may have been his visit to one of his old bases. He entered the base without permission and met active duty soldiers. The soldiers took photos of him with other soldiers, one of whom asked Tom to send him the photo with Tom. The fact that these guys wanted to take photos with him, and even wanted Tom to send them the photos, impressed Tom greatly. He believes this was one of the moments that finally helped him heal the scars of the war. Tom, thank you so much for sharing this amazing experience and its effect on you. And, thank you for your service!!
