Posted on 03/09/2003 10:58:44 AM PST by jwalburg
Of all the bright and talented students in my high school graduating class, the most gifted of all was probably my good friend Tom Baker. Quick thinking, creative and enormously self-disciplined, Tom excelled in every subject - particularly the sciences. Tom was far and away our best student in physics and chemistry, and he put countless hours into his favorite area of research, oceanography.
Before school, during lunch break and after school (at least, when there wasn't swim practice) - there was Tom in the lab, always dreaming up some new experiment, always excited about his latest discoveries.
It was no surprise that Tom's study of coastland erosion won him a trip to Washington, D.C., and a top award in the National Science Fair. Far more surprising was Tom's choice of colleges: U.C. Berkeley.
Not that Berkeley wasn't a great school for someone with Tom's interests. With more Nobel Prize winners on its faculty than any other school in the world, Berkeley certainly had a lot to offer anyone in love with the sciences.
But this was 1970. Berkeley was the epicenter of the anti-war movement. And Tom was determined that he would be a part of ROTC, preparing to serve his country as a naval officer.
Why did Tom (who could have gone almost anywhere) choose a campus where so many of his fellow students mocked and hated everything he believed in, a campus where the military was loathed rather than loved?
Well, that was Tom. I can still see him, proud of the uniform that made him the target of glares and derision whenever he wore it, always standing tall and with a bit of a smile on his face as he crossed the Berkeley campus. An officer and a gentleman. And something more.
Spring 1971. Tom and a fellow ROTC cadet were scuba diving off the Monterey coast when, all of a sudden, his friend's tanks failed. Tom immediately switched to buddy-breathing mode, and he managed to get his friend to the surface. But, in making sure that his friend had enough air, Tom had short-changed himself. While his friend had enough strength to swim back to shore, Tom didn't make it.
A varsity swimmer, an experienced scuba diver, our high school's best surfer - and Tom drowned saving the life of a friend.
Tom was an only child, and his parents' pride and joy. In one moment, all their dreams for their wonderful, talented son were crushed. Tom's brilliant mind, his wry sense of humor, his creative genius - all gone. But not forgotten.
For those who were Tom's friends, there is always something reminding us of this special young man.
I think of Tom, for instance, whenever there's news of a new breakthrough in the sciences, knowing how excited he would have been at each new discovery, and wondering just what he might have contributed himself had only he lived.
I think of Tom whenever our troops head off to war, putting their own dreams aside, ready to risk or even sacrifice their lives for a country they love, but which doesn't always sufficiently understand or appreciate their sacrifices.
And as I sit amid the luxuries of contemporary America, I think of Tom and the thousands in uniform like him whose sacrifices now and in the past made possible the freedom and prosperity the rest of us enjoy.
And, most of all, when I read the gospels, I'm reminded of Tom and the thousands like him who are living (and dying!) examples of Jesus' words: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend."
Art Marmorstein, Aberdeen, is a professor of history at Northern State University. Write to him at the American News, P.O. Box 4430, Aberdeen, SD 57402, or e-mail at americannews@aberdeennews.com.
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