Less than one percent of the American population serves in the United States armed forces, but for one North Carolina Army National Guardsman, it is the only life he's ever known.
"Because of my family, this is all I've ever known. I don't really know what it would be like to be a civilian and have that type of commitment outside the commitment to this nation," said Army Capt. Timothy Thomas, the logistics officer for the North Carolina Army National Guard’s 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 130th Aviation Regiment. "So I read the statistics and I read that number and I honestly don't know what the rest of America is doing if they're not signing up to serve."
Thomas, who deployed to Iraq in 2009, is the fourth generation of his family to join the military. He continues a tradition that started with his great-grandfather, who joined the Army Air Corps -- which later became the Air Force -- and went on to serve in WWII and Korea. He retired as an Air Force chief master sergeant after more than 26 years as a petroleum supply specialist.
Thomas's grandfather, William Thomas, joined the Army as a warrant officer after the start of the Vietnam War.
"He joined the Army and went straight to flight school," Thomas said. "He came out of flight school and two weeks later was in Vietnam and had a battlefield promotion to first lieutenant, completely skipping second lieutenant, and that's his claim to fame, that he was never a ‘butter bar.’"
Family Ties
William Thomas retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1992. He qualified to fly several aircraft over the course of his career, including the Huey helicopter, and from 1979-1982 he served as the active-duty advisor to the unit where his grandson now serves.
At the time, the 28th Attack Helicopter Company was transitioning to Cobra helicopters. The unit would later be redesignated as the 1st Battalion, 130th Aviation Regiment, and was the first Army Reserve unit to have Apache helicopters.
"It's pretty neat that before I was born my grandpa advised the unit where I would later serve a larger portion of my military career," Thomas said.
His father, Kelly Thomas, remembers his dad going off to Vietnam and the impact it had on him as a young man, leading him to also join the Army as an Aviator.
"I didn't understand what Vietnam was," said Kelly Thomas, a retired Army brigadier general who served in Grenada, Bosnia and Afghanistan. "I really didn't understand the war, but I understood the year -- two years plus -- that he was gone and the team of teams that Army aviators have with all the infantry and all the ground forces. That was what really impressed me about being a tactical helicopter pilot, the respect those branches have on each other."
Kelly Thomas retired in 2013, and, like his father, was qualified to fly several aircraft, including the Cobra and Kiowa Warrior helicopters. He said he is proud that his son is the third in the family to become an Army aviator.
‘We’ll Fly It’
"I think the common theme with the three generations of aviators is that we fly something that shoots and that's what we all take very much pride in," he said. "Our standard is that it has to hover and it has to have guns on it, besides that, we'll fly it. I think that's our proudest tradition."
When the youngest Thomas qualified as an Apache pilot, the two previous generations of Thomas pilots were there to congratulate him.
His father, Kelly Thomas, pinned on his wings, which were the same wings his father pinned onto him. Those wings had the date of all three generations of Thomas pilots on the back.
"I'm very, very proud of him," Kelly Thomas said of his son. "It really is a proud day."
The newest Thomas said he could not remember one specific time that started him on his journey to join the service but that it was part of his everyday life.
"I just remember always seeing the uniform and thinking it was dad, even if it wasn't dad," Timothy Thomas said. "I always thought that the Thomas’ [are] a military family and we understand that it's bigger than us and we're committed to serve. I think that is the understanding that we can serve and do our part because we know that it is bigger than us and we're just a small part of that puzzle, but it's a great feeling."