A LASTING SELF PORTRAIT OF AN AMERICAN HERO

Everyone's Hero - - Thomas

Team Statement Read By MSG McDuffie

Thomas Casey was a Soldier who believed that an officer’s place was at the front. And that is where you would find him. It didn’t matter what the task was: leading a convoy to FOB Cobra, searching a suspected house, or throwing a pass during the RSU Nightmare Thanksgiving Day football game; Tom was there. He was also the first to come to the help of a fellow Soldier.
Tom loved football. Often at four in the morning you would find him watching the games on AFN or tracking the stats of his fantasy football team. He would scream loud enough to wake all of us up if he was upset when a player performed poorly or celebrating when they ‘put up the number.’ He was confident he would win in the fantasy football play-off season, wondering if the Army would grant leave so he could attend the Super Bowl with the prize tickets.
One of Tom’s job as the Executive Officer was to keep the team on track. As we all know, after time people can lose their focus. It is no different in war. Tom was always there shouting to make sure that we never lost that. He would ask questions that made us think and sharpen our minds before leaving the wire. He would never let us forget that our profession is dangerous and there is no room for marginal performance.
Tom liked to work out. No one on the team will forget carrying eighty pounds of kettle bells across the tarmac at Taji. As we passed his bag down the row everyone would drop it and jump back with the same look of surprise. Tom stood watch laughing. Most people marked their bags with orange or red tape. He marked his with pain. Duffle bags weren’t supposed to weigh that much. He told us he would get heavier ones for the trip home so none of us would ‘get soft’ before we got back. He carried them to Cobra with us and he would always find the time to use them.
As our Intelligence officer, Tom made sure that the team always had the latest updates before the mission. He would spend hours reading reports knowing that the smallest detail could make the difference between success and failure. Failure was something that he could not accept and would do everything to make sure that the team wouldn’t.
If Tom had a catchphrase it was this. He would hold up his curled index finger and tell us “This is my weapon.” He meant it. He was a great warrior, teammate, and friend.