King, Thomas W.

Bobby Ciarletta

1945-06-24

1963-06

1966-10

Thomas King served in the U.S. Navy, and as of 2020 has lived in Mahwah for 30 years. According to his interview with Mahwah Memories, he wanted to have a personal adventure and make his family proud of him by serving. At the age of 17 King was finishing high school and felt drawn to serve rather than immediately choosing college or trade school. The exotic travel experience of the Navy appealed to him. So, he served right away, from June 1963 to October 1966.

King first headed to USNTC Great Lakes for boot camp. He says that when him and the other recruits departed, “I think we all had second thoughts. We also each had our own idea of what life in the navy would be like. None would turn out to be correct.” The experience included lots of group work early on and following what commanders told King to do, whether it was marching, running, or “being yelled and screamed at and told we were weak and stupid and therefore we needed to do more pushups. It was certainly different than being home with Mom.”

Ultimately King’s aptitude and placement tests showed that he had an affinity for math. As a result of this King was then sent to attend Navy IT training school at USNTC in Bainbridge, MD. For King, who knew little about computers and was not looking to be in school, this was a surprising change of course. He still graduated from the program, and stayed at the same location to work in conjunction with the Dept. of the Navy and the Pentagon in DC, keeping tabs on current US Navy personnel active or in the reserves. He never took part in active combat; instead, his most memorable moment was providing the military escorts at the memorial services in Washington, DC in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated.

Like everyone else, King looked forward to his enlistment ending but would also miss being with his new friends all the time, and coming home felt strange. He said, “For several months I felt like a fish out of water.” He lived at home and then moved to New York City, before living in Hackensack, NJ and Oakland, NJ and finally Mahwah. The political climate was also tense as King noted that due to the war in Vietnam, “Many veterans were disrespected and made to feel guilty for serving their country during an unpopular war.” Although, King did have an easy transition finding a job because his IT training in the Navy allowed him to enter the newer industry of computer programming. He also felt inspired to write an opinion to the Record about “buying American” during the holiday season in 2013 rather than just giving donations. He wrote, “Making the effort toward buying products made in America will ultimately create jobs and provide families with a paycheck that will help accomplish many of the goals of a charitable gift. With employment comes self-reliance, self-respect and limitless opportunity.”



Still, when heading for boot camp King said that, “I think we all had second thoughts. We also each had our own idea of what life in the navy would be like. None would turn out to be correct.”

Thomas King, in Lauren Paolillo, ed. Mahwah Military Memories (2017).