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Tuesday, November 10, 2026Nov 10

Marine veteran Tommy Thompson saw service in two wars

Staff photo by Erin O. Smith / Tommy Thompson, 90, poses for a photo at his Hixson, Tennessee, home Tuesday, October 29, 2019. Thompson served eight years in the Marines in World War II and Korea.
Staff photo by Erin O. Smith / Tommy Thompson, 90, poses for a photo at his Hixson, Tennessee, home Tuesday, October 29, 2019. Thompson served eight years in the Marines in World War II and Korea. Staff photo by Erin O. Smith / Tommy Thompson, 90, poses for a photo at his Hixson, Tennessee, home Tuesday, October 29, 2019. Thompson served eight years in the Marines in World War II and Korea.

As a kid, Tommy Thompson always liked the way Marines carried themselves and the way they dressed.

It was no surprise that the now-90-year-old served in both World War II and the Korean War.

“I just thought it was the best thing I could do at the time or, I guess, at a couple of different times,” Thompson said. “I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d see when I enlisted in the Marines, but I knew that’s where I needed to be.”

Thompson served domestically during World War, guarding then-President Harry Truman’s “Winter White House” in Key West, Florida.

“I never met the man I guess, well, until here,” Thompson joked, gesturing to a later photo of him with a Truman cutout.