Page 44 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2020- Online Magazine

Tom Creek Medal of Honor for
om Creek was born
on April 7, 1950 in
TJoplin, Missouri. Ross
and Bobbie Creek had three
sons – Ross, Jr., Tom and
Roy. They grew up very
poor. When he was a child,
Tom and his family moved
from Joplin back to Amarillo,
Texas. He attended Forest Hill
Elementary, Horace Mann
Middle School and Palo Duro
High School. Tom's friends
in Amarillo described him as
cool and courageous, “In his
youngest years, this courage
was exhibited in a youthful
brashness that occasionally
landed him in trouble. In
the military, however, it was
transformed into bravery that
he revealed in a selfless display
of brotherhood for his fellow
Marines.” *
Ross Creek, Sr. was a truck
driver, and he also took roofing
44 Senior Link
18-Year-Old Marine
by Kris Creek
jobs. Tom and Ross Jr. Roy to reconsider joining the
did the roofing for their Marines. In the fall of 1968,
father. Once, when they he wrote: "I can't hear at all
were roofing the barracks at out of my right ear because of
the Amarillo airbase in the this damn place … I have scars
mid-1960s, Ross Jr. slipped all over my face from bombs
and begin sliding and could and gun powder, and I look
have been seriously injured. like I am 40 years old. I smoke
Just as he reached the edge three packs of cigarettes a day
of the roof, Tom reached because my nerves are so shot
out and grabbed his brother that I can't even hold a cup in
and saved his life. He acted my hand."
like it was nothing.
In a letter to his mother and
Tom had various jobs, father on June 25, 1968, he
including driving an ice wrote, "Mother, don't cry
cream truck, pumping anymore. I'll come back home,
gas and working in a okay? Just don't worry about
restaurant. He worked me. I sure love you and daddy,
at Denny's Restaurant on and I don't want you to cry for
Route 66 in Amarillo. He me all the time. I think about
worked hard and earned you all the time." He told his
enough to pay for the first and mother that he couldn't wait
only car he ever bought. It until he got home, and he was
was a black and white Ford going to eat ice cream and
Fairlane. drink a coke every day.
Tom dropped out of Palo Duro Tom earned the nickname
High School as a junior and "Billy the Kid" from his fellow
joined the Marines. Younger Marines because he was
brother, Roy, dreamed of being so young but had killed so
a Marine. Tom didn't want many people. Tom's platoon
Roy to join, and he sent letters
home stating that and trying to
discourage him. Tom wrote:
"Dad, tell Roy to be careful and
stay out of the USMC. It's bad.
I don't like it like I thought I
would."
Tom was promoted to Private
First Class on June 1, 1968, and
he first set foot in Vietnam on
July 4, 1968, as a rifleman with
Company E, 2nd Battalion, 27th
Marines, Regimental Landing
Team 27,1st Marine Division.
Once he started taking part in
the war, he continued to beg