Despite health complications, Marine Corps veteran wouldn’t give up his time in service

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Four years in the Marine Corps was life-changing for a Wichita Veteran.

Cpl. Thomas Nesmith said he knew he wanted to consider military service, as much of his family, including most of his siblings, served.

“My dad’s from Vietnam, my son went to Iraq,” Nesmith said. “That’s just the route we go with the family.”

In 1979, when more than 50 Americans were taken hostage in Iran, he felt called to serve, so he enlisted in the Marines in 1980.

After basic training, he was initially told he would be in the infantry.

“But my testing came back and they pulled seven of us, out of 500 some odd, there was seven of us they pulled in,” Nesmith said as he recalled the Naval Security Group Activity interviews.

He remembers sitting in the hallway, waiting for the other six to go through hours of interviews before it was his turn. He was the only one out of the company that was picked for the job.

Nesmith began 31 weeks of intensive training in Pensacola, Florida, to learn how to become a cryptologic technician. He did electronic warfare, including collecting data, deciphering electronic communications, and jamming enemy signals.

“Back then, you’d sit in a room with a computer that was half the size of the room,” he said. “I mean literally 20 feet across and 10 feet back.”

Nesmith traveled the world, required to keep his duties a secret.

“So you had a lot of people that questioned when, where and how. We just get to a new base and just say we’re ‘clerks,’ that we’d be assigned to naval security group activity,” he said.

Nesmith called the work rewarding, even though he was sworn to never talk about it.

“Your social life, you can’t tell anybody what you do, and if you got stress or anything else going on, you can’t even tell your wife what you do,” he recalled.

Nesmith said he got lucky because his wife was also a cryptologist at the time.

“It’s kind of like living a life of lies; you can’t tell your friends or family what you do, but at the same time, you know what you’re doing to affect that event for that one situation,” he said.

Nesmith also served as a tactical weapons instructor in Yuma, Arizona, and spent his last six months at Camp LeJeune. When he learned he’d have to stay stateside if he extended his service, he decided to return to civilian life.

Nesmith would go on to work as a Sedgwick County detention deputy and later worked at Boeing. He also went to school with his military benefits, earning three degrees.

On Sept. 1, 2001, Nesmith was watching the news of the terrorist attacks with his son, who had enlisted in the Army three days earlier.

“So my worry was, now he’s going to go to war. Well, of course, he did,” he said.

Within a year, Nesmith was one of the first TSA officers to work at the airport, then called Mid-Continent. He would serve for more than 20 years, including at the new Eisenhower National Airport. He was eventually made a security manager, overseeing airports for half of the state of Kansas.

“The leadership from the Marine Corps is actually what got me there, just being able to critically think and handle situations,” Nesmith said. “You can’t just sit there and wait. It’s teamwork.”

In 2008, Nesmith began having kidney problems and was diagnosed with cancer. He battled cancer twice, losing part of his right kidney and much of his right lung. He says the military acknowledged his cancer diagnosis was connected to his six months of service at Camp Lejeune, where they found water contamination .

“They acknowledged in 2017 that I was diagnosed, and it was the right diagnosis for cancer from the Marine Corps from the water,” he said.

Nesmith is proud of his service and encourages everyone to consider it.

“I think every young person should try to do a little military time, regardless of which one,” he said. “I still, even with the cancer, I wouldn’t trade my time with the Marine Corps. I am who I am because of the Marine Corps.”

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