Tom Dalzell retired as a full colonel in the Marine Corps after serving from 1958 to 1989.
“Being a Marine is not what I was, it’s who I am.”
Before becoming a Marine, he was a football player at Virginia Tech.
“I was a good athlete in high school, and I’d been recruited to a lot of schools to play football.”
Despite other college football offers, his heart was set on becoming a Hokie. He studied civil engineering on a football scholarship, graduating in 1958.
“I wanted to build roads and bridges and things like that. So that’s how I came to Virginia Tech in 1953.”
A career was calling—Tom turned down several offers for engineering jobs and even a contract to play professionally with the Chicago Bears. But active duty called him elsewhere. It was 1958, and the nation’s young adults were being called to war. He knew a draft notice was coming after graduation, so he decided to join on his own terms.
“I went home, and I told my wife, guess what I did? I joined the Marines. And her response was, ‘And now the adventure begins.’”
His life in the military began.
“The whole idea was to break you down and then build you up.”
Thankfully, his time as a college athlete got him through basic training.
“Everywhere you went, you ran. Yes, sir; no, sir; three bags full. I could not even do a pull-up the first day, but later on, I could do 15-20 pull-ups. I could go up that rope, touch the top, and run. Because as an athlete, it didn’t take long to get back into shape.”
In December of 1958, he stayed at Quantico for officer training, selected the engineer field, and was in the reserve commission. But football came calling once again.
“I selected the engineer field, and then we got our orders. My orders were to Camp Pendleton, California, in the engineer battalion, but then the colonel of basic school called me because he knew I played football at VT and had been drafted by the Chicago Bears. ‘We want you to stay here and play on the Quantico football team,’ because, at that time, Quantico was playing college teams. And I said, ‘Colonel, I joined the Marine Corps to see the world. I got orders to California; I’ve never been across the Mississippi—I’m going west.’”
As an engineer, he served in California, the Philippines, and then back to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
“I think it was in 1965, there were about 1,000 of us who got orders on Friday. We had to be at Camp Pendleton on Monday. And we knew where we were going. We were going to Vietnam.”
He took many photos during his time as an engineer in Vietnam, building roads and structures. He worked alongside the Vietnamese people he remembers fondly, especially the children. As long as they were around, he knew he was safe. He recalls a day they found themselves alone.
“The hair on the back of my neck went up. It was really the eeriest feeling I ever had in my life. There was nobody around, no animals, no sound, no wind, nothing. And you know, the guardian angel was saying, ‘Don’t go up the road.’ So I said, ‘Turn around. We’re not going up today.’ And so we went back, and sure enough, up the road, there was an ambush. It was a big convoy of Marines, and they got into a big firefight. Whether they would have done that with a lone vehicle coming up, I don’t know, but my life was saved.”
Unlike so many others he served beside, he remains thankful for returning home. And despite the dark times, he reflects on his time of service as some of the most important in his life.
“And so, when you come up to Veterans Day and you see a bunch of old guys like me, you know, from the past, don’t remember them as old men. Remember them as young men who sacrificed.”