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I first knew <em>Thomas R. Aaron</em>, Class of 1918, when we marched together as cadets in B Company. I admired him then, and it later became my good fortune to bccome an even closer personal friend after his retirement in Honolulu in 1951.</div>
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His life was marked by a great love for his Alma Mater and by great service to it and to the young men of Hawaii who aspired to serve their country at West Point, Annapolis, the Air Academy, the Merchant Marine Academy, or the Coast Guard Academy.</div>
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For more than 10 years he served the West Point Society of Hawaii as its secretary-treasurer. Each year he generously refused higher office in the society and volunteered to carry the more burdensome duties of secretary-treasurer.</div>
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For the 13 years until the time of his death, he was an instructor in mathematics at the Kamehameha schools. Tommy's service here was notable for his devotion to the young men of those schools who wished to enter the Service Academies. He helped them to get appointments and coached them long hours in mathematics and English and lived to see ten of them graduate into the service of their country.</div>
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Upon graduation from West Point in the fall of 1918, Tommy was assigned to Fort Benning. He later went to Fort Lewis, Wash., and from there to the 27th Infantry in Siberia where he served for 10 months. After a tour in Manila, when the regiment was moved there, he was assigned to Honolulu, where he met and married Margaret La Mothe, the daughter of an Episcopal bishop. They had two daughters, Margaret and Jean. The latter, now Mrs. Jack Tittle, has a five-month-old son.</div>
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Other military assignments included BOTC duty at V.P.I., and service as PMS&T at Oak Ridge Military Academy and Rutgers University. He also served as commanding officer of the CCC Camp at Sumter, S.C., and as an instructor of tactics at the Infantry School.</div>
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At the beginning of World War II he joined the 104th Division in Oregon. It was while serving with this Division in the California-Arizona maneuver area that Tommy was seriously injured in a jeep accident which necessitated limited-service assignments and eventually retirement for physical disability. Prior to retirement, however, he served from 1947 to 1950 at Schofield Barracks, and as commanding officer of Sand Island and Fort Armstrong. He was also a full-time member of the Joint Logistics Board at Pearl Harbor, and from there went to Eniwetok where he commanded the island’s garrison.</div>
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In 1951 he was serving as PMS&T at Rutgers University, and it was from there that he moved to live in retirement in Honolulu.</div>
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Tommy died on 11 July 1964 and was buried with full military honors in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He is survived by his wife Margaret, two daughters, and a grandson.</div>
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All who served with him as well as the many people of the Hawaiian community whom he himself served so generously, mourn the passing of a devoted officer and a generous contributor to the welfare of his fellow-men.</div>
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<em>—Bartley M. Harloz Aug '17</em></div>
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