• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, Yesterday

I remember where I was when I heard the news about my good friend and industry icon Tom Deierlein, Dynamic Logic’s COO who was serving in Iraq.

It was 19 years ago, almost to the day. I was sitting at the table in my company’s open office space near New York City's Penn Station, talking to a colleague, when another team member popped his head in with news that was rocking the industry: Tom had been wounded, badly – very badly.

To my daughters, who were then two and three years old, Tom was known simply as “Dad’s friend the soldier.” They had seen a picture of Tom, in uniform on a dusty street in Iraq handing out toys and coloring books to local children and it had stuck with them, and still does today.

Tom was a West Point graduate, former Army Ranger and one of the top execs in our business. He had returned to duty as part of a somewhat controversial recall of retired officers who would be tasked with bringing civil order and reconstruction to a chaotic Iraq.

Tom was leading the Civil Affairs Unit in Sadr City, Baghdad’s sprawling ghetto, one of the most dangerous places in the country. He had recruited dozens of us to help collect vitamins, toys, soccer balls, books and crayons to send to him there for he and his unit to give out to mothers and children who were desperately in need, living in the middle of a war in a country reeling from decades of despotism.

Almost 20 years ago I wrote in a MediaPost column about Tom going back to serve.

News about Tom and his injury came slowly. We learned that he had been shot by a sniper, that the bullet had pulverized his pelvis and taken out the sacrum, the lower end of the spine, and that the prognosis was getting better that he would live, but he would certainly never walk again.

When I visited Tom at Walter Reed Hospital some weeks later, I was presented with a badly wounded, prostrate friend (with that same great grin, twinkle in the eye and sense of sarcasm) who assured me that he would not only walk again, but that he would run again, and had set a goal to run the Army 10-Miler Race. You can read about Tom in Angela Duckworth’s book Grit if you want to know how that played out.

From the moment leaders in our industry banded together to help, unsure if Tom would need financial assistance, we were certain that we all needed to continue the mission he had established in Iraq during his time there. And thus the TD Foundation was launched, a charity to support Tom’s amazing work, first helping children in Iraq and then transitioning to helping wounded warriors in the US, their families and families of fallen heroes.

Tom of course, recovered, walked, ran, married an amazing women and partner, has three amazing boys, has been a den and pack leader and scout leader, does regular mentoring and leadership training and founded a tech services startup ThunderCat that he has built into a billion-plus revenue company (yes, no typo there), and continues to work tirelessly on the foundation and its mission.

The work of the TD Foundation has been enormous. So many folks and families in dire straits have been helped and saved. Not a week goes by that there isn’t some amazing case study of the foundation’s work.

I am writing this column from a train in Ukraine, the scene of another terrible war that is hurting so many. In a place like this, I am even more proud of my good friend Tom, his courage and his commitment to helping others, no matter the cost to himself. The world is so lucky that September 9 is Tom’s “Alive Day,” the day that the sniper's wish was overcome by Tom’s courage and strength, and so many in the world are better for Tom and what he has done with these past 19 years.

I encourage all of you to check out the foundation’s website and work. You would be as proud of Tom as I am, and there is no friend in the world I am more proud to know.