• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, October 19, 2006

I have written several times in the past about my good friend Tom Deierlein. Tom, as many of you know, is the COO of Dynamic Logic and was called unexpectedly to serve in the U.S. Army. Tom is a West Point grad and former officer in the Airborne Rangers. While he had been out of the service for 13 years, he did not resist the call-up as many did. He went to camp. He got back into shape. He learned the systems and procedures and acronyms for the new Army, and he shipped out to Iraq, to Baghdad, as a civil affairs officer to help build schools, health clinics, and water treatment facilities.

Tom's monthly e-mail updates, which circulated regularly around the industry, were incredible to read and kept many of us feeling much closer to what was happening in that faraway place so often in the news, where so many other brave folks like Tom are serving everyday. Tom's regular calls for donations of school supplies, toys and children's clothing were answered by many of our companies.

As many of you know, Tom was wounded by a sniper in East Baghdad on Saturday, Sept. 9. He was shot in the left hip, with significant damage to his pelvis. Tom is back in the states at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C., but has a pretty long road of rehab ahead of him.

I visited Tom and his wife Hiwot last week, and I can report back that he is doing well. He's certainly been seriously injured, but he's in great spirits and is attacking this challenge just as he used to attack business challenges. When I walked into his room at Walter Reed, he was on the phone arguing a traffic ticket that apparently had been wrongly issued before he shipped, so I knew that Tom was still Tom.

If you want to follow his progress or leave messages for him, please check out the site that Dynamic Logic has built for him:

If you want to contact or visit Tom, here is his info:

Walter Reed Medical Center
6900 Georgia Ave
Main Hospital, Ward 58, Room 5835
Washington, D.C.

Tom is our hero. He left a great leadership post at one of our most prominent companies, got himself back into shape, retrained on a new generation of weaponry and tactics, and shipped out to one of the most dangerous places in the world, all because of an oath he had taken almost 20 years before. Tom, thank you. We are here for you and anything that you might need.