RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones served his country with valor and great distinction as a member of the United States Army Air Corps and as a qualified replacement for the 99th Pursuit Squadron, an African American Air Corps unit more commonly known as the 99th Tuskegee Airmen established by the War Department in January of 1941; and
WHEREAS, The Tuskegee Airmen included pilots, navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff, instructors and all the personnel who kept the planes in the air; and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones was born and raised in Chicago and attended Wendell Phillips High School; and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones entered military service in 1943 at the age of seventeen; and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones qualified to become a replacement in the famed 99th Tuskegee Airmen Corps; and
WHEREAS, Early in his service Thomas V. Jones was sent to McDill, Florida where he received training as a mapmaker in preparation for his role as a topography surveyor in the South Pacific theater of war; and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones served his country with distinction for three-and-a-half years, including an eighteen month tour of duty under extreme conditions on the islands of Guam, Saipan and Iwo Jima; and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones was stationed in Okinawa when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan; and
WHEREAS, Following his discharge from active duty, Thomas V. Jones worked as a Ford Motor Company assembly line worker and in the U.S. Postal Service as a mail handler; and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones was one of ninety-one honored veterans from the Chicagoland area invited to visit Washington D.C. and attend formal ceremonies at the World War II Memorial in 2014 as part of the "Honor Flight Chicago" sponsored by the Ford Fund; and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones is truly an example of what journalist Tom Brokaw called "Our Greatest Generation;" and
WHEREAS, Thomas V. Jones is exceedingly worthy of our highest admiration and esteem; now, therefore
BE IT RESOLVED,...
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