As Told By: Donald P Higgins, Jr., Colonel, USAF
[these past few days celebrating the life of clayton thomas have brought me a revelation. Having talked to so many members of his loving family and so many of his friends, I better understand now why he was such a happy man — always smiling, always content. But let me take a few minutes now to tell you what he meant to The Air Force Studies and Analyses Agency.]
Many of you have known Clay Thomas for many years; some of you many decades. But he was a blessing to me for only six months — just half a year, since I arrived last September. When I got wind of my assignment to The Studies and Analysis Agency, I asked first about the people, and the word was that I’d be working with an american national treasure — Clayton J. Thomas.
He was many things to Studies and Analyses. A mathematician who designed models and an analyst to start off with. Then Scientific and Technical Advisor, and then Chief Analyst. And Since 1985, Chief Scientist. He was a man who delighted in the power of the scientific method and the joy of mathematics. As the years passed, he was described in jest as one of those rare people who have forgotten more than most of us will ever learn. To which he replied, "if that’s true, one of the good things about forgetting is that i can again and again experience the joy of discovery."
And he made sure he shared that joy with others on the staff and in the agency. Mr Thomas can be given at least partial credit for the wise leadership of our Air Force since 1955. Something like fifty general-officers-to-be thrived under his tutelage, including two future Chiefs of Staff and one future Vice Chief of Staff, to say nothing of the many hundreds of analysts, pilots, navigators, air battle managers and engineers who passed through the Studies and Analyses Agency, gaining wisdom from the Chief Scientist, and shedding light on the tough decisions an organization has to make whose job is to fight and win the nation’s wars.
The Agency’s mission statement is perhaps the most succinct in the Air Force: "To Shed Light," and Clay Thomas was a burning torch; the winner of many prestigious awards, and the sought-after advisor of every budding analyst. To paraphrase The Gospel [Matthew 5:15-16, Mark 4:22], He Was The Lamp On The Lampstand That Gave Light Unto All That Are In The House. His Light Shone Before Us All, That We Could See His Works, And Glorify Our Father In Heaven. And He Believed That Nothing Was Exempt From Discovery, That Whatever Was Hidden Away Would Some Day Be Brought Out Into The Open.
Perhaps his inquisitiveness and drive for knowledge was natural; after all, he’d been raised in the show-me state. Upon being showered with praise on one occasion, he admitted that despite his success in research and analyses, at the bottom of it all he remained to that day a doubting Thomas from Missouri.
At once brilliant and humble, he was a gentleman and a gentle man. Yet he was not beyond exposing the trite and fashionable ways of thinking which were to supplant the more tried and true. After a few years’ exhortation by the Air Force to "think outside the box," he counseled Air Force Operations Researchers that they’d be better off working very hard on thinking effectively inside the box — after all, we spend so much useful time there. And surveying his expectations for the new century, he found that he saw a continuing need for the same principles that have worked before, noting that character would still be in demand.
Clay Thomas was most definitely a character in demand. We miss him terribly, and will miss his personal influence on our incoming analysts. But the lessons of nearly fifty years in defense of America are still before us, and we are grateful that we have so much of him remaining in our memories, our thought processes, and in our archives. So we expect Mr. Thomas to continue fueling The AFSAA Torch.
Our Lord once faced a situation — the loss of a loved one — similar to the one we face today, and perhaps He was also anticipating Clay when He made this observation: "He Was A Burning And A Shining Light: And Ye Were Willing For A Season To Rejoice In His Light." [John 5:35]