Colonel Thomas P. Nicholson is a graduate of Infantry OCS, Class 5-64, with a commissioning date of 14 May 1964. He was a member of 51st Company, TSB. He attended Airborne training after graduation. After an initial assignment to the mountain brigade at Fort Carson, Colorado, he joined Special Forces, and trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. | His initial overseas assignment with Special Forces was the 5th group, in South Vietnam, where he was the Executive Officer of Camp A-224, Phu Tuc, in II Corps, engaged in interdiction operations against the Viet Cong. After several months at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, training recruits, he returned to Special Forces in Panama and then back to Republic of Vietnam, where he was assigned to CCN, MACV-SOG. He was the S-3 Plans Officer, then the S-1, followed by Company Be (Hatchet Force) Commander until his return to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was the Chief of Phase IV training to enlisted Special Forces Soldiers. | After his discharge from active duty, he joined the 12th Special Forces (Reserve) and served in the active Reserves until his retirement in 1996 as a full Colonel with more than 33 years service. | Colonel Nicholson was born in Springfield, Mo and grew up in Northern Arkansas and Southwest Missouri. He graduated from Missouri School of Mines with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nuclear Engineering. During the summers he worked out west for the U.S. Forest Service as a fire suppression specialist. After college he briefly worked in a Uranium mine in New Mexico before joining the U.S. Army, where his first assignment was to play Army football.