Thomas Carlton Schafer, born and raised in Ohio, joined the Corps as an accomplished athlete and a strong Christian. His most telling character trait was that he exuded a love for life. His perpetual roommate and best friend, Mike Munson, remembers: “I didn’t just like Tommy Schafer, I loved him. I can’t even remember a time when we had a serious quarrel. I doubt a single classmate ever really did either. He just loved people. He loved being at the Academy. He loved wrestling. In fact, the only thing I’m pretty sure he didn't love was academics. He was bright, but why work so hard for an A when a B would suffice? More important things demanded his time and attention: his Motown music, his unabashed dancing in the middle of the room, starving himself to make weight, and Sandy, his fiancée.”
Tommy never spent much time focusing on himself. He was too busy encouraging others and always had a kind word for anyone down in the dumps. He was a caring and giving friend who reveled in the success of others. He listened. When he talked, it was usually to praise someone else. He loved God and showed by his example. He taught Sunday School faithfully for four years and inspired others, like his roommate, to do the same. Mike also fondly reports that “Tommy made owning a GTO sound so good, I bought one as well. There was unadulterated joy in his face driving that car. Tommy just made West Point a whole lot more bearable for me and others.”
He loved Sandy. After graduation he immediately married her and set about to proudly serve the country he loved so dearly. He and Sandy soon realized that the Army was not for them in the long term. They wanted to settle down in one place; working for Procter and Gamble seemed a good fit.
In 1978 Tom and Sandy had their first of three children, Donnie. Tom took to child-rearing like he had invented it. Elizabeth and Thomas soon followed. In 1988 Tommy and Sandy divorced to the surprise and dismay of those closest to them. The divorce hit him hard but his faith and love of his kids sustained him. He made sure he was a part of every significant event in their lives. The next year he met and fell in love with Debbie and her 3-year old son, Paul. In 1989 they married with the firm commitment that their love and faith would prevail. In 1991 Andrew came along and then Taylor was born in 1993.
Tom’s children couldn’t say enough about their father and the example he set:
Donnie was grateful for “his celebrating my successes and accepting my defeats while ever encouraging me to stay the course…for teaching me the value of hard work, teamwork, good judgment, courage and integrity.”
Elizabeth’s picture of her father conformed neatly with the man classmates knew. She said that he was creative, whether painting the mailbox or building her a dollhouse. He was generous with his time, and he lived the wisdom that he shared. “Although the divorce was painful,” shared Elizabeth, “he managed to never miss being there for every important event in my life. His love for singing and dancing, colorful shirts and shorts may have on occasion given rise to embarrassment to me as a teenager but now loom large in the admiration for the man I knew.”
Andrew focused on the life lessons his father imparted now sculpted into the sinews of his own character: “On the day I departed for college, he gave me a card that read, ‘Who you are is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God.’ My dad believed in living a beautiful life to its fullest: It’s who he was.”
Debbie’s words captured the essence of her husband: “Tom loved the Lord with all his heart and looked to always see the good in all, he believed that everyone had potential and worth, and he respected all who crossed his path. He loved his family and friends with all his heart. Tom loved holidays, gardening and was so creative. He was a person of integrity and always kept his promises. He truly lived the harder right. Tom faithfully attended church and Sunday School and made it a priority for the family to learn about the Lord.”
Tom managed, coached, consulted, reorganized, redesigned over 86 organizations in 43 different industries for over 40 years, until his battle with brain cancer forced him to quit. His classmates never forgot him. In his dying days they presented him his hard-earned, but never properly awarded, Army “A” for wrestling, bringing a smile of gratitude and humility.
His daughter Taylor remembers his last days well, as she spent hours with him, tending to his needs, talking and reading to him. “Church friends would visit him, and, in and out of consciousness, his face would light up when they’d sing hymns at his bedside. We made the scripture reading our sharing time. He was so alert and engaged, and he recited the phrases faster than I could read them. There was this unbroken bond between him and his Maker, a spiritual connection that no brain tumor would dare to taint.”
Tom Schafer’s life is best characterized by his love of God, family and friends, a love that was reciprocated by all who knew him. He died full of hope for his glorious future. We should all be so blest.
— William Michael Munson