Tom as a Cadet
at West Point |
Tom Gudmestad loves coming in contact with history. He has traveled to the Western Front thirty times since 1971 and, during that same period, has interviewed and corresponded with over 500 veterans of the Great War. He is shown above making a presentation on the Battle of Blanc Mont at the 2005 Seminar of the Great War Society.
Tom has met some of the last of Great Britain's Old Contemptibles, Canadians who captured Vimy Ridge on Easter Monday of 1917 and US Marines who fought at Belleau Wood. He has recorded their experiences and now enjoys passing on their accounts to others interested in WWI. He has also published fifteen articles on the war and has spoken to the annual seminars of the Western Front Association and Great War Society on several topics, including the disposal of WWI ordnance in Belgian Flanders.
Living in Seattle, Tom operates "Tommys Books" - a specialty WWI book business - out of his home. He is employed as the Operations Battalion Chief for King County's Medic One paramedic program. Since 1994, he has joined Frank Jordan in leading annual tours to the WWI battlefields in France and Flanders.
Tom Gudmestad is second from the left in this 1974 Pulitzer Prize-Winning photo of four weary
firefighters, titled, 'After the Battle', by Jerry Gay of the Seattle Times.
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