“For those of you who will serve in the military, we greatly appreciate your patriotism and sacrifice. Until then, enjoy your time here at URI. It’s some of the best times of your life, and life can get pretty hard pretty fast.”
The Honorable Thomas O’Connell ‘68 never set out to become one of the highest-ranking defense officials in America. The young man from Jamestown entered URI set on earning a degree and attending law school. Then he joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, one thing led to another and, in 2003, he was named U.S. assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.
In college, the former Phi Gamma Delta fraternity president and economics major was just looking for an extra $50 a month when he joined Army ROTC. “I had no intention of making a military career,” he said during an October visit to URI. O’Connell, who carries a civilian rank equivalent to a four-star general and has multiple security clearances, came to Kingston to meet current ROTC members and offer insight into the halls of the closely guarded world of special operations. “When I go around the country, it’s very difficult to talk to the man on the street who doesn’t get the intelligence reports I do,” he said.
Nominated by President George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, O’Connell oversees roughly 52,000 special operations personnel that include civilian employees through ultra-secret units the military publicly refuses to acknowledge. He works with an $8.5 billion budget and collaborates with General “Doug” Brown at the U.S. Special Operations Command. Brown reports to the secretary of defense and the president.
“I think we have the world’s finest special operations forces,” O’Connell said, pointing to his presentation that listed units across the globe with missions as varied as hunting terrorists to intercepting illicit drugs.
As he surveyed his slides annotated with dozens of military abbreviations—SEAL for Sea, Air, Land; USD for Undersecretary of Defense—he apologized to the audience and said he had been tempted to send a memo to his staff stating that the Defense Department was “quickly running out of acronyms” and suggesting using Greek or Russian letters to augment English.
O’Connell spends much of his time planning for the worst. He told the ROTC cadets that one of the biggest threats facing the United States is a terrorist setting off a bomb surrounded by nuclear material that could release hazardous materials for miles. Terrorists use drugs to help fund their operations, and that’s why O’Connell oversees a budget of more than $1 billion for counter-narcotics activities ranging from drug testing to interdiction.
This is not what O’Connell expected to be doing when he began his military career as an infantry officer serving in Germany with the 4th Armored Division. He was later sent to Vietnam as a military advisor whose duties included working on the PHOENIX Program, a concentrated effort by U.S. forces to eliminate Viet Cong leaders. Decorated for valor three times in Vietnam, he was awarded the Purple Heart.
During his tour, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces raided his outpost in the Quang Ngai province, killing a sergeant. O’Connell had instructed the sergeant to move his sleeping area under a steel roof for protection and then moved off to check other positions. Just as O’Connell returned, enemy fire hit the exact position where the sergeant slept. “Officers need to constantly check that orders are followed,” O’Connell said. “In this case, I didn’t. It was a difficult lesson to learn, and I used it constantly in my military years.”
What he saw in Germany and Vietnam kept him committed to a military career. “Like many officers of my generation, I thought we could do better,” O’Connell said. “Today’s military has the same dedicated Americans we’ve always had, but we’ve been able to create unit cohesion by realistic, demanding training for our all volunteer forces.”
After Vietnam, he taught combat intelligence at the Army’s Intelligence Center and School at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., prior to spending three years in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., as an intelligence officer.
In 1980, the Army sent him on exchange duty with the British Army at the Joint Intelligence Centre in England. “That was the U.S. Army’s version of a real test—sending an Irish-Catholic to England where they were training undercover forces for Northern Ireland,” O’Connell said with a laugh.
In 1985, he attended the Navy War College in Newport, graduating with highest distinction, and then returned to the special operations world where he served for three years as director of intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg. Brigade command found him back on the “dark” side, where he commanded a special mission unit for two-and-a-half years.
He finished his career on duty with the Central Intelligence Agency in the Office of Military Affairs before retiring and spending seven years as a senior manager for Raytheon Company’s Intelligence and Information Systems.
O’Connell and his wife, Patricia Ledew O’Connell ’67, are the parents of two sons, both of whom were deployed to combat zones. Perhaps that’s why O’Connell is so passionate about engaging young people. “You come back [to visit URI] and realize there’s so much more you could have done differently, but when you’re 18, what do you know?” he said.
With a sheepish smile, O’Connell acknowledged there might be a few things he would change if he could relive his college days: “I didn’t attend a lot of classes when I was a freshman or a sophomore, but then I realized I’d be drafted if I didn’t stay in school, so I actually ended up making the Dean’s List during my senior year,” he said.
O’Connell looked over the aspiring military men seated in front of him and, without hesitation, offered his advice: “For those of you who will serve in the military, we greatly appreciate your patriotism and sacrifice. Until then, enjoy your time here at URI. It’s some of the best times of your life, and life can get pretty hard pretty fast.”
Photo By Nora Lewis
