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Protected by a web of friends, the Jenkins family spoke to no outsiders during the week following Thom's death. When they finally did, it was to reminisce for several hours as the warm winter sun sank behind the mountains. They shed no tears, but rather smiled and even laughed as the memories poured forth. Though pain seemed to burn in their eyes, the healing had begun.
Just five days after hearing of Thom's death, his parents received a letter written a few days before he died. He wrote that he had never seen so many planes in his life, and that he expected to head into Kuwait after the bombing had softened up the Iraqis. He had latched onto an infantry corporal who knew his business. "He's teaching me a lot," Thom wrote. "It's weird, but I'm not scared. Nervous, I guess, but not scared. I've been preparing for this for a year now, and ((Aunt)) Jean would probably say I'm brainwashed, but I've joined the Marines to do something for the U.S., and why not the best?" The letter ends, "Take care. I love you."
Last Christmas his parents sent Thom a 35-mm camera, and the photos from the roll he mailed home in January are among his family's greatest treasures. One shows Thom clowning around in a red-checked kaffiyeh under a camouflage net. Another portrays him standing in his tent, an M-16 on his arm and a cigarette hanging jauntily from his mouth. Several others show his light armored vehicle, hauntingly dubbed "Blaze of Glory." Painted on one side is a cartoon of an armed Saddam Hussein atop a camel, his body framed within the cross hairs. Says Dan Bartok, Thom's boss back when he spent a summer fighting fires for the U.S. Forest Service: "We figure he'd have pulled the mustache off of Saddam Hussein."
Thom's roots are deep in the rocky mountain soil, stretching back seven generations to Coulterville's first settlers. His forefathers arrived in the 1850s, shortly after the California gold rush began. This proud heritage infused every bit of his 6-ft. 1-in., 180-lb. frame. In some of Thom's desert pictures, his greenish-brown eyes, often hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, are filled with the glint of a growing confidence as he began to make his way in the world. His bearing betrayed a lifelong fascination with the military. Thom often wore camouflage pants and shirts, and he spent weekends playing survivalist in the mountains around his family's 160-acre ranch up toward Yosemite. His high school classmates picked him as the best companion on a desert island.
Though Thom took a lot of teasing about his paramilitary pursuits, he fascinated some kids at Mariposa County High School with tales about a secret cave called Havoc, where he claimed to have stored a cache of weapons. Thom could identify knives and guns with uncanny precision, and his military obsession gave rise to a nickname, "G.I. Jenkins." Another was "Indiana Jenkins," since Thom often sported a hat like Indiana Jones' in Raiders of the Lost Ark, his favorite movie. Says his cousin Ed Jenkins: "He was always a dreamer, dreaming of exciting places." His high school yearbook announced, "Expect the best from your future."