Thomas Felts remembered

Tommy Felts, a 27-year Army veteran who traveled the world and died in Iraq on Tuesday, will be buried next week in the place he loved most.

"No matter how much he accomplished, Tommy just wanted to be a boy from Sandston," the colonel's sister, Missy Felts-Wonders, said yesterday. "He was a small-town kid that everybody knew and loved."

In a community where the streets carry the names of Confederate generals, where Virginia National Guard helicopters and jets fly overhead, and where historical markers delineate the progress of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign during the Civil War, it's easy to understand military service as a calling for young people.

But military life carries a toll that's measured in Sandston as well, in the rows of grave markers at Seven Pines National Cemetery on the edge of town.

"That's where my brother wanted to be buried, although he could have gone to Arlington," Felts-Wonders said, referring to Arlington National Cemetery near Washington.

Col. Thomas Holt Felts Sr., 45, died outside Baghdad when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. Family mem bers were told the colonel, who was the highest-ranking American victim of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the 100th soldier to die from Virginia, died instantly.

Also killed was Felt's gunner; a driver and translator were seriously injured.

The burial at Seven Pines will happen Wednesday after a funeral service at the University of Richmond Chapel. That's where Felts was saved, his sister said. The acceptance of Christ in his life came during his college years.

"It sounds cornball. But Tommy's model was Jesus and he saw service to the president and his love for his country as a way to express his religion and his life as a military man," Felts-Wonders said.

The politics of the recent election -- regarded by some as a reflection of the country's growing discomfort with war -- did not alter his faith or his mission, she said.

"He was responsible for overseeing the training of the Iraqi army and he saw that as a way to help bring the ideals of our country and its opportunities to another people," she said.

The news of Felts' death traveled fast in Sandston, a place surrounded by sprawling suburbs and a growing airport but where reliable information still comes from the pulpit.

"Most people here will learn about what happened and the funeral arrangements for Tommy when they go to church Sunday," said T.C. Williams, who learned of Felts' death at the local barber shop.

"I learned from Annie Pearl, Tommy's aunt," said Jimmy Mehfoud, owner of the pharmacy that carries the family name. An egg sandwich with onions and mayonnaise there with coffee still costs $2.50. "And I get more than one cup," said Williams, a regular customer.

There was an announcement over the public address system at Varina High School yesterday morning and last night, the Varina-Clover Hill High School football game began with a moment of silence in Felts' memory.

Felts was a smart student in high school, "not a brilliant one," his sister said. He loved the theater and met his future wife there; he played football and baseball; family reunions attracted so many people that they were held at the American Legion Post in town.

Wallace and Ann Felts, his parents, met at Seven Pines Restaurant, and later became its owners, running it for some 30 years. It's a car-repair shop now and the location of the barbershop where Williams heard the sad news.

The owner of the shop is Melanie McManama, whose husband, Doug, was awarded a Purple Heart for his heroism in Iraq. He was recovering at home yesterday from surgery tied to his war wounds.

The Felts family lived above the restaurant for years and the kids -- Billy, Tommy and Missy -- were a common sight; they did the dishes, swept the floors, and did their homework at empty tables.

Thanksgiving this year was to have been the first gathering of all three children in 18 years. The colonel was finally getting leave; the brothers and sisters -- in Northern Virginia, Iraq, and Colorado -- would finally be in one place.

When he was at Varina, Tommy counseled kids at Seven Pines Elementary and other schools about life in high school.

He almost got booted his senior year for missing an English class. He was writing songs in the cafeteria with a girl he knew.

Yesterday the family recalled how Ann Felts, a native of Germany, taught her children about the burdens of war, but Ann "Tommy used to say she has the constitution of a battleship," said Missy -- never let the kids forget to care for people in even the hardest times.

"My parents hardly had two nickels to rub together but they would do anything for people and us children were the first priority. They even used to close the restaurant in the afternoon, so we could do our homework and we would all be together as a family."

Ann is 74, a widow since Wallace's death in 1982, and yesterday at her home she said she wishes only this: "I want my son back home and to have him buried up there in our town, up on the corner at Seven Pines. He was the best, the best."

Felts leaves his wife, Kimberly Waldrop Felts, and four children, Sara Beth, LeAnna Rachel, Rebekah Vivian, and Thomas Holt Jr., all of Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

From the Times Dispatch

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