Thomas S. Cushing

Thomas S. Cushing, 83 a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General died, February 5, 2020.

General Cushing served 33 years in the U.S. Army, two years active duty and 31 years Reserve. After thirteen months in Korea with the First Battle Group, Seventh Cavalry, First Cavalry Division, and a short time at the Ft. Dix training center, he returned to Lancaster, New York, in 1960 where he managed a pharmacy for twenty years. He also joined the Army Reserve and was a staff member of the 1151st Buffalo Army Reserve School with subsequent assignments, first as the G-3 (Assistant Chief of staff. Operations) with the 98th Training Division headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. and then as commander of the 98th Battalion in Buffalo, N.Y.

In 1980, he moved to the Washington, D.C. area and was employed in the Pentagon by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy) in the Defense Guidance office and later in the Defense Security Assistance Agency as the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program manager. In his Reserve role, he was assigned as Commandant of the 2071st Baltimore U.S. Army Reserve School in Owings Mills, MD. Subsequently, he was assigned for a short time to the 352nd Civil Affairs Brigade in Riverdale, MD before becoming the Chief of Staff of the 97th Army Reserve Command (ARCOM) at Ft. Meade, MD. In September, 1987, he was promoted to Brigadier General and assigned as the Deputy Commanding General of the 97th ARCOM. He retired from the Reserve in 1991.

General Cushing moved to Shepherdstown in 1991 and was employed by the Veterans Health Administration in Martinsburg as the Director of National Programs, regarding disaster/terrorist response. He retired from Civil Service in 2002.

General Cushing was a native of Lancaster, N.Y. and moved to Hoechst, Germany in 1946 as an Army dependent with his family, his father having been assigned to General Eisenhower’s staff in Frankfurt. Two years later he returned to Arlington, VA, while his father was assigned to the Pentagon. General Cushing graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, and was a Distinguished Military Graduate from ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) at Yale University. He is also a graduate of the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, and the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA in 1979.

Survivors include is wife Diane of Shepherdstown, WV; his previous wife, Francesca Bombara of Northboro, MA; three children, Jennifer Toth of Framingham, MA, Thomas S. Cushing III of Fort Mill, SC and Christopher R. Cushing of Framingham, MA, and five grandchildren.