Shields retires from Missouri Guard after decades of service

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tommy Shields cut the cake to mark his retirement from the Missouri Army National Guard. Shields leaves the Guard after 37 years, the last few spent as base operations supervisor at Camp Crowder in Neosho, Missouri. (Ann Keyes/Missouri National Guard)

By Ann Keyes
ngmo.pao@us.army.mil

NEOSHO, Mo. - Thirty-seven years following enlistment, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tommy Shields has retired from the Missouri Army National Guard.

"The two best decisions I ever made were joining the Guard and going to work for the Guard fulltime," said Shields at an informal retirement luncheon at Camp Crowder in Neosho where he spent the last 20 years of his military career.

Civilians and Guard Soldiers came out to honor Shields Dec. 29, the second to last day of his fulltime work for the Guard. Coworkers served a feast of turkey, beef, potatoes and more to Shields and his family and friends. Shields cut a large cake designed as an Army tank, then noted he'd be getting back to his office soon after.

"It's been a busy last two months leading up to this day, before the official end," said Shields, base operations supervisor at Crowder, a more than 4300-acre property in southwest Missouri that has provided training for some 62,000 people over the last two years of Shields tenure.

Noting emails were still coming in fast and furious, the next week Shields would be looking at a different set of chores, a 'honey-do' list provided by his wife of 33 years, Dodie Shields.

But Shields penultimate day at Crowder was much about looking back, back at 37 years of Missouri Guard service.

Originally from Noel, Shields joined the Guard for a paycheck during tough economic times, he said, but he quickly adapted to military service, graduating from officer candidate school in 1977. Shields reached the rank of major before becoming a warrant officer in order to secure a position at Camp Crowder.

Over the course of his career, Shields deployed in 2003 to Iraq, a tough assignment then and later, but one made more difficult by primitive conditions in the early part of the Iraqi military campaign, Shields said. He deployed again to Iraq in 2007, both times serving as a combat engineer for units under the 203rd Engineer Battalion, based in Joplin.

Shields earned numerous ribbons, medals and medallions over his years with the National Guard, the Overseas Service Ribbon, Humanitarian Service Medal and Bronze Star among them, but his position at Camp Crowder is perhaps his greatest of military achievements.

"We provide (improvised explosive device) training using realistic simulators. We have a nine-station air assault course. We have a tactical training area, provide land navigation day and night; we have bridge training and mobile operations urban training, in addition to the firing ranges. We train people to go to war. That's what we do," said Shields.

In addition to his service in Iraq, Shields has trained and served in Germany, Honduras, Japan, Korea, Kuwait and Panama, he said.

"The Guard has been great to me. I've traveled the world."

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Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tommy Shields leaves the Missouri Army National Guard after 37 years of service, the last few as base operations supervisor at Camp Crowder in Neosho, Missouri. (Ann Keyes/Missouri National Guard)