SSgt. Porter Thomas was a highly decorated Unity tanker, serving in the 1982 Alaskan War.
Born in 1955, Porter grew up on a farm in western Idaho, Porter was the second of three brothers. During school, Porter was very intelligent, doing well in most of his classes. During his junior year in high school, Porter suffered a traumatic event. One night in 1973, a home invader broke into his home, attacking his mother. Porter, being a farm boy and an avid hunter, kept a 10 gauge pump-action shotgun in his room. After sneaking into the kitchen, where the invader was keeping his mother at knifepoint. When Porter got at an angle where a shot wouldn't hit his mother, Porter racked a round of buckshot into the chamber. The home invader, possibly drunk, turned and attacked Porter. Porter fired three times, killing the assailant and saving his mother. This experience would stay with him for the rest of his life, all the way through his time serving with Unity, he would carry a 12 gauge shotgun with him.
After graduating college in 1977, Porter bounced from job to job as he tried to find something to devote his life to. In 1980, he joined Unity as a tank commander.
In 1982, with the rumors of war on the horizon, Porter went on leave to visit his parents. His father, a family man, gave his son the family heirloom: Porter's grandfathers' M97 Trench Gun from his service in the Pacific.
Deployed with the 2nd Armored Division, Porter suffered from a severe case of bad luck. On the second day of the invasion, an Alaskan anti-tank team managed to put a rocket into the side of Porter's turret at a range of no more than 15 yards, killing both the loader and gunner. Porter and the driver were forced to bail out, purposely detonating the 105mm ammunition inside, blowing the turret off, but not before getting their comrades out of the tank, marking the first of only 30 tank losses suffered during the Alaskan War. Porter received a new tank and a new gunner and loader. Porter's second tank lasted for a month and a half of straight combat before taking a direct hit from an Alaskan artillery shell of unknown caliber, hitting the barrel and the top of the turret, disabling the main gun and blowing the machine guns off the roof. His tank was, again disabled, and the crew bailed out. SSgt. Porter and his men hid behind their busted tank and fought for an hour until reinforcements arrived.
At this point, Porter was an ace, having killed seven BB-12 armored cars, the closest things the Alaskans had to a tank. After an uneventful reassignment to a third new tank and two and a half months of flank guards, Porter and his crew were rotated out and sent home. Porter would not see another tour of combat. Upon returning home, the Staff Sergeant returned the Trench Gun to his father, with almost two dozen tick marks in the wooden stock, signifying kills.
SSgt. Porter would retire from Unity in 1983, and settled down with his wife and later had two kids. Porter suffered from what would later be known as PTSD.
The perceptive of you who saw my M28A2 Basilisk TUSK II post would notice my referencing the particular tank named "Scythe", commanded by one Staff Sergeant Aiden Thomas. This is obviously one of Porter Thomas' kids.