April 9, 1939
Private Manuel Chavez Sees ‘Colonel Tommy’ Laid to Rest. __ Private
First Class Manuel G. Chavez of Troop F, Seventh Cavalry, Fort Bliss,
has blown taps at 257 funeral services. When the late Colonel Selah H.
R. (“Tommy”) Tompkins died recently at San Antonio, to be buried there,
Fort Bliss officials arranged for Chavez to fly to the last rites, to
fulfill a request made by Colonel Tompkins nearly 12 years ago. Bugler
Chavez told the detail as tears welled from his serious, dark eyes. “The
day before Colonel Tompkins was retired from the army at Fort Bliss, in
1927, he said to me, ‘Chavez, when I die I’d like for you to blow taps
at my funeral service.’ I am happy that I was able to do it, for I
loved Colonel ‘Tommy’ and I think that he loved me. I feel his death
deeply, and it is different when you know a real friend has passed.” Colonel
Tompkins returned to Fort Bliss to take command of the Seventh Cavalry,
his old regiment, just before retirement in 1927. The first
acquaintance between the Colonel and Chavez flowered at Camp Stanley,
near San Antonio, in 1920, where the former was in command. Chavez was
then a member of a Texas National Guard unit and spent several summers
at the camp as a guardsman. He “clicked” with the picturesque commander
and a manly mutual affection developed. “During the years I was
there,” Chavez went on, “the colonel used to talk pretty hard to me
sometimes but I knew that I was in his heart. Shortly before he retired
he asked me to join his old regiment, the 7th Cavalry, so I could be
there when he left it. That was the least I could do for a man who had
so befriended me.” Chavez is a diminutive trooper, five feet, two
inches tall, but carries himself with the bearing that proves his pride
in the military service. He is rated one of the best buglers at Fort
Bliss. His home is in San Antonio.
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