From Smokejumper to Top Gun — A Life of Courage, Flight, Family, and Adventure

Some lives follow a carefully drawn path.

Tom Tutt’s did not.

His journey carried him from the forests of Montana to wildland fires throughout the American West, from parachuting out of airplanes as a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper to flying high-performance military aircraft, from the war in Vietnam to the worldwide William Tell weapons competition, and eventually into business, entrepreneurship, family life, and authorship.

It is difficult to describe Tom with a single title.

Forester.

Smokejumper.

Air Force officer.

Vietnam veteran.

Aircrew member.

Top Gun.

Businessman.

Husband.

Father.

Author.

All are correct.

But perhaps the thread connecting them is something Tom learned early from his family—a Finnish idea his father called Sisu: strength, toughness, determination, and the refusal to quit when something matters. Tom would carry that idea throughout his life.

Roots Built on Hard Work

Tom’s story began before he was born.

His grandfather, George Tutt, was born in Narva, Estonia, in 1872. With little formal education but an extraordinary amount of practical intelligence, George eventually worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, building steam engines and even participated in railroad work associated with Siberia.

Around 1900, he immigrated to the United States.

After working in New York—including shoveling coal for the Edison Company and working as a steel rigger—George purchased land in northern Wisconsin and created a life from the wilderness with his family.

Those stories of immigration, farming, logging, road building, ingenuity, and survival became part of the Tutt family identity.

Tom was born on October 26, 1943, while his father was serving in the Army Air Corps. He eventually grew up in Elkhart, Indiana, surrounded by family stories of work, service, independence, and perseverance.

Even as a boy, Tom was drawn toward the outdoors.

Scouting introduced him to camping, hiking, pioneering, navigation, and self-reliance. One obstacle was Morse code. When Tom struggled with it, his Scoutmaster explained that pilots, explorers, and sea captains had learned it—and if Tom wanted to become one of those people, he would simply have to work harder.

Tom did.

It was an early lesson he never forgot:

If something matters enough, put in the effort required to master it.

Forestry, Montana, and a Different Kind of Education

After graduating from high school in 1961, Tom headed west to study forestry at the University of Montana in Missoula.

His reason for choosing Montana was characteristically Tom: of the schools he considered, Montana was the only one that would not refund his application fee.

So Montana it was.

It turned out to be one of the most important decisions of his life.

Montana gave Tom an education far beyond the classroom.

He studied forestry, economics, surveying, timber management, fire behavior, and the practical realities of working in the forests of the American West.

He also learned independence.

There were hitchhiking adventures across Montana and Washington, summer Forest Service assignments, fraternity life, field camps, fishing, skiing, and friendships that would last a lifetime.

More importantly, Montana introduced him to Janet.

Tom and Janet met while he was in college, and what began as dating became a relationship that would define the rest of his life.

They would eventually share more than half a century together. Tom repeatedly describes Janet in his memoir not only as his wife, but as the person who steadied him, supported him, challenged him, and helped him make many of the most important decisions of his life.

Into the Fire

Tom entered wildland firefighting through the U.S. Forest Service.

His early experience included working on a Hot Shot crew, where he learned just how rapidly a wildfire could become dangerous.

One experience nearly cost the crew their lives.

While fighting a fire in Wyoming, Tom’s crew was ordered into a position that an experienced crew leader recognized as deadly. As fire roared uphill toward them, the crew prepared a defensive position while an aerial tanker made a low-level retardant drop directly over them.

The drop hit its mark.

The crew survived.

Tom took away a lesson that would reappear repeatedly throughout his life:

Good judgment matters. Experience matters. And when circumstances become critical, know whom you can trust.

But Hot Shot firefighting was only the beginning.

Tom wanted to become a smokejumper.

Smokejumper

Smokejumpers represented one of the most demanding elements of wildland firefighting.

They did not drive to remote fires.

They flew over them.

Then jumped out.

Smokejumper training required weeks of intense physical conditioning, parachute training, survival instruction, firefighting preparation, and exercises deliberately designed to eliminate anyone who did not possess the determination required to continue.

Tom remembered his father’s word:

Sisu.

Courage.

Strength.

Determination.

Never quit.

And he stayed.

His first parachute jump had one particularly remarkable detail:

Before that day, Tom had never been in an airplane. This should be surprising, since the first day Tom was ever in an airplane, was the first day he jumped out of an airplane in a parachute.

The aircraft was a Ford Trimotor—the famous “Tin Goose.”

Tom climbed aboard, reached jump altitude, took his position at the open door, received a slap on the shoulder from the jumpmaster and the words, “See you on the ground,” and went out.

His parachute opened.

His landing was slightly less graceful.

Tom later described it as a perfect three-point landing:

feet, nose, and butt.

It would be the first of many jumps.

Soon the jumps became real.

Tom parachuted into remote forests to attack fires while they were still small enough to control. He learned to land in rough terrain, descend from trees, operate with limited supplies, navigate wilderness country, and solve problems with whatever resources were available.

On one fire jump, he became suspended roughly fifty feet above the ground from a weakened snag and had to be carefully talked through a nonstandard descent.

On another, his parachute caught high in a Douglas fir so enormous that even a 150-foot letdown rope did not reach the ground.

There were fires, helicopters, rock slides, jet boats, hundred-pound packs, long hikes, dangerous aircraft, and more than a few moments when judgment mattered more than strength.

Those years built an extraordinary foundation for the life that followed.

Janet

While Tom was learning how to jump out of airplanes, another part of his life was taking shape.

Janet remained beside him.

Tom and Janet had dated for several years before becoming engaged almost spontaneously while looking through the window of a jewelry store. When Tom asked which ring she liked, Janet pointed one out.

They went inside.

She tried it on.

Tom bought it.

And suddenly, as Tom later put it, he realized:

“I guess…I was engaged.”

They married on September 17 and began a partnership that would survive military deployments, Vietnam, children, career changes, entrepreneurship, aviation, and all the uncertainty accompanying a life that rarely remained still.

Tom’s memoir is ultimately as much a story about Janet and family as it is about airplanes.

He dedicated the book simply:

To my son Chris and daughter Stephanie
And to my wife Jan.
I will always love you!!!

The United States Air Force

As college neared its end, Vietnam was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid.

Tom initially considered the Navy because he dreamed of flying from aircraft carriers. Administrative problems derailed that route, and eventually he turned to the United States Air Force.

Within days of contacting an Air Force recruiter, Tom passed the officer and flying examinations and qualified for flight training.

His military aviation career had begun.

Tom attended Officer Training School and then navigator training at Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, California.

From there he moved into sophisticated interceptor operations.

He trained in the T-33 before transitioning into the F-101 Voodoo, learning radar interception, weapons employment, navigation, and the demanding teamwork required of high-performance military aircrews.

It was an extraordinary transition.

Only a few years earlier, Tom’s first airplane ride had ended with him jumping out of a Ford Trimotor.

Now he was part of the crew of a supersonic interceptor.

Vietnam

Eventually came the assignment Tom and Janet had hoped would never arrive.

Vietnam.

Tom was married, had a young son, Chris, and Janet was pregnant with their second child.

The new baby would arrive while Tom was overseas.

There was little choice but to prepare.

Janet and Chris returned to her parents while Tom went to war. Their daughter, Stephanie, was born while he was away.

Tom’s Vietnam experience would ultimately encompass far more than a single location.

His memoir records experiences connected with Vietnam, Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay, China Beach, typhoons, rocket attacks, Thailand, and service as a detachment commander. The table of contents alone reflects how deeply that period shaped his story, with chapters devoted to Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay Hospital, Da Nang, China Beach, Typhoon Hester, “Rocket City,” Thailand, and his eventual journey home.

Behind all of it was the separation from his family.

After six months away, Tom finally received leave and flew home.

When he reached San Francisco, he called Janet.

He had not heard her voice for six months.

He later admitted that he nearly cried standing at the pay phone.

When he finally arrived in Missoula, Janet was waiting with Chris—and with the daughter he had never met.

Tom was introduced to little Stephanie for the first time.

Of all the extraordinary events in Tom’s life, moments like that may tell us more about him than airplanes ever could.

Coming Home

Returning from war did not mean leaving aviation behind.

Tom eventually settled with Janet and their children in Oregon.

He built a civilian career in the lumber industry while continuing to fly with the Oregon Air National Guard.

The schedule could be brutal.

Tom might begin his day working as a lumber trader, rush home for dinner with his family, change into a flight suit, drive to the Guard base, brief for an evening mission, fly, debrief, finish paperwork late at night, go home—and repeat the process again the next morning.

He did this while helping raise Chris and Stephanie with Janet.

Flying, however, remained one of the great passions of Tom’s life.

And eventually one telephone call would give him the opportunity to pursue a dream.

William Tell

The William Tell Worldwide Weapons Meet represented the highest level of competition for Air Defense fighter units.

Tom had wanted to compete there for years.

Then his friend and fellow Guardsman Larry Kemp called.

Larry asked Tom to crew with him for the upcoming William Tell competition.

The opportunity arrived at a difficult time. Tom had spent fourteen years working in the lumber business, but he had become dissatisfied with changes in the company.

Tom and Janet sat down and discussed their future.

Take the safe road?

Or take the chance?

They chose the chance.

Tom left his job, committed himself to the Guard and the William Tell preparation, and eventually established his own business, Double T Forest Products.

For months, Tom, Larry, their fellow aircrews, and their maintenance teams prepared.

Then they traveled to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida for the competition.

William Tell tested far more than flying.

Crews were evaluated across demanding intercept and weapons profiles that required precision from pilots, weapon systems officers, ground controllers, maintenance personnel, aircraft, radar, and missiles.

Everything had to work.

During the competition, Tom and Larry eventually reached the live missile profile.

They launched an AIM-7 radar-guided missile against the target and maintained the radar lock required to guide it.

After landing, Tom kept the missile safety pin from the aircraft.

He still had it decades later.

That small metal pin would become one of his most treasured aviation souvenirs.

Then came the results.

Tom walked to the scoreboard.

Beside the highest F4 Phantom score were two names:

Larry Kemp and Tom Tutt.

At the awards ceremony, their squadron finished second overall and its maintenance teams also received honors.

Then Tom heard his own name.

He had been named:

Top Gun — F4 Competition

For a man whose first airplane ride had been the airplane he jumped out of, the journey was extraordinary.

Smokejumper to Top Gun.

The title of his eventual memoir practically wrote itself. The one thing that made this memory even cooler was Don Carter was at this event witnessing it all.

Where Tom and Don’s Stories Crossed

William Tell also created another relationship that would matter many years later.

Donald E. Carter had been invited with others by the Oregon Air National Guard to attend the William Tell competition at Tyndall Air Force Base.

That was where Don met Tom.

At the time, neither could have known that the meeting would eventually extend far beyond aviation.

Years later, their friendship would reconnect through another adventure entirely:

Flying in Don’s Twin Comanche for $100 hamburgers, Fly Fishing and Books.

Tom’s story would ultimately become part of Walker Carter Publishing.

Entrepreneur

Leaving his established lumber career was not the end of Tom’s business life.

It was the beginning of another chapter.

Tom founded Double T Forest Products, initially operating from a spare bedroom.

His first desk was an unfinished door with legs attached.

He added telephone lines, printers, a modem, and a computer.

And went to work.

Tom understood lumber.

He understood customers.

He understood markets.

And perhaps most importantly, he understood that remaining still while a market changed was usually more dangerous than changing with it.

That instinct would surface again.

Der Grosshandler

Another entrepreneurial chapter followed with Der Grosshandler, a wholesale business built around products and gift-show markets.

Tom and Janet traveled the trade-show circuit, developed customers, operated a warehouse, and adapted their business as retail changed.

Then came the internet.

Once again, Tom and Janet recognized that the environment around them was changing.

They created a website.

Online orders began replacing traditional retail business, particularly during the holiday season. They experimented with eBay and Amazon while watching the traditional gift-show industry gradually decline.

Rather than blindly continue a business model they knew was changing, they chose when to leave.

Even when a couple offered to purchase the company using their sons’ college funds, Tom and Janet declined because they believed the buyers would likely fail.

They would rather walk away than allow another family to risk its future on a business model they no longer trusted.

That decision says something important about both of them.

Business mattered.

People mattered more.

Family Above Everything

Aircraft and adventure occupy much of Tom’s story, but underneath them is another constant:

family.

Janet stood beside Tom from their college years onward.

Chris and Stephanie grew up while their father balanced civilian work with military flying.

At times Tom’s life demanded long hours, deployments, night flying, travel, and risk.

But his memoir repeatedly comes home to the same people.

Janet.

Chris.

Stephanie.

Parents.

Grandparents.

Friends.

Squadron mates.

Smokejumpers.

Friends.

The people who shared the journey mattered as much as the journey itself.

Tom and Janet were married for more than half a century.

In writing about their early marriage, Tom recalled a honeymoon that was hardly luxurious and concluded with a lesson that may summarize much of his philosophy:

It was never about how much money you spent or where you went.

It was about who you were with.

Smokejumper to Top Gun

Eventually Tom began writing his story.

The result became:

Smokejumper to Top Gun: A Journey Through Time

Published through Walker Carter Publishing, LLC, the book preserves something more valuable than a collection of adventures.

It preserves a life.

The copyright page identifies Tom as the author and Donald E. Carter as responsible for the book's cover design and layout—another small connection between the friendship that began around aviation and eventually continued through publishing.

The memoir moves through nearly every major chapter of Tom’s life:

his family history,

childhood,

college,

the Forest Service,

smokejumping,

marriage,

the Air Force,

Vietnam,

Thailand,

Portland,

the Oregon Air National Guard,

the F-101 Voodoo,

the F-4 Phantom,

William Tell,

the F-15 transition,

and finally decades of entrepreneurship.

But the title captures the part of the journey that almost sounds impossible.

A young forestry student who had never ridden in an airplane climbed into a Ford Trimotor.

He jumped out.

Years later, he climbed into some of the most sophisticated military aircraft of his era.

And eventually he stood on a stage at one of the world's premier military aviation competitions and accepted the title:

Top Gun.

Sisu

Perhaps there is one word capable of tying Tom Tutt’s story together after all.

It is not pilot.

It is not smokejumper.

It is not businessman.

It is not even Top Gun.

It is the word his father taught him: Sisu.

The determination to keep going when something is difficult.

The courage to act when action is required.

The toughness to endure.

The judgment to recognize when a path needs to change.

And the conviction to finish what you begin.

It took Tom from the forests of Montana to the skies over Southeast Asia.

From parachuting into wilderness fires to supersonic military aviation.

From a spare-bedroom lumber company to entrepreneurship.

From a friendship forged around airplanes to a book preserved decades later through Walker Carter Publishing.

Tom Tutt has lived the kind of life that sounds fictional until you realize there are photographs, flight records, military memories, family stories—and one old AIM-7 missile safety pin—to prove otherwise.