Joseph Thurman Long, Jr.

J.T. Long, Jr. was born and raised in Houston, Texas, along with his older sister Geraldine, the son of School Principal J.T. (Thurman) Long, Sr., and homemaker Freda Ramsey Long. As a fun-loving, debonaire young man, he wished to attend the University of Texas, but was unhappily sent to follow his father’s footsteps at Texas A&M, at that time an all-male military college. Upon graduation, 2nd Lieutenant Joe Long (as he was known to his friends) joined the Air Force and was trained as a pilot. Flying out of Dreux Air Base in France, he met his future wife, Patricia Cullen, a TWA Flight Attendant from New York, at a bar in Paris frequented by pilots and stewardesses.

            Married in April 1960 at the Otis AFB chapel on Cape Cod, MA, J.T. and Pat welcomed a daughter, Kelley, in June of 1961. Lieutenant Long was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in December 1960, after safely piloting and landing an AEW&Con “Warning Star” plane engulfed in flames and missing an engine and with two fire-damaged landing tires off the coast of Bermuda, saving the entire crew of 16.  Three years later, the family of three said goodbye to the glamorous life of the Cape and drove off in J.T.’s little Mercedes convertible, headed to Virginia, where then Captain Long served at the Pentagon. A second daughter, Elizabeth, was added to the mix in April of 1964, just before a plum assignment as the Asst. Air Attaché at the US Embassy in Cairo moved the family overseas to Africa. After three glorious years jetting around the Mediterranean, J.T. and family were sent back to the States, in preparation for an upcoming tour in Vietnam. They brought back very few pictures from Cairo, but multiple crates of slides and 8mm film documenting those years that have remained unseen!

            After 14 months piloting tactical airlift C130s in Southeast Asia, Major Long returned stateside on a stretcher following a devasting training flight crash (he was not piloting) and was awarded a Bronze Star. Stationed at the Pentagon again, he was promoted to Lt. Colonel in 1972, just before moving to Montgomery, Alabama to attend the Air War College for a year. Another fabulous posting, this time to the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe (S.H.A.P.E.) in Belgium, prompted another overseas move for the family. Promoted again in 1977, Colonel Long moved the family back to Virginia, and finished out his Air Force career as the Chief of Readiness Branch, Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. He transitioned to The Link Division of Singer Corp. for a time, until he left the paid working world for good to volunteer for the Red Cross Station at Walter Reed Hospital.

            After his first marriage ended, Jay Long reconnected with a friend from Cairo, and he and Tarpley Mann Richards were married on September 26th, 1987, and lived happily in Chevy Chase, MD. A life-long handyman, Jay spent his retirement puttering around the house and in the garden, by which we mean he added an addition and completely remodeled the interior and hardscaped the backyard with walls and a deck. Throughout his familial life, he tolerated the many Siamese and Himalayan kitties that came into his homes, until one day he saw a puppy in a store window and found the true love of his life. He and his beloved Shih Tzu, Jake, decided the bachelor life was for them and moved to Bethesda, where they had to please only themselves and could put their feet on the coffee table at all times, and nobody made any demands of them.

            Jay was a taciturn, sober man (well, a sober personality, anyway), a secretive man (probably learned from his military training as a reconnaissance officer), a sentimental sender and saver of cards and letters, a lover of Chapstick and fine Scotch, and a dryly witty man. He was a prodigious reader and list maker, loved doing crossword puzzles (in ink!), clipping things out of the paper or catalogs, making spreadsheets, and forwarding unverified chain e-mails. He delighted in choosing cars for himself and loved ones, had a prodigious sweet tooth (particularly for Oreos and Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio ice cream,) and always brought his grandkids chocolate-covered donuts. He loved his girls beyond measure and considered himself blessed to be their father. He is greatly missed by those who loved him. We imagine him flying a plane around Heaven, with Jake as his co-pilot.

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