Tom Lough

Tom Lough attended the US Military Academy, graduating in 1964. While there he competed on the intramural triathlon team, which then encompassed running, swimming, and shooting. He also trained at West Point in fencing, competing at the 1963 and 1964 NCAA Championships, which set him up well for the modern pentathlon. After graduation, however, Lough served in Vietnam with the 326th Engineers, 101st Airborne. Less than a year after the 1968 Olympics, he was shot down in a Huey over Hamburger Hill on 12 May 1969. Captain Lough was leading a team of combat engineers, yet still managed to clear a landing zone for the infantry unit of “Iron Rakkasans” below, for which he received a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

In 1969, upon his return from Vietnam, Lough completed the Officer Advanced Course at the US Army Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia and then entered a masters’ program at The Ohio State University, training in geodetic sciences for his military career and earning his masters in 1972. He left the Army in 1974 as a Major, and returned to his hometown in the Shenandoah Valley to teach high school. From 1978-83 he studied physics at the University of Virginia, and then taught physics for five years at a local community college. Lough then worked for the LEGO Company in an educational position, helping develop science, technology, and robotics LEGO sets for schools. He also studied educational psychology at UVa, and was in the MBA program at the University of Hartford. Lough later became a professor of science education at Murray State University in Kentucky. Lough has also served as somewhat of a historian and “class chairman” for the 1968 USA Olympians.