MMC(SS) Tom Postulka • 1952

Honor Pages Index

GRANBURY - Tom Postulka, 46, died Monday, March 8, 1999, in Dallas.

Memorial service: 4 p.m. Tuesday at Southside Baptist Church in Granbury. Burial: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

Memorials: Zale-Lipshy University Hospital, 5151 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas 75235 or American Cancer Society, Hood County Unit, P.O. Box 216, Granbury 76048.

Tom Postulka was born July 16, 1952, in Chicago, Ill. He lived in Granbury for the past nine years after retiring from the Navy in 1990. He worked for TU Electric as a reactor operator.

Survivors: Daughters, Katie Marie Postulka and Lara Christine Postulka; father and stepmother, Richard and Ralf Postulka; sister, Martha Ann Weaver.

Wiley Funeral Home of Granbury (817) 573-3000

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

His friend had this to say...

"I truly hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if we are talking about the same Tom Postulka--and it seems like we are--I'm afraid he passed away about 9 or 10 years ago. I can't remember the exact date, but he was ill for some time. He was courageous to the end, and even when he knew there was no hope, he kept the seriousness of his illness from his daughters, whom he spent his last months with, indulging their every whim. He was a great friend and an honorable man and I miss him a lot. I can only guess how much he probably influenced my writing."

Tom was a friend...not close...because he seemed to hold something back, but greatly respected, as a professional, as a watchstander, and as a Chief Petty Officer. He could be wry and acerbic, but was always honest, and could be trusted to give it to you straight, without any embellishment or exaggeration.

I ran into Tom again, five years after I left the boat, at Comanche Peak Nuclear Plant. He was as pleased to see me as I was him, and he hadn't changed a bit. We only shared a few minutes before it was back to work, and later that night, the opening shots of the first Gulf War broke out.

I still can see him sitting on the toolbox in AMR2, or standing between the TGs with his coffee cup, quiet, reflective, and alert. I am proud to have served with him, proud to have known him, and proud to have called him friend.

Vaya con Dios, shipmate.

Brad Williamson

Former Shipmate

USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680) 1981-1985

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Our shipmate has passed on before us.

Whether by enemy action, the remorseless sea, or the ravages of time and age,
we must accept that God has called you to where we cannot yet follow.

We commend your body to the deep, and your soul to God Almighty.

May God grant you fair winds and following seas.

Godspeed, shipmate.

We will miss you...

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another...

"No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

John Donne

Meditation XVII

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.

Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.

1572 - 1631

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