A 101-year-old World War II veteran from San Diego died Thursday afternoon, according to his family.
Tom Rice was a United States Army 101st Airborne paratrooper who lived a decorated life that left lasting impacts on those who knew him. According to his wife, Brenda, Rice, was also a teacher for more than 40 years who taught civics at local high schools, Chula Vista's including Hilltop High. Hilltop was a campus where he inspired many students.
Rice's life was the definition of a life well-lived: To commemorate his 100th birthday in August 2021, he went skydiving over his hometown of Coronado.
Rice parachuted onto the beach in Normandy for the D-Day invasion of France in 1944 and shared those stories from the war with his students later in life.
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John Burress took civics from Rice at Hilltop High School in 1971-72. David Ybarra was his classmate. Both became teachers, careers that were in part inspired by Rice.
”As a teacher, I once told him, 'I did some of your things. You taught us how to write a constitution' — I had my students write a constitution," Ybarra said.
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In the past 15 years, Ybarra reconnected with Rice.
”I’ve seen books, documentaries," Ybarra said. "Here is a living man who experienced D-Day, all the way to the end of the war in three major conflicts, and for him to walk out of there not being killed — yes, he was wounded, but his mission is to share: This is what we went through and this is for the guys that didn’t come back.”
Like Ybarra, Burress had a similar friendship with Rice that developed over the past two years. Both friendships started in the classroom would later be rooted in stories from Rice's time in the war.
"The impact he made on so many lives — he was part of the liberation of Carentan, he was part of Operation Market Garden, he slept for a month in a foxhole at Bastogne," Burress said. "All for the purpose of getting people away from fascism and toward freedom”
As two classmates say goodbye to their friend, they want everyone to remember this.
”Learn history — read about it, see the documentaries," Ybarra said.
"I’d like people to remember him as a hero during the war and in the classroom," Burress said.
As for Rice's wife. Brenda, she told NBC 7 over the phone that she hopes people will remember him as a risk-taker who appreciated the outpouring from so many people throughout his lifetime.
