Much-honored General Jim Thayer of Lake Oswego is still going strong at the age of 87
Gen. Jim Thayer takes a rare moment to relax at his residence at the Stafford Boutique Retirement Community. Below, Thayer sits in his office filled with memorabilia.
Jim Thayer is the luckiest man in the world.
If Hollywood ever made a movie about him, and they should, it should be called It’s A REALLY Wonderful Life, because compared to Thayer, James Stewart was Hard Luck Charlie.
At least that is the impression you get when you talk to Thayer. In his view his life of remarkable accomplishments and longevity was all due to good fortune: Lady Luck, friends, wife, his four sons, and especially God.
“I never thought I was very bright,” Thayer said. “God has carried me. I have had all of these wonderful opportunities.”
Thayer’s humility is genuine, charming, and sometimes quite funny. But he has met every opportunity with his own special qualities – a great soldier, a great dad, a great businessman, and now at age 87, a great advocate for American soldiers as Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, Emeritus.
Thayer’s resumé is one of those things that must be seen to be believed, but here are a few highlights:
Winner of Silver Star, Bronze Star and Combat Infantry Badge for service in World War II.
Founder of J. Thayer Company, a stationery business that he eventually sold for $45 million.
Awarded countless honors, including University of Oregon Alumni of the Year.
Representative of the 8 million American soldiers who served in Europe during World War II at the dedication of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1992.
Received the rank of general in the Army.
You hate to disagree with such a nice guy and gentleman like Thayer, but his career has been much more the product of wisdom and hard work than good breaks.
It all started on Dec. 7, 1941. Thayer was just a kid selling tractors when Pearl Harbor occurred, and he was in the first wave of patriotic Americans who rushed to enlist. This was a true milestone in Thayer’s life, a time of valor, glory, and the beginning of his career. But it was also the beginning of an anguish that followed Thayer through most of his life.
In the world war according to Thayer, of course, it all started with luck. Although he didn’t think so at the time. After rising to the rank of second lieutenant, he encountered the ferocity of the Nazi defense against the D Day Invasion.
“The 14th Infantry was immediately sent to Normandy,” Thayer said. “There were a lot of minefields, and I thought, ‘Boy, they want to get rid of this boy in a hurry.’”
The Army command sent the 14th Infantry weaving all over France and Germany, including the Maginot and Siegfried lines.
“The French mines were old and didn’t work,” Thayer said. “But the German mines were new and very lethal.”
Thayer also served under a very gung ho colonel.
“Most commanders looked out for the conservation of life. My guy was much more aggressive,” Thayer said. “I read about him later. He was compared to General Custer.”
The unit’s final turn was across the Danube and into Vienna in Austria, where their mission was to cut off the German troops attempting to make a last stand. Thayer led his platoon on a highly successful mission in which they killed 31 crack SS troops, without suffering a single casualty in their ranks, and captured hundreds of German soldiers.
Afterward, Thayer and his troops went looking for a giant Nazi ammunition dump. Instead he found something that “made me sick” – Gunskirchen Concentration Camp.
“There were 17,000 people there,” Thayer said. “There were 4,000 dead bodies. A thousand more people died after we got there. It was a mud hole. It was a satellite of Mauthausen, a really big concentration camp that had the doctors, attorneys and professional men of Budapest.”
Thayer came back from this time of violence, danger and tragedy to lead a normal and very successful life. He remained in the military, steadily rising in rank and receiving honors and recognition through the 60 years following the end of World War II.
“I’ll be candid about this,” Thayer said. “It depends on who you know.”
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