Odom, Thomas P. 1953–

(Thomas Paul Odom)

PERSONAL:

Born 1953; married; wife's name Donna. Education: Texas A&M University, graduated; Naval Postgraduate School, M.A., 1982; U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, M.A., 1988.

CAREER:

U.S. Army, became lieutenant colonel and foreign area officer, civil servant specializing in military analysis.

WRITINGS:

Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo, 1964-1965, Combat Studies Institute (Fort Leavenworth, KS), 1988.

Shaba II: The French and Belgian Intervention in Zaire in 1978, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (Fort Leavenworth, KS), 1993.

(With Robert H. Scales, Jr.) Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army (Washington, DC), 1993.

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda, Texas A&M University Press (College Station, TX), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Small Wars Journal and Military Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Born in 1953, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas P. Odom is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He joined the U.S. Army and served five tours as a foreign area officer (FAO) specializing in Africa and the Middle East, although he was also posted to Lebanon, Turkey, and the Sudan. FAOs, also called strategic scouts, are charged with assessing a situation and providing information to those making policies and plans. Odom's first two books, Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo, 1964-1965 and Shaba II: The French and Belgian Intervention in Zaire in 1978, chronicle European interventions in Central Africa and the rescues of hostages held in the Congo. During the Gulf War, he was an intelligence officer in the Middle East and subsequently cowrote Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, a history of the first Gulf War.

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda is Odom's memoir of his army career. Although in the first part of the book he discusses his time in the Middle East, most of the book is devoted to his experiences in Africa. In 1993 Odom was posted to Zaire as a military attaché. His relationship with a corrupt head of state and personality clashes within the U.S. Embassy were described as "tragicomic" by Frank Kalesnik in the Journal of Military History. Rwanda is the focus of most of the book. Civil unrest in Rwanda was already putting peace in a tenuous state when, in 1994, the Rwandan president's airplane was shot down and he was killed. The reaction in Rwanda was a tribal genocide in which over one million people were killed. Odom did what he could to help refugees coming into Zaire, but it was a nearly impossible task. Odom was involved with Operation Support Hope, which provided humanitarian help to victims of the violence.

Critics were impressed by the depth and insightfulness of Odom's book. Writing for History: Review of New Books, Derek Catsam praised Journey into Darkness, reporting that it "provides an insightful view into the world of military intelligence and diplomacy on the ground." The critic further commented that it is "an important contribution to this growing literature and it provides great insight into the inner workings of America's diffuse and sometimes contentious foreign policy and military apparatus." Kalesnik wrote: "While his experiences as a Foreign Area Officer make for fascinating reading, his insights into the Rwandan tragedy are compelling…. Journey into Darkness is a welcome addition to the serious literature available on neglected aspects of American foreign and defense policy during the 1990s."

Odom told CA: "I was always interested in history and foreign cultures. Those interests led to a career as an intelligence analyst, operator, and military historian.

"In terms of who or what has influenced has my work, Dr. Roger Spiller would have to be the ‘who.’ Roger was the senior military historian in the Combat Studies Institute when I arrived there as a young captain fresh from duty in Sudan. He encouraged me to write on Africa and I chose the Congo. The ‘what’ would have to be the Rwandan Genocide.

"My writing process involves intensive research and reading followed by near- obsessive writing to get it on paper."

When asked to identify to the most surprising thing he has learned as a writer, Odom responded: "I would not describe it as a discovery but more of an evolving insight. Simply that writing is a source of comfort to me."

When asked which of his books is his favorite, Odom responded: "Favorite, no. Important? Journey into Darkness was just that for me. I needed to write that book as a catharsis. Rwanda has never left me. I have often wished that it would."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Odom, Thomas P., Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda, Texas A&M University Press (College Station, TX), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, January 1, 2006, V.T. Le Vine, review of Journey into Darkness, p. 930.

History: Review of New Books, January 1, 2006, Derek Catsam, review of Journey into Darkness, p. 57.

Journal of Military History, July 1, 2006, Frank Kalesnik, review of Journey into Darkness, p. 888.

Military Review, January 1, 2006, James R. Clapper, review of Journey into Darkness.

ONLINE

Texas A&M University Press Web site,http://www.tamu.edu/ (May 22, 2008) summary of Journey into Darkness with excerpts, and a short author profile.

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College,http://www-cgsc.army.mil/ (June 26, 2008) author's books available to read online.