Tom Griffing ’66: A Quiet Devotion, A Quiet Gift

For some, their time in college is just another four years. For Tom Griffing, Class of 1966, his time at Norwich became the architecture of an entire life. He arrived on campus unsure of his footing, struggling so much in an engineering curriculum that he feared he would not make it through at all — but Norwich ensured he found his way: the University worked with him, redirected him, and fostered his ability to find a different path. He found it and found it well, as he rose to serve as cadet colonel and serve his country in Vietnam.

This year, as the Class of 1966 returns to The Hill to mark its 60th reunion, the University also remembers Griffing, who passed away after a courageous battle with stage four lung cancer, leaving behind a gift from his estate to the institution that shaped him.

Griffing rarely spoke at length about his service in Vietnam — those who knew him best say the war was simply not something he revisited easily, and they did not press. Norwich, though, he spoke of freely and often. His friendships forged under pressure, the discipline that became second nature, the institution that asked everything of him in those first uncertain months and in turn provided a foundation for everything that followed. He carried his membership in the Skull and Swords society close to his heart, and when asked about it, he would simply say it was an honor — and leave it there.

Long after his service uniform was hung up, Griffing never quite stopped wearing his own uniform, although in a different way. Friends remember him clean shaven, his clothes pressed, always presentable — khakis and a collared shirt his everyday casual uniform of choice. He built a life with his beloved wife and son, and the three of them filled their home with joy, holiday gatherings, and the kind of close friends who became chosen family through the years. He kept a ceremonial sword from his Norwich days on display, and visitors knew that if they stayed long enough, he would eventually bring it out, his pride undimmed by the decades.

Griffing's close friend, Theresa Durko, served as executor of his estate and walked alongside him through his final years after his wife and son predeceased him. She shares some of her memories of the man she came to know best in that time:

“He just loved that University and he loved that time,” says Durko. “At the end of his days, that is what we talked about.” Loss had found him more than once before his own diagnosis — his son passed in 2019, and his wife followed in 2021, her health giving way not long after their son’s. It was in the years that followed, even as he faced his own illness, that he began opening up in ways he had not before, sharing stories from his cadet days and how it helped shaped the man he became with the friends who sat with him through long visits and hard days.

When Griffing asked Durko to take on the role of executor, his wishes for Norwich became clear, and to her, they made complete sense — he had quietly supported the university throughout his life, and a gift from his estate was simply a continuation of who he already was.

As the Class of 1966 gathers for its 60th reunion, Durko has made a commitment of her own — a gift in Griffing's memory, one more small way of keeping the brotherhood he loved so much moving forward. It compliments well the residue of Griffing’s estate which he left to Norwich University.
Tom Griffing’s Norwich story began as a cadet who was not sure he would make it. Six decades later, it closes with a legacy that will help the University keep doing exactly what it once did for him.