Thomas Judge is 93 years old, an Army veteran, and a hospice patient. Thursday morning he climbed into a plane at Morristown Airport in East Tennessee and experienced something he’d wanted his entire life: real stunt flying. His care team at Caris Healthcare made it possible through a program called “The Three Most Important Things,” which asks patients what matters most to them and then works to deliver it. For Judge, the answer was simple. He loves airplanes.
Caris paired him with local pilot Eric Backsheider, who took the flight up and put the aircraft through genuine acrobatic maneuvers, giving Judge a bird’s-eye view of the East Tennessee countryside along the way. The program isn’t about grand gestures for their own sake. It’s about treating a person’s final chapter as something worth filling with joy, especially for veterans who spent years putting duty before their own wants.
Stories like this resonate on the Suncoast, where veterans, retirees, and snowbirds make up so much of our community. There’s a simple lesson tucked in here: asking someone what they still want to do is a small thing that can change everything. And it’s never too late for the answer to be yes.
Do you have a veteran in your life with a dream still unchecked? What would their three most important things be?
