Wilcox nominated for 1st star

Col. Tom Wilcox, 341st Missile Wing commander at Malmstrom Air Force Base, has been nominated for appointment to brigadier general.

Wilcox said he notified of the nomination Tuesday morning.

“I’m kind of shocked and humbled at the same time,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox has served as the 341st commander since March 2014, when Col. Robert Stanley resigned after a cheating investigation of missile officers was announced.

Since then, the wing has made leadership changes, organizational changes and this fall, recaptured the Blanchard Trophy, the prize for the best ICBM wing in Air Force Global Strike Command.

Wilcox said when he was commissioned into the Air Force in 1991 through the Reserve Office Training Program at Louisiana Tech University, he only planned to serve four years to pay back his scholarship. But then he did six, then he hit the 10-year mark, which is halfway to retirement for a military career, so he decided to continue serving.

“I’m glad to be able to stay and serve,” he said. “I owe it to the airmen and the officers I’ve served with over the years and especially the 4,000 people at the wing. They earned this, not me.”

Wilcox said his nomination for his first star also speaks highly of the wing and “the tremendous gains that have been made in the last 19-20 months.

“You can’t do something like that by yourself,” he said.

Malmstrom operates and maintains 15 missile alert facilities and 150 Minuteman III silos spread across a 13,800-square-mile missile complex, the largest missile complex in the Air Force.

Wilcox is a career security forces officer and has served in a variety of operational assignments, including squadron and group command. Wilcox served in staff assignments at major command, Air Staff and Office of the Secretary of Defense levels. In 2008, he completed a 365-day deployment to Baghdad, Iraq, as the deputy director and director of the Multi-National Force-Iraq Combined Joint Operations (CJ3) Protection Division.