Staff photo by Fritz Busch Retired U.S. Marine Corps Major Thomas Keech, a 1993 New Ulm High School graduate, speaks at the NUHS Veteran’s Day Program Friday.

NEW ULM — The grandson of a New Ulm woman — who wore combat boots and held many American Legion leadership positions — spoke frankly about what it was like to be a U.S. Marine Corps aviator at the Veteran’s Day program at New Ulm High School Friday.

Retired Major Thomas Keech, a 1993 New Ulm High School graduate and the grandson of Alberta “Bert” Marth-Wohfeil of New Ulm, said when he was in high school, he had long hair and “a heckuva mullet.”

“People joke about your mother wearing combat boots. Well, my grandmother wore them,” Keech said.

He began a distinguished military career, enlisting in the Marine Corps not long after high school. Keech was selected for the Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Program a few years later, graduating from college with a construction management degree.

Blazing trails wherever he went, Keech earned his Naval Aviator Wings in 2005. He was promoted to major in 2013.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” he said.

Completing several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan in support of the Global War on Terror, Keech was named the 2017 1st Marine Aircraft Wing Aviator of the Year. His aircraft took fire and returned fire a number of times.

He was never shot down while flying, usually in an MV-22 Osprey, a tiltrotor military aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing and short takeoff and landing capabilities. Ospreys were designed to combine the functions of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop airplane.

“Our (Osprey) rotor blades had holes (from opposing weapons fire) but we didn’t go down,” Keech said.

He was the first aviator to fly an Osprey 5,600 miles from Hawaii to Australia. The trip included 21 flight hours with in-air refueling every eight hours.

Keech taught aviators how to fly Ospreys in combat.

He urged people to thank veterans, who make up just 1 percent of the U.S. population, on Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day and on July Fourth.

“It’s a big deal to support your country,” Keech said.

He said the F-22 is his favorite aircraft.

“It does things a plane shouldn’t be able to do. Basically, it defies the laws of gravity,” Keech said.

The 5th generation F-22 is advertised as having a unique combination of stealth, speed, agility and situational awareness, combined with lethal long-range air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons, making it the best air dominance fighter in the world.

Now living in Minneapolis, Keech is a director of residential maintenance and a senior construction manager for commercial properties.

Bert Marth served in the U.S. Air force for three years, in the U.S. Army for 20 years and served in the American Legion for 47 years. She was named Minnesota Second District Legionnaire of the Year for 2021-2022.

One of the first female legion commanders in Minnesota, “Bertie” was inducted into the Minnesota American Legion Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 and worked at Minnesota Boys State as a counselor, administrator and civics teacher. She was named the 2014 Outstanding Brown County Senior Citizen.

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@

nujournal.com).