Photo Top Left: Jim Tyson holding a book of his father’s oral history remembrances
Photo Top Right: US Navy Full Lieutenant James Tyson
Doctor James William Tyson has led a life of uncommon drama, challenge and service to others.
Born in the Philippine Islands on February 6, 1941, just nine months before the Japanese invasion, Jim Tyson and his parents endured the next four years living under the harsh, near-starvation conditions of a Japanese internment camp. On his fourth birthday in 1945, liberation from the internment camp came with the arrival of American forces. Later in life, he credited the entire experience with giving him a profound sense of humility and a strong sense of personal responsibility.
After returning to the US, the family spent several years in Iowa and Nebraska, with his father becoming a college professor in Omaha, Nebraska. When Jim was twelve, the family moved to Denton, Texas, where he spent his key formative years – which may explain his lifelong devotion to the Dallas Cowboys.
In his teen years, having a strong love for animals, Jim worked extensively as a veterinary assistant, resulting in his making veterinary medicine his career choice. After successfully passing the Medical College Administration Test (MCAT), however, he came to realize he could serve society better by becoming a fully-qualified family physician.
In 1962 he began a four-year program of study at the University of Texas Medical School at Galveston. In his junior year, he met and married his wife, Carol (who was a working registered nurse from Ontario, Canada). They would later become the parents of two children, a son and a daughter. Tragically, the son, Jimmy, died of cystic fibrosis at the age of ten, but surviving daughter Heather, is a retired Navy nurse.
In 1965, during his medical school senior year, he was commissioned as an ensign in the US Navy under the “Ensign 1915 Program.” Thus began a military career that eventually totaled more than 22 years of combined active and reserve military service in both the US Navy (with rank of commander) and US Army Medical Corps Reserve (with rank of lieutenant colonel).
Jim served five year as flight surgeon in a US Marine Intruder A-6 squadron.
Upon graduation, Jim served five years of active duty as flight surgeon in a US Marine Grumman Intruder A-6 squadron at Cherry Point, NC, participating in occasional flights in that jet aircraft. Because his squadron medical responsibilities extended to caring for the family members as well as the squadron flying personnel, that assignment greatly prepared him to broaden his medical skills in subsequent years as a practicing physician.
In 1969, Dr. Tyson ended his US Navy active-duty service to start what was to become a long and celebrated private medical practice in Brevard, North Carolina. Upon his leaving active duty, the Navy supported his studies at the University of North Carolina preparing to take the then-relatively new American Board of Family Practice. That effort was successful, and he achieved full American Board of Family Practice certification that same year.
In 1970, while in private practice, he continued his military service by joining the US Army Medical Corps Reserve, serving for nearly four years as officer-in-charge of his medical unit with the rank of lieutenant colonel prior to Desert Storm. In 2002, his unit was activated, resulting in his assignment to Fort Benning for an additional year of active-duty service.
When he fully retired as a physician in 2008, Doctor Jim Tyson had served as physician for both military and civilian families for a continuous total of more than 43 years. Those years as a dedicated military service member and family medical provider earned him the strong respect and admiration of legions of friends and beneficiaries of his dedicated service.