Each year, the Phoenix Veterans Day Parade chooses amongst the 511,000 veterans in Maricopa County to have the honor of serving as Veterans Grand Marshals in the Phoenix Veterans Day Parade. This year, the seven chosen veterans are inspirations to us all. We are honored to highlight each of their military and personal achievements.
Cold War, U.S. Navy veteran Tom Tostenson
A Navy Chaplain serves to encourage and uplift Sailors and Marines, offering reason and hope to those in need. U.S. Navy veteran Tom Tostenson dedicated his career to offering spiritual comfort in the Navy from 1985 to 1998 and to countless others after his military retirement, which he continues to this day.
Tostenson was deployed to Kuwait during the Gulf War, and to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield. He also served as chaplain for the Test Pilot School of Naval Air Station Patuxent River as well as on
board the guided missile cruiser USS HUE CITY (CG-66), where he directed several award-winning community service projects.
After his years of service to the Navy, where Tostenson earned the rank of lieutenant, Tostenson’s calling to serve in a spiritual capacity let him to ministering to patients and staff at several facilities as a hospital chaplain. Tostenson so loves his role as chaplain that he chose to continue his service with an eight-month hospital contract to cover for another chaplain who was recalled to active military duty. He then extended that contract into six years. Martha Bauder believes that Tostenson “…loves the chaplaincy and his service to the military…so much that he is unlikely to ever fully retire.”
True to Bauder’s prediction, Tostenson is still sharing his comfort and spirituality with others, volunteering as treasurer and deacon for a local congregation. He also serves as the Wing Chaplain for the Arizona Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (U.S. Air Force Auxiliary).
Tostenson continues to encourage, care for, and offer to hope to our community, and we feel privileged to name him this year’s Cold War Veteran Grand Marshal for the 2022 Phoenix Veteran’s Day Parade, November 11th at 11 a.m.
In the coming days, you will read the stories of all seven veterans here in our continuing blog series. You will also see them serve as grand marshals in the Veterans Day Parade in Phoenix on November 11th at 11 a.m. For more details about the marshals and the parade, go to 2022 Phoenix Veteran’s Day Parade – Honoring America’s Veterans (honoringamericasveterans.org).