Gerard James Nutting

Gerry was my squadron commander in Ubon Thailand ,in 1970 to 1971. I had met him in 1968 at Wright Patterson AFB at the Base Civil Engineer Course .
It wasn't until my assignment to Thailand that we discovered that my brother ,Junius A. Kellogg was his Manhattan alum .
Gerry was a great guy and commander
and will never be forgotten . God bless his family.

Gerry was my squadron Cmdr. At Ubon RTAFB in Thailand ,1970 - 1971 . He went to Manhattan College as did my oldest brother (junius kellogg ) .
I am so sorry to learn of his demise . He was a great guy and a good man. May he rest in peace . Condolence to his family.

Eulogy Part II

As with most stories, life happens while we're busy making other plans. A traffic accident that hurled him through his car's windshield left him with amnesia, dashing his hopes of ever becoming a pilot.

Uncle Jerry then turned to Plan B and worked as a civil engineer in the Air Force, for which he served 20 years. As a young officer stationed at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, he and his colleagues often socialized at the officers' club. My mom's sister, my aunt Dee, a Nebraska farm girl, had joined family friends in San Antonio the previous year and worked as a secretary at the same base. She and her friends also frequented the same club.

My aunt and uncle shared a love for dancing and, as fate would have it, they inevitably crossed paths on the dance floor. That first dance turned into more dances, followed by a date, and then dating. A few months in, my uncle's dream remember, the lifelong bachelor part became known. Aunt Dee, whose father back in Nebraska regularly asked, When are you getting married? told Uncle Jerry that it was all or nothing. Having already lost one dream, my uncle respectfully said goodbye.

Three weeks later, however, Uncle Jerry called Aunt Dee and said, OK, I guess we're doing this. The onetime bachelor and my aunt soon married, moved to Zaragoza, Spain, with the Air Force and returned nearly four years later with three babies in tow. Over the course of their marriage, they had six children, losing one prematurely. Oh, the difference one phone call can make...

During his career, he served two tours during the Vietnam War the first in Vietnam and the second in Thailand. In his letters home, he wrote of missing his family, told his children to be good and to help Mommy and said that he loved them all. He never spoke much about those tours, but at times wore a metal bracelet engraved with name of a buddy who was missing in action.
(See part III)

Eulogy for Gerard (Jerry) Nutting
Hi, I'm Suzanne Reed Boulware, Jerry's niece. I'm here today to say a few words on behalf of our family.
Jerry Nutting was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 1, 1935, to Henry, a Naval reservist, carpenter and Jack-of-all-trades, and Grace, a downtown office worker. He was the second of four children.
Uncle Jerry grew up in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush, where he attended Catholic elementary school and served as an altar boy. He received a scholarship to Brooklyn Prep, a selective Jesuit preparatory school, by winning the district spelling bee. That was fortunate, he often said, as his parents could never have afforded the tuition.
He was the first in his family to attend college and earned an engineering degree from Manhattan College. There, he joined the ROTC, which prepared him for a career as a pilot and officer in the U.S. Air Force. He earned numerous medals as a member of the cross-country track team and served as sports editor for the college newspaper.
Uncle Jerry grew up during the Great Depression and learned early on the value of hard work and a penny saved is a penny earned. To help pay his college tuition, he worked a variety of jobs, including cycling the streets of New York City as a courier. During a visit to the Big Apple decades later, he amazed his children as he recalled the names of downtown streets. He simply explained that he had to memorize the streets to make his deliveries on time.

With eyebrows raised, he once asked one of his kids, Did you know I worked for the New York Times?' With a grin, he quickly added, It was just for a day. I scooped coal from the incinerators in the basement for eight hours straight. I never went back.

Although his New York Times' days were short, he soon committed to a career that would last two decades. He joined the Air Force upon graduating and began training for his dream job to be a pilot and a lifelong bachelor.
(See part II)

Eulogy for Gerard (Jerry) Nutting

The Manhattan College alumni community shares the grief, and is now praying for our fellow alumni and the family at this time. The Alumni Office has been informed. As well as the Jasper Jottings community that I personally can reach. We are all a little poorer now. "No man is an island, entire of itself ... any mans death diminishes me". We are sorry for your loss.