Thomas J. Yeggy

Thomas J. Yeggy has undergraduate degrees in English and Psychology. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law and practiced law in Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois, for many years. He served as the mental health and substance abuse judge for Scott County, Iowa, for more than 25 years. In that position he developed a keen understanding of the difficulties that everyday life presents regardless of social or economic status. As a judge, he authored more than 1,500 opinions, and only one was reversed by the appellate courts. Thomas was also a licensed Series 7 broker at Beyer & Company Investments in Davenport, Iowa, for more than two decades.

Yeggy’s interest in the development and control of nuclear weapons goes back to images he once saw of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With his keen insight into the nature of mankind and their proclivity to use violence as a problem-solving mechanism, he wondered how we had made it through crisis after crisis without destroying ourselves. In 1992, when Robert McNamara stated that we had made it through the Cuban Missile Crisis with “just plain dumb luck,” Yeggy decided to investigate just how lucky we have been. He explains what he found in this First Strike series. We have been incredibly lucky, but it may not continue.

He currently resides in Pensacola Beach, Florida, with his wife, Eileen, and spends summers back in Davenport with his grandchildren, Jeff and Ashley Brown. You can usually find Thomas and Eileen at Emesis Park in Davenport on a late summer afternoon running with their grand dogs, Otis and Emme.