Meet retired Marine LtCol David Trombly, better known as T-Bone, one of our military transplants and a Lawrence, Massachusetts native. T-Bone serves our Pensacola community as Chaplain to both our local Pensacola Ice Flyers and the J.R. Spears Detachment 066 of the Marine Corps League, an organization renamed for local 21-year-old Corporal Jonathan Ross “JR” Spears, who in 2005 gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom in Iraq.
T-Bone’s first visit to Pensacola didn’t begin his 25-year Naval Aviation career. As a LeTourneau University student needing flight hours for his FAA Commercial and Instruments ratings, he chose to fly the university’s Cessna 150 on a route from Longview, Texas to Orlando, passing directly over Pensacola. Young Trombly and his fraternity brother co-pilot selected Pensacola Regional Airport as their fuel stop. They took the opportunity to check out the USS Lexington, a combat veteran aircraft carrier of WWII. The “Lady Lex” served from 1962 to 1991 as the Navy’s training aircraft carrier and was moored at a downtown Pensacola pier before becoming a Museum in Corpus Christi, TX, in 1992. Little did David know on that first visit in his slow-moving Cessna 150 that he would log more years serving and living with his wife Megan and their six children in Pensacola, than in any other military city.
Patriotism and flying were in T-Bone’s blood from birth. His Flying Tiger grandfather served in China, then after America joined WWII, continued serving as a U.S. Army Air Corps P-38 fighter pilot. David hoped to join the Marine Corps after graduation to follow in his hero’s footsteps. A few years later, returning to Pensacola as a young Lieutenant, he began the path to his Wings of Gold. T-Bone eventually realized his dream of honoring his grandfather’s legacy, flying the F/A-18 Hornet and deploying to Japan, Australia, and South Korea.
In October 2000, shortly after returning from his first successful overseas deployment to Iwakuni, Japan, T-Bone was diagnosed with a rare form of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma known as a “Primary Lymphoma of Bone.” Both his military doctors in Bethesda, Maryland, and the civilian oncologists in Boston, where he sought his “second opinion,” gave him only two years to live.
Upon T-Bone’s request, his military oncologists shared that only fifty other cancer Warriors had been previously diagnosed with his cancer. (David and his wife of 33 years, Megan, refuse to refer to others battling for their lives as “cancer patients, but rather as WARRIORS!) Of the fifty others, not one had survived five years using the conventional medical protocol. Yet doctors gave the same treatment plan to David and Megan in the early weeks of his cancer staging process. Fighter pilots must be analytical, fastly analyzing data for urgent decisions. David and Megan quickly recognized that the suggested medical treatment offered a zero percent success rate.
Not wanting to be the fifty-first to not find a cure through chemotherapy and radiation, David and Megan made the courageous decision to step out of the conventional system and their military insurance coverage onto a natural path. Taking a bold leap of faith, the young couple, with four children under eight and a deep faith in Christ, were unwavering in their belief that God was bigger than cancer! Confident that God would open doors and provide a cure, they chose a 100% natural “Battle Plan.” Megan invested countless hours into research, caregiving, and food preparation. David gives God the glory for his miracle healing but gives Megan the credit and deepest thanks for her dedication to him and for keeping the family moving forward, successfully homeschooling during the most difficult year of their lives.
Their journey initially took them to a family friend and Naturopath in Boston, then to a Biological dentist in Rhode Island, and ultimately to a clinic in Switzerland. In the biological medicine clinic in Europe, David spent a month receiving treatments not for Lymphoma but to aggressively detox and recharge his immune system to battle cancer itself. For over a year, David’s nutritional routine involved a 100% raw diet, juicing vegetables, unlimited salads, and fruit and nut smoothies following the counsel of a Canadian nutritionist. Enzymes and other supplementation supported the raw diet as recommended by a former German oncologist-turned-holistic medicine expert and counselor for cancer Warriors. Learning the horrendous toxicity of municipal water sources, their first significant investment upon returning to Pensacola after diagnosis was an in whole-house water purification, something David has helped over five hundred families take advantage of over the past two decades.
Finding his cure through nutrition and detox, T-Bone turned to his next fight to return to flight status. With God’s divine intervention and the support of key senior military leaders, T-bone became the first cancer survivor to earn his medical clearance and be returned to “flight status” following 100% holistic methods. LtCol David “T-Bone” Trombly, USMC recently celebrated twenty-two years cancer-free! He retired from the Marine Corps in 2019 after flying his final flight in a T-6B with his oldest son and fellow Marine, 2ndLt Alex Trombly, the family’s third-generation fighter pilot flying the F-35B in Iwakuni, Japan, bringing the family’s military flying service in Asia full circle.
During our interview, T-Bone shared that he has been richly blessed to return to flight status and finish his military career as a flight instructor here at NAS Whiting Field where he still serves today as a federal contractor. Though no longer in the skies, T-Bone remains grateful to be teaching in simulators and classrooms, honored to influence the next generation of America’s military leaders, aspiring young Navy, Coast Guard and Marine officers seeking to earn their Wings of Gold as Naval Aviators.
David and Megan share details of their journey and their complete cancer battle plan in their recently published book Grounded And Cured, available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites. In the afternoons and evenings, this power couple spends hours at kitchen tables, computer screens and hospitals supporting other cancer Warriors. For twenty-three years while raising their six children on their 10-acre farm North of Pensacola, David and Megan have been sharing their testimony, and linking fellow cancer Warriors with biological doctors, dentists, natural products, whole-house water filtration systems, and overseas clinics that served them in their time of need. You can learn more about their testimony and ministry at groundedandcured.com, and connect with them on their contact page.