Tom Reed's major motivation for writing his first book, "For A Time We Were Titans" was to tell the story of the LRP (pronounced lerp or lurp)unit with which he served in Vietnam. "I wanted to tell about my friends and teammates and about the war as I saw it," Reed said."For my other writings I draw my major inspitation from the love of words and love of the English language."

Reed was awarded several military awards including the Bronze Star for Valor and the Army Commendation Medal. He has received several public speaking awards from the Toastmasters organization. In 1967 he received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Central Missoui (then called Central Missouri State College).