The reward for the year of penance at Lackland was the technical school of choice-given that the AF needed that choice. Mine was aircraft maintenance officer training at Chanute. Upon graduation, I went to SAC's 384th OMS at Little Rock AFB, AR in January 1962. One of the crew dogs I got to launch in a B-47 was our own Max Hottell. In June 1964 it was off to Grand Forks AFB, ND as the 319th Bombardment Wing job control officer (B-52Hs with Mike McGuinness as one of the navigators). One short year later, the good President Johnson thought I needed to be one of his half-million augmentees in Vietnam. I met a bunch of guys at Travis AFB and we all ended up as the cadre that built Binh Thuy AB, serving as the maintenance control officer for the newly formed 22 TASS. In late August 1966, I came home to Stewart AFB, NY serving first as field maintenance officer and then as maintenance control officer for the ADC's 4603rd CAMS. It was a great job cause the boss was a pilot who had 11,000 plus flying hours and who, once he found out I could hack it, took off flying and let me run the place. As it was close to my original home, it gave me a chance to be with my Dad in the last couple of years of his life. But, after three years, a surprise telephone call sent me scurrying to Perrin AFB, TX where I was first the 4780th Air Defense Wing maintenance control officer but shortly thereafter got command of the 4780th Organizational Maintenance Squadron. A super outfit-we won the Air Force's Daedalian Maintenance Award for 1969, the only Air Defense Command unit ever to do so.

But Perrin was a "short tour" too, since I had been selected for AFIT while at Stewart AFB. I spent two of the toughest years of my life relearning how to study but did graduate in June 1973 with a bachelor's in electrical engineering. That got me an assignment to Headquarters, Strategic Air Command at Offutt AFB, NE as the liaison officer for the SAC Aircraft Engineering Division, then located at Carswell AFB, TX. After the Division moved to Offutt in 1974, I became its aircraft systems branch chief. Again, a super job. We got to design, build, install, test, and brief out improvements to all of SAC's aircraft, including the U-2s and SR-71s. I'd have gladly stayed forever, but after four years, I was shanghaied to Norton AFB, CA as the chief of the operational systems branch of the System Safety Engineering Division at the Air Force Inspection and Safety Center. Surprisingly, I regretted the furrows I left all the way from Offutt because I got to do at Air Force level what I had been doing at SAC. I helped establish the permanent USAF system safety engineering analysis team that developed standardized procedures for integrated combat turnaround evaluations for tactical fighters and strategic bombers. Our team then evaluated all current fighter and bomber aircraft, including the B-1B, for this combat-critical tasking. While sweating at Guam with the B-52s wasn't so much fun, the trips to Europe with in-shelter hot pit refueling/weapons loading, including hot refueling the H-53 helicopters were great.

In July 1981, I moved to the Alaskan Air Command at Elmendorf AFB, where I got the job as Director of Maintenance-Engineering and Deputy J4, Joint Task Force-Alaska. During the next four years, we converted the Command from F-4Es to F15A/B and A-1OA fighters, as well changed all the remote radar sites to the solid-state, minimally manned AN/FPS-117 long range radars. Playing J4 in joint exercises with Army and Navy players was an education in itself, as were the many trips to the North Slope and the Aleutians.

Finally, in July 1985, it was return to Offutt to take over the SAC Aircraft Engineering Division and get some more "hands on" aircraft work. One weekend tasking that turned out pretty satisfying was integrating a HAVE-QUICK radio into the satellite antenna system of a KC-10. We weren't told why it was wanted nor why so quick-just do it if at all possible. We did and it worked and after Operation Diablo Canyon (Libyan raid), we found out why and it became a standard on all command and control aircraft in SAC.

But all good things come to an end and after 30 years commissioned service, I retired on 31 March 1990. Four months of boredom made me answer a blind help wanted ad in the Omaha newspaper and a month later I found myself the Supervisor of Maintenance and Operations for the Omaha Public Schools, maintaining 84 buildings over 130 square miles and supporting 43,000 plus kids with a crew of 68 people covering 14 trades. It turned out to be a demanding and interesting job that I enjoyed until the end of August 1999 when I decided that a 67 year old needed to kick back and relax. This second shot at retirement seems to be working and I now find time to enjoy things with Nina, my wife of 47 years, our five kids, and six grandchildren, who are naturally spread all over the map. Computers with cameras and microphones make visits almost real and I enjoy the tinkering with the systems.