I stayed in the Air Force, retiring in 1977. From OCS I went on to
Accounting & Finance School. Saw two tours as a Finance Officer and then
had the opportunity to go back to college through AFIT. Graduated from
Texas A&M with a mechanical engineering degree and went on detail to NASA.
There I worked on the Apollo program in Recovery Operations; our group's
task was to fish the astronauts out of the water wherever they landed.
After that I worked with the MinuteMan program on radar fuzes. During my
career I squeezed in two overseas tours, one to Libya and the other to
Turkey.
Stayed out the required year and then went back to work for the government. In this new career I am working as a civil servant with the Navy. I have been involved with ordnance and then in management of the HARM missile and currently with the Tomahawk missile. This is the longest I have stayed put in one spot, 22 years now. It is still fun.
Family wise, I have three grown children and six grandchildren. They live on the East Coast and in the Midwest while I am out here on the west coast. Fun wise, my wife and I spent the past 9 years building our house. We did the design and then most of the work; put in the floor trusses, the floor, the walls, the roof trusses, the roof sheathing, the windows, doors, wiring, plumbing, painting and floor tile. It all takes time.
While doing the house I squeezed in flying lessons and did get my private license. I started building my own airplane but the company was slow in delivering the necessary kits so I got my money back and started looking for a normal airplane but have not found the right one yet.
Looking back it seems that I really have had two life times. One life was in a blue suit and the other in civilian clothes. Retire? I do not know if I want to stop having fun yet.