JOHN F. C. (JACK) FOX Jr Major, USAF (Retired)

USAF OCS Class 57C, OC TSGT, 2nd Squadron

My first eighteen years, beginning in July 1931, were spent in a small town in northern North Dakota where my family owned a meat and sausage business. After high school graduation, I drifted for a year. While working on the Alaskan Railroad in 1950, the Korean conflict started, setting me on a course for a military career. A strong interest in aircraft led me to the Air Force and two enlistments of six years in personnel and administration, sandwiched around a year of college.

At this juncture, living on enlisted pay with a wife and three children was a constant struggle. A commission with higher pay and opportunities seemed an attractive option so I applied and was accepted into OCS CLASS 57-C. My initiation in Second Squadron seemed like something out of a horror movie at first. But after Black Friday, things settled down and I knew that by staying focused I would make it to graduation.

Pilot training was my first career choice but severe allergy problems disqualified me. Air Traffic Control was my second choice and I was sent to Greenland as a GCA operator for my initial assignment. This hands-on radar operations training led to a choice assignment at Wright-Patterson as a radar operator for flight testing, controlling buddy refueling, doppler radar and the space program's zero gravity project.

In 1961, I applied for the Air Force Institute of Technology program and was sent to Ohio State University for a degree in applied cartography and geography. The next assignment was to Wiesbaden, Germany for three great years as a photomapping staff officer making target materials for USAFE tactical units.

After a brief stint in photomapping at March AFB, I served on the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff (JSTPS) and Intelligence Staff at SAC Headquarters for three years, retiring as a major in 1971. Bernice completed her bachelor's degree at Nebraska University at this time and we moved with our four teenagers to a new life and home in Seal Beach, California.

Honeywell offered me a rare opportunity with a job developing a digital database for the Air Force's new navigator radar training system. With a crew of ten cartographers and computer programmers, the ground and cultural reflectance of the continental U.S. was put on line in real time for thirteen four-man teams of navigator trainees stationed at Mather AFB.

After five years on a computer, I opted for a seven-year rest. I took one last job for three years on the Rockwell B-1 program as a contract administrator before hanging it up for good in 1985. Since that time I have been enjoying our family, remodeling our home and pursuing automobile and audio hobbies. Bernice and I spend much of the summer months traveling.

Bernice and I have been married almost forty eight years and have three sons, a daughter, seven grandchildren, two great grandchildren and a third due in June '99. Our family fills our daily lives with joy.

I could write reams on how the OCS program impacted my life, but that would be a bore to most. Suffice to say that the self-confidence, discipline and leadership qualities that kept me on track throughout the past forty two years were largely the result of the intense training by Second Squadron, Class 57-B.

Regrets - I have a few, but most aren't worthy of mention. I wish I had made an effort to stay in touch with OCS classmates. Hearing that close buddies like John Kerr have passed on is particularly distressing. I hope the June reunion will rekindle the bond and kinship that really never died. John (Jack) Fox