RICHARD A. (Dick) NAGEL JR. Colonel USAF Retired

USAF OCS Class 57C, OC Captain, 1st Group Adjutant

I was born September 21, 1932 in Buffalo, New York. With the exception of a couple of early school years in Canada, I grew up in the Kenmore/Buffalo area. I joined the National Guard in January 1948 while I was an under-aged high school sophomore. Unfortunately, in my senior year, I found out that I would not be able to graduate with my class, so I joined the Air Force in January 1950. After completing basic training, I was selected to attend the electronics maintenance school at Keesler AFB. After graduating, I became an instructor in the course. During this time, I completed my high school GED and began taking college math courses.

In 1951, I was sent to Japan to complete my four-year Air Force tour of duty as a radar technician at a radar site at Niigata Air Base - a small base on the west coast of the main island due north of Tokyo.

I met Betty, who was a dancer with a vaudeville troupe out of Tokyo, while her troupe was touring in our area, in 1952. We dated each other when possible and by the end of the year, we decided to get married. We were both only twenty at the time and in addition to all the roadblocks the military put up, both of our parents had to consent before we could get married. We finally succeeded and were married in July 1953. As my tour finished, we left Niigata in mid-December and took an eleven-day cruise from Japan to America over the Christmas and New Year Holidays. I was discharged at the port and we continued back to Buffalo, as civilians. Betty was a big hit with my folks and we lived with them for several months.

I tried my hand with several civilian firms as an electronics technician but found considerably less responsibility than I had enjoyed in the Air Force. So, early in 1954, I re-enlisted and was stationed at Lockport AFS, New York -- a radar site located between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

In 1957, with plenty of encouragement from Betty and my OIC, I applied and was accepted for OCS Class 57C and we moved on to Billy Mitchell Village in San Antonio, Texas. After graduation, we returned to Keesler AFB, Mississippi to attend the officers electronic maintenance course. After completing the course in 1958, we where reassigned as the maintenance officer to the AACS Squadron at Stewart AFB NY, near West Point. In 1959 I was accepted for Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) and we were assigned to Graham AB, Marianna, Florida for primary in the T37, then to Greenville AFB, Greenville, Mississippi for basic in the T33. Upon graduation, we were assigned to Perrin AFB, Sherman, Texas for F86 training. Upon graduating in 1960, our whole class was sent to Williams AFB, Arizona to become UPT instructors.

After several years as a T33 and T38 instructor pilot, we began C123 training at Hurlbert AFB, Florida in 1965. Then, in 1966, after a brief vacation in the Sierra Nevadas in the dead of winter(Global Survival School) and a 2 week vacation in the Phillipines(Jungle Survival School), on to the 19th Air Commando Squadron, Tan Son Nhut AB, Vietnam as a C123 aircraft commander and instructor pilot.

Betty made her only trip back to Japan to visit her folks in 1966. I took some leave and flew up to Japan to be with her. I convinced her that she should come to Vietnam for a visit and to see the war. She came and she saw - a lot! I was reassigned back to Williams AFB in 1967. Our only son was born there in 1967. I was promoted to major in 1969, and selected to attend the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia. After that, we were assigned to Headquarters, Third Air Force in the London, England area, where I was an Emergency Actions Officer and later a War Plans Officer. In 1972, I was promoted to lieutenant colonel and became the chief of plans. We moved to RAF Mildenhall when the headquarters was relocated there. In 1973, with our four-year tour in England complete, we were selected to attend the Air War College at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama. For the first time, I had a chance to get a year of residence credit with Troy State University and finally got my bachelors degree (suma cum laude). In 1974, we moved to Vance AFB, Enid, Oklahoma, where I served as the Assistant Deputy Commander for Operations and Chief of Operations. I was promoted to Colonel and reassigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J5 in the Pentagon as a European Affairs Officer. In 1979, we were assigned back to Vance AFB for a one-year tour as the Deputy Commander, Operations, followed by a one year tour as the Base Commander. In 1981, we were assigned to the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium where I served as the Senior Executive Officer to the Assistant Chief of Staff, Plans and Policy, an RAF Air Vice Marshall and his deputy, a US Navy Rear Admiral.

Our tour was cut short when a reorganization converted my position to an RAF position. We found ourselves back in Washington, assigned to the National Guard Bureau, in the Pentagon again. I ran the ANG programs office for two years, and was then reassigned to National Defense University, Ft. McNair for my last two years on active duty. I ran a mini-National War College course for senior reserve officers from all of the reserve components. I retired in September 1987 on the last day I was allowed to remain on active duty.

I went into business for myself as a software developer - a skill I picked up as a hobby. I had a pretty good business going with an impressive list of clients, but as the industry changed, I was unwilling to expand and employ more people, so I slowly went out of business, retiring completely in September 1997, as I turned 65.

We've stayed in the same house we retired in - we've been here for sixteen years now. It’s far different from the one-year tours we went through for so many years! Betty and I absolutely enjoyed our almost forty years in the service of the country. Betty stayed active in the Wives Club, Family Services, and as a hospital volunteer. Our son saw a lot of our country and of the world. Although he seldom spent more than a year in any one school, he came out well for his experiences. He attended Texas Tech University and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. He married his college sweetheart and they live just two miles down the road from us. They are the proud parents of our only grandson, who will be six in February 2002.

Dick Nagel