Enlistment Date: 1960 

Enlistment Location: Evansville, Indiana

Service Number: 

Branch of Service: United States Air Force

Military Occupation: Pilot

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Service Remarks: John was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force (USAF) after attending the University of Evansville in Indiana and completing Air Force ROTC.  After pilot training at Reese Air Force Base (AFB), Texas, he spent a career as a USAF pilot and nuclear engineer.  John flew a number of military aircraft, including the Boeing C-135/WC-135 and Fairchild C-123.  In 1968-69 he served in South Vietnam as a C-123 pilot with the 19th Air Commando Squadron flying cargo missions from Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon.  John was also the squadron commander of the 55th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in the late 1970s, which operated WC-135s from McClellan AFB, California.  Following retirement from the USAF in 1989 he worked as a nuclear engineer at Hanford, Washington, and Paducah, Kentucky.i

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Recipient of: 

- Legion of Merit Medal

- Distinguished Flying Cross Medal (w/ Valor and Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster)

- Meritorious Service Medal

- Air Medal

- National Defense Service Medal

- Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal

- Vietnam Service Medal (w/ x4 Campaign Stars)

- Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal

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Rank at Separation: Colonel/ O-6

Separation Date: 1989

Separation Location: Albequerque, New Mexico

Condition of Separation: Honorable Retirement

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Birth: 1938

Death: 2001

Burial: Salem, Kentucky