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When the Faculty Board said "you're out!" I was left with the dilemma of what to do next. There were numerous specialties available to young, non-flying lieutenants - Security, Missile Launch, Intelligence, Maintenance, Supply, etc. None of them sounded like what I wanted to do so I asked my flight captain what he thought. He said that no matter what I put down, the Air Force was going to make a missile weenie out of me. So, I volunteered to be a Sky Cop, a Supply Officer or an Intel type. I was almost immediately assigned to the Minuteman System as a launch officer. One good thing did happen in all this. Months earlier we had filled out our Air Force Form 392 (named the "Dream Sheet") and I had of course put down Shaw Air Force Base as my first choice. For my second choice I had circled "Pacific Northwest" and I forget what my third choice was. Anyway, instead of being sent to Minot North Dakota, or Grand Forks South Dakota I was assigned as close to the Pacific Northwest as possible. I was one of the lucky ones who drew Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls Montana. I didn't know it at the time, but I had also lucked out by being assigned to the WS-133B weapon system.

But first, I had to be trained. I left Sacramento for Chanute AFB in beautiful Rantoul Illinois with a rather large hangover from the "hail and farewell" the evening before. I seem to remember drinking a LOT of "Cold Duck" and being kicked out of the swimming pool around One a.m. Anyway Chanute provided an Air Training Command school for missile-iers and in four short weeks I learned that the pointy end of the missile comes out of the hole first and that when the missile gets where its going there is a rather large BOOM at the end of flight. Chanute was where I met JP Colson. (It is also where I met an F-100 pilot and four Marine Maintenance Officers and barely escaped arrest when we decided to burn the Officers Club one evening.)

Upon returning to Sacramento, Pat and I packed up our household goods, sent them on to Great Falls and we jumped in our 1966 Plymouth Valiant and headed to a three month school at Vandenberg AFB in Lompoc California. Thank goodness the Strategic Air Command had its own school for teaching us how to fly missiles!