| Interviewee | GROTE, Richard (b. 1932) |
| Military Service | U.S. Air Force Veteran |
| Interview ID # | OH 1663 |
| Date(s) of interview | |
| Description | For the Tarrant County War Veterans Oral History Project. Cold War-era Air Force veteran. Childhood in El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona; memories of Great Depression and World War II; father’s service in World War I; decision to attend University of Arizona and enter the U.S. Air Force ROTC program; assignment to Lackland AFB; training in navigation and aircraft performance engineering for B-36 and KB-29 air refueling aircraft crews; retraining in electronic countermeasures; assignment to B-52 wing at Castle AFB, California; airborne alert missions; tensions of Cuban Missile Crisis; air-sampling missions; assignment to U.S. Air University and thesis on subject of the so-called “missile gap”; assignment to an SR-71 reconnaissance unit; deployment to Kadena Air Base during Vietnam War; belief that U.S. policy in Cold War succeeded in preventing other wars; retirement to Fort Worth. |
| Interviewer(s) | Jared Donnelly |
| Physical Description | 47 pp. |
| Terms of Use | Open |
