Clark, Albert L.
Before going to OTS I was a civilian inventory manager at Tinker AFB, OK. After pilot training I was the detachment commander at Tooele Army Depot. Second Lieutenant with his own staff car, secretary, military and civil service employees. Mission, figure out why we are short of bombs. Turns out, the USAF was buying bombs and storing them at several huge army storage areas. The Navy was showing that they were out of bombs but when they ordered bombs from joint service storage they were getting the USAF purchased bombs and bullets. While there I wrote a requirement for the USAF computers to talk directly to Army computers. University of Utah was hired and became one of the four universities that created ARPANET the predecessor to the internet. I discovered some poorly manufactured munitions and when some bombs blew up in storage that was my next assignment, Korat RTAFB with TDYs to Da Nang, Tonsonut, Cam Ran Bay, etc. My next assignment was to Blytheville AFB, AR and nuclear weapons. I met my wife of 45 years there working as a social worker for the state. Then we went to Buchel German Lufftwaffe Base for 3 years and traveled around Europe in a Porsche 911. Then it was to a Radar Site in Saratoga Springs, NY from the “Life Styles of the Rich and Famous”. I would have been happy to spend the rest of my life there without promotions, but they closed the Radar station the day I left. I was told my next assignment was going to be as the only officer at a South Korean Air Base and I got out of the Air Force. It was supposed to be the ultimate cushy assignment with high visibility for promotions and I would be filling a lieutenant colonel position as a senior captain. That would have been my third assignment in a row away from the real Air Force. Both of our sets of parents had serious health problems while we were in Germany and we did not want to go overseas again. Next job was as a civilian at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH negotiating the sale and then the delivery of USAF airplanes and parts to Northern Africa, primarily Morocco, Zaire, Sudan, Egypt. I had regular contacts with SECSTATE, SECDEF, SECAF, under-secretaries, our and their ambassadors, and twice President Carter phoned me for favors. Then I was promoted to be an in-house consultant for R&D programs and part time instructor at AFIT. I became a reserve mobilization augmentee as the alternate logistics manager for all strategic systems (ALCM, B-52, B-1, B-2 etc.) in the event of war where I would fill the 0-6 slot. After 10 years there and two promotions (civilian and military), I agreed to go to Tinker AFB, OK because my parents were getting older and it was supposed to be two promotions as a result of closing Hanscom AFB near Boston, Mass and moving it all to Tinker with me as the primary logistics manager for all electronic programs. I completed the reserve requirement for reserve retirement and retired as a lieutenant colonel in April 1990. The Berlin Wall fell shortly after I got there, Hanscom AFB was not closed, I did not get the promotions and I became the manager for the life extension of E-3 AWACS systems. In 2004 I retired from civil service. With 100% of my military time counting toward civilian retirement I had 37 years for retirement computation plus I got my lieutenant colonel retirement pay when I hit 60 four months after my civilian retirement. A year after my retirement I took the job as logistics manager for special operations command electronic R&D programs with SOCOM at Tampa, FL. I quit 18 months later due to my wife’s health and the fact that I was just banking the paycheck. I have not worked since 2007. Since 2012, I have written 8 books for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.