Ralph T. Holland Interview, 20 February 2005

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TT:Minot was unique in having the two wings there and the Air Division and we're not quite sure how that worked. Apparently you were there as sort of the field operations for SAC, right?
RH:Right, I was over the wing, the wing commander of the missile wing reported to me and the wing commander of the flying wing there reported to me, as did the other wing commander at Malmstrom. And what my job basically was—I had a small staff. I had an operations section and I had a maintenance section and what we did was to make sure that these people complied with the policies and procedures of the command and if they were meeting all their responsibilities. You know SAC had a hell of a training program and—
TT:I have no idea how you guys kept track of everything. When I look at the history it amazes me.
RH:SAC was, I tell you, your units had to either stay up or they had somebody else running it for you (laughs).
TT:How many people were in your office?
RH:In my personal office I had an Exec and I had a secretary. Then I guess in my staff on the Division I probably had 15 people.
TT:Oh, OK, so it was a relatively small office.
RH:Relatively small, right.
TT:Where were you located on base?
RH:My office was in the missile building.
TT:Oh, you were with the missile guys then.
RH:My office was in the same building as the missiles, yes.
TT:We're not that familiar with where the building locations are on base, where exactly was that?
RH:It's on the main complex where the housing compound is on the west side of that complex. But the main building, the building housed the missiles and they had as I recall they had three missile squadrons in the missile wing and they had a command post, as did the B-52 wing have a command post.
TT:Right. So you were close to the 91st there.
RH:Yeah. I was in the same building with the 91st.
TT:So you interacted with both the 91st commander and the 5th Bomb Wing commander?
RH:Yes, both of them on a pretty much a daily basis. I left them alone as long as I felt they were doing what they were supposed to be doing. And I spent as much time at Malmstrom as I tried to spend with the missile wing there at Minot to see what was going on.
JK:You were doing a lot of traveling then, general?

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