Ralph T. Holland Interview, 20 February 2005

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RH:Oh yeah, I had (chuckles) I had a Convair, the T-29, the prop airplane for me and my staff. When I would go visit, I would take my staff along with me and we would look at certain things in certain areas that we wanted to be sure were complying with—and then we would return, but it kept me busy. I was on the road a lot. When I went down to SAC to fly now, I would fly aboard one of our KC-135 tankers and we'd go, have a refueling with a B-52, or maybe two, and then recover at Omaha and then they would return. So a lot of time in the air too. It was a good job. I was a little disappointed when I left SAC and went to the Air Materiel Command down in Warner-Robbins, and I stayed there a couple of years and then went to Viet Nam and I worked for some really fine people there, you know, 4-stars.
TT:Were you over with Arc Light?
RH:Well, I was my first commander was—I'll think of his name in a minute—Lou Clay was the PACAF Commander and his father was a 4-star, you know in World War II and he was a 4-star. And the other one was John Vogt V-o-g-t, and my first commander was named Cavell, 4-star and he was called back and reduced to 2 stars for not complying with the Rules of Engagement. But anyway, I enjoyed those tours and then I was back at Warner-Robbins as commander and it's better to be the commander than the vice commander (laughs).
JK:I would guess so.
RH:But anyway, Minot was a very good assignment, the people—I'm from Georgia originally and the people around Minot are very independent people, you know...
TT:Yeah you bet, Scandinavian background.
RH:Right, right, I was impressed with them and they're hardy people too. I got along quite well and they were supportive of the base. I haven't been back, but at that time there were no little sales, pawn shops and that sort of stuff right off base. Now you were there—is it still open country coming up to the front gate?
TT:Oh yeah.
RH:Ok, well that's great. It's a good base and I had the missile wings, both of 'em were very good. You may know that the missile crews they would be as we used to say, "in the hole" for 24 hours and have 24 hours off and then they had a chance to go to college, we had college degrees on each base and then the fourth day they would be back in the hole, but most of those guys got their Master's degrees. Yeah, it was a great program. SAC was a well-run outfit, and I was under General Lemay 'course in SAC, and General Power, and none of 'em put up with any inefficiency.
JK:Well, that's Lemay's reputation for sure.
RH:Yes. It's never the—it was a tribute to him that he said that he couldn't tell whether you were incompetent or unlucky—he didn't have time to determine—he'd get somebody else
JK:Well, not only were the people up around Minot good, but I think you had great crews too.

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