Col. Bob Buckey
 | Col. Bob Buckey
Colonel Bob Buckey received his wings in 1960 and never looked back. He was at the top of his Advanced Interceptor training class, which earned him the opportunity to be a fighter pilot. He flew combat air control off the coast of Havana, Cuba, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and was sent to Korea in 1969 in response to the Pueblo Crisis to fly the F-4 Phantom, which he considered his favorite. From Korea he became commander of a detachment in Taiwan, but he continued to volunteer to go to Vietnam. In September of 1972, he back-doored his way into combat, getting assigned to Udorn, Thailand. The fighters he flew there were armed with 500-pound bombs. As the war wound down, the restrictions on the pilots increased. The colonel was part of the mission to bomb Hanoi, and the fighters' job was to protect the B52 bombers. That mission lasted 11 days and had many casualties. Buckey completed his combat tour with 142 missions in Southeast Asia. He was assigned to Eglin AFB in Florida as Operations Officer of a tactical fighter squadron, then chief of standardization and evaluation, and chief of wing weapons and tactics. While at Eglin, he was responsible for the development and adoption of integrated combat turn procedures and checklists currently used by all present-day fighters. His next tour of duty was the Pentagon. He was chief of safety, security and inspections for the Air National Guard and was responsible for the operations and training of all Air National Guard fighters, recce, tanker and airlift forces. He was promoted to colonel while at the Pentagon. From the Pentagon, Buckey travelled to Naples, Italy, as chief of evaluations for the NATO southern region working with Italian, Turkish and U.S. fighter units. His final assignment in his Air Force career was with the U.S. Central Command at McDill AFB, and during that tour, he spent much of his time in the Middle East and Persian Gulf. He retired in November of 1989. He died May 20th 2020 aged 82. |