This Military Service Page was created/owned by
AB Raymond Guinn
to remember
Wacker, Rudolph Frank ("Rudy"), Brig Gen USAF(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Poughkeepsie
Date of Passing Apr 02, 2011
Location of Interment Springfield National Cemetery (VA) - Springfield, Missouri
Posted by Col (ret) Steve Coppinger on June 10, 2011:
BGen Rudy Wacker was a great leader, fighter pilot, and USAF officer. His lessons in leadership made a difference for alot of young officers who had the pleasure to serve under his command. Rest in Peace
Steve Coppinger
Colonel, USAF (ret)
It was my privilege to serve as (then) Colonel Rudy Wacker's Executive Officer when he was Commander of the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge, England, in 1978-79. He was the model commanding officer: distinguished in appearance; charismatic in authority; sweeping in his knowledge of this huge Wing (world's largest), its facilities, and people; and an excellent representative of our country to our British hosts. I watched him earn and then pin on his BG star, and felt then, as I do now, that he was one of the finest officers I have ever known.
The SAGE system was a network linking Air Force (and later FAA) General Surveillance Radar stations into a centralized center for Air Defense, intended to provide early warning and response for a Soviet nuclear attack. The Ground Air Transmitting Receiving (GATR) Site (R-18) for communications was located at approximately 1.1 miles souh-southwest from the SAGE building. Normally the GATR site was connected by a pair of buried telephone cables, with a backup connection of dual telephone cables overhead.
DC-18 was initially under the San Francisco Air Defense Sector (SFADS), established on 15 February 1959. DC-18 and the SFADS was inactivated on 1 August 1963 as part of an ADC consolidation and reorganization, with its assigned units assigned to other ADC Sectors. The GATR was reassigned to Mill Valley AFS (Z-38) as an annex designated OL-A, 666th Radar Squadron. Today the large SAGE building is now building 2145, housing the 9th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron; the GATR was inactivated in 1980 and the building is now part of a Skeet-shooting range.