LtCol Donald E. Jackson, USAF Retired – 1955 – 1981
Born:
July 1932, Denver, Colorado. I lived in Denver, Colorado; Rolla, Missouri;
Portlock, Virginia; San Mateo, California; and, Denver, Colorado where I
graduated from high school in 1950. Earned a BS Degree in Mechanical Engineering
from Colorado State University. Graduated December 1955 and was commissioned a
2Lt. USAF. Reported for duty at Lackland AFB, Texas, January 1956.
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March 1956 |
Navigator Training Squadron Herlingen AFB, Texas |
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March 1957 |
EWO Training Squadron Keesler AFB, Mississippi |
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November 1957 |
55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing Forbes AFB, Kansas |
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September 1961 |
544th Reconnaissance Technical Wing Offutt AFB, Nebraska |
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May 1964 |
Detachment 4 RAF Brize Norton, England |
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June 1966 |
Detachment 1 98 Strategic Wing, RAF Upper Heyford, England |
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July 1967 |
544 RTW Offutt AFB, Nebraska |
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July 1968 |
Tan Son Nhut Afld, Vietnam with duty at Taklai AB, Thailand |
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August 1969 |
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas [earned a MS Degree Engineering Administration] |
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January 1971 |
ADMET [Air Defense Management Engineering Team] Duluth AB, Minnesota |
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January 1972 |
EB-57 Squadron Malstrom, AFB Montana |
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April 1975 |
NORAD/ADCOM/ADTAC Headquarters Colorado Springs, Colorado |
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December 1981 |
Retired Colorado Springs, Colorado |
I had many interesting assignments during my 26 years in the Air Force. I was a crew member on the historic RB-47H and the EB-57. As an Electronic Warfare Officer [EWO] in the RB-47H my crew position along with two other EWOs was inside a module inserted into the bomb-bay. During my assignment to this unit I participated in several different missions which took me from the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula, USSR to Alaska, across the Arctic Ocean, along the Russian coast, around Norway to England. These missions required air refueling over the Arctic Ocean. It never ceased to amaze me how ten to twelve hours into a mission we would meet a tanker out of Alaska or the CONUS over the Arctic Ocean out in the middle of no where, refuel, then continue on our mission as the tanker returned to base. On one mission we flew out of Alaska over the North Pole. The navigator alerted the crew over the pole at which point the pilot banked the aircraft and flew a 360 degree circle around the pole. We literally flew around the world.
The EB-57 was crewed with a pilot and an EWO and loaded with electronic jammers for use against Canadian and USAF interceptors to train them in an electronic environment. We flew these missions from Victoria Island, Canada in the west to Iceland in the east.
Upon retirement, I worked for three different companies in satellite communications which was one of the most interesting jobs I ever held.
The Air Force besides interesting assignments, introduced me to my wife while in Alaska, gave us a son at Offutt AFB and a son and daughter while in England. It also gave our family the opportunity to visit 77 different countries on six different continents.