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Today's Featured Biography

WALTER SHULL

Walter B. Shull
One Half-Century of Fun and Excitement Since 1962

Following graduation from JCHS, I attended Central Methodist University on a football scholarship – majoring in pre-med biology and chemistry. I graduated from CMU in January 1967. Prior to receiving my notification of acceptance to med-school, the U.S. Army selected me for a job with “free room and board.” In-lieu of sleeping in a fox-hole in a hot, steamy, tropical jungle, I voluntarily enlisted in the U.S.A.F. as a “combat search-and-rescue” pilot. I spent the next 12-years flying the HC-130H/P/N models for Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service all over the world. It was exciting, fun, and very personally rewarding, while doing all sorts of fun things: including aerial refueling helicopters, surface-to-air recoveries (STAR), air-to-air recoveries (ATAR), equipment and personnel drops, coordinating air-to-ground fighter strikes, and directing other military services resources - all while living our motto, “THESE THINGS WE DO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE.” We also worked closely with NASA and the astronauts on all manned space flights (Apollo, Sky-Lab, Space Shuttle). A few of my more memorable rescue missions also later became books/movies: “Bat 21”; “Oyster 01” (both Vietnam ’72); an ATAR attempt to capture skyjacker D.B. Cooper (Northwest Airlines Nov ’71); the rescue of all 519 passengers from the burning/sinking cruise ship “S.S. Prinsendam” (Gulf of Alaska Oct ‘80); and the rescue/recovery of 300 American students from the Caribbean Island of Grenada (Oct ’83). As I look back, I feel fortunate that I chose to become a rescue pilot, because I was still able to help “save” lives (5,455 over 24-years); many more lives than I would have touched as a physician - and they also PAID ME to fly large 4-engine airplanes. The next 12-years were served in several senior-level staff positions at HQ 23d Air Force, Military Airlift Command, Air Logistics Command, and Tactical Air Command. We lived throughout the world during those 24-years – in Arizona, Florida (x2), Philippine Islands, California, Vietnam (x2), Thailand, Alaska, Illinois, Utah, and South Carolina. During those early years, I met my wife “Lib”- an Air Force nurse. We have two sons – both are now U.S.A.F. senior Pilots; plus a daughter-in-law a U.S.A.F. Navigator; all three are Majors. While in the Air Force, I earned my MBA at night from Webster University. I retired from the Air Force in 1991. After my retirement from the Air Force, I returned to Missouri and joined the Missouri Department of Natural Resources as an Environmental Specialist and spent the last 19-years as an environmental regulator, compliance inspector, and complaints investigator. My responsibility was to enforce the Federal and State Environmental Clean Air Laws and Solid Waste Laws, thereby ensuring we all had clean air to breathe; that toxic waste sites were cleaned up; and environmental pollution controls were placed on violating industries. We have five grandchildren which we adore and enjoy being with whenever they will permit us to camp on their doorsteps. I have thoroughly enjoyed this past half-century since graduating from Jefferson City High School – Class of ‘62.

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