SAC Time: A Navigator in the Strategic Air Command (Volume 165) (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)

Thomas E. Alexander was among 20,000 military service personnel ordered into the Strategic Air Command, formed in 1946 as US military and political leaders began to understand the growing nuclear threat posed by Stalin’s USSR. Alexander served for a number of years in this elite force, designed as a primary deterrent to Soviet military ambitions.

In this gripping memoir, Alexander describes what it was like to occupy a “mole hole” beside a SAC runway, ready to go from full sleep to taxiing for takeoff within seven minutes of the sounding of the klaxon. He shares the experience of sitting on the couch with his family and watching President Kennedy’s announcement of the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba, realizing that within hours he would be airborne. He tells what it was like to be at a New Year’s Eve party on the base, only to hear the announcement that his unit had just been activated. Less than twenty-four hours later, he was in Greenland.

In SAC Time: Navigating the Strategic Air Command, Alexander presents “an honest and reflective account of the impact the Cold War had on individuals who were then on the front lines of defense—like it or not.” Coauthor Dan Utley says of Alexander’s narrative, “The story of an ordinary individual in extraordinary times has value. . . . These are stories Tom Alexander has waited much of his life to share with others, but they are as rich as the day they occurred.”

THOMAS E. ALEXANDER is the author of The Wings of Change: The Army Air Force Experience in Texas during World War II and coauthor of Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Military Sites in Texas, Then and Now and Echoes of Glory: Historic Military Sites across Texas. A former USAF officer, he is a retired executive vice president of Neiman Marcus and former vice chairman of the Texas Historical Commission. He lives in Boulder, Colorado. DAN K. UTLEY is the author of Links to the Past: The Hidden History on Texas Golf Courses and coauthor of Archie P. McDonald: A Life in Texas History; History Ahead: Stories beyond the Texas Roadside Markers; and many other titles. He is the chief historian for the Center for Texas Public History at Texas State University in San Marcos.