Robin Olds
From USAFA Folklore
| Robin Olds | |
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| 1922 - 2007 | |
| USAFA position(s): | Commandant, 1967-71 |
| Rank: | Brig. Gen. |
| Nickname(s): | |
| Awards and Recognition: | Triple Ace Air Force Cross |
| USAFA Class: | |
| Cadet squadron: | |
| Cadet Activities: | |
| Official bio: | http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6651 |
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Brig. Gen. Robin Olds was the sixth Commandant of Cadets, serving in that position from 1967 to 1971. He was chosen as the class exemplar of the Class of 2011.
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[edit] Accounts from his time as Comm
- I have to drop this gem on Robin (who lives in Steamboat). When he first showed up (from Thailand), we all trooped over to Arnie's auditorium so he could give us his words of wisdom. The Wing Staff guys were all sitting on stage behind him and he just stood at he podium for about a minute saying nothing. Finally he turned around, looked at the wing staff, turned back to us, said "when I was their age, I was a fucking major" flipped the entire wing the bird and walked off stage. We knew this guy was one of us right then. - (3 Aug 2000)
- Olds was an enigma. We welcomed him by freezing our butts off in an afternoon parade. He never seemed to understand that getting shitfaced with firsties at the club in the evening, then nailing them to the cross the next day sent a bit of a mixed message to the Wing. He flipped the week of the Navy game in 68. A lot of overreaction to the typical cadet hijinks that proceed a game with USNA or USMA. On evening the OIC made his rounds with a German Sheppard on a leash. A few cadets grabbed the OIC and the pooch, and stuff them in burlap sacks (separate sacks, if memory serves me correctly). We spent 20 hours on the train to Chicago for the game, then 20 hours back, arriving late Sunday evening. Monday evening, Olds had the upper 3 classes in Arnold Hall after the evening meal, and reamed ass; keeping everyone at attention for the length of his diatribe (or so I am told...I broke my leg in intramural football that afternoon, and was in the hospital, watching the Olympics).
One of his best stunts....Olds was walking from Vandenberg Hall to Fairchild Hall (on the ground level) when a kid in 71 was walking the opposite direction, heading for the dorm, wearing parka, hood up BUT with a ski cap instead of the regulation blue watch cap. The cadet salutes Olds and keeps walking...Olds turns around and yells...you man in the ski cap, HALT! The cadet turns around and says, Yeah Right! And bolts for the dorm, with Olds in hot pursuit. Well, no officer was going to catch a cadet in the dorm, so Olds finally gave up. He then ordered a change of uniform about every 15 minutes, and had SUC flight people posted on the bridges to Fairchild Hall...you would leave your room and head for class in the correct uniform, and Olds would change it...now we were faced with being written up for being out of uniform, or heading back to change and being written up for being late to class. Olds kept this up, and put the word out that this cadet didn't have the balls to come see him. When that got back to the cadet, he headed straight for Olds' office. Olds then backed off and had a good laugh about the whole thing. I am told that when Olds announced his reassignment, he was greeted by a standing ovation from the cadet wing (this was after my time) Olds was a true hero who just never understood the wing, or vice versa. - (Aug 17, 2000)
- I was there when Olds first came to the zoo, and we pulled a great stunt to welcome him at the honoring Noon Meal Formation. The whole wing had secretly been given little black cotton clip-on handlebar moustaches we hid in our pant pockets. (Recall that Robin Olds had been sporting a fine handlebar in SEA when he was selected to be the Comm and he was ordered to shave it off before the move) So, just before the wing stepped off to march past Olds and the Supt and gang, the cadet wing commander gave the order "Wing! ... Don 'Staches!" and we pulled them out of our pockets and clipped them under our noses (hurt like hell, squeezing between the nostrils!). Olds was just about doubled over with laughter but managed a proud salute in return for each squadron passing in review. We probably looked like Saddam's Air Force did in later years!
There's more. Fast forward to the Air Force 25th anniversary celebration at Elmendorf AFB Alaska a few years ago. I saw that Robin Olds would be the honored guest speaker, so I had a brass plaque made and mounted a black cotton costume handlebar moustache in the middle. The inscription: "To BGen Robin Olds (Ret) from Members of USAFA - Don't Step on Your Moustache" (also recall his famous words of wisdom to us cadets: "don't step on your foreskin") and presented it to him after his moving speech that evening about the Old Days of Air Force heritage that he had experienced. I recounted for the audience the tale of the greeting gag at the zoo, and he was noticeably touched by the whole spontaneous presentation amidst the more formal congratulations from the Emcee for the evening. - (30 Sep 2000)
[edit] Background and education
General Olds was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Army Air Corps Major General and Mrs. Robert Olds. He spent his boyhood days in the Hampton, Va., area where he attended elementary and high school. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., and was commissioned as second lieutenant in June 1943. A member of the academy football team, he was selected as All-American tackle in 1942. He completed pilot training in 1943.
[edit] Military assignments
General Olds is rated a triple ace, having shot down a total of 17 enemy aircraft during World War II and the Vietnam War. He began his combat flying in a P-38 Lightning named "Scat 1" during World War II, and at the end of the war he was flying "Scat VII," a P-51 Mustang, and was credited with 107 combat missions and 24.5 victories, 13 aircraft shot down and 11 1/2 aircraft destroyed on the ground.
During the Vietnam War in October 1966, General Olds entered combat flying in Southeast Asia in "Scat XXVII," an F-4 Phantom II. He completed 152 combat missions, including 105 over North Vietnam. Utilizing air-to-air missiles, he shot down over North Vietnam two Mig-17 and two Mig-21 aircraft, two of these on one mission.
General Olds was wing man on the first jet acrobatic team in the Air Force and won second place in the Thompson Trophy Race (Jet Division) at Cleveland in 1946. He participated in the first one-day, dawn-to-dusk, transcontinental roundtrip flight in June 1946 from March Field, Calif., to Washington, D.C., and return.
His duty assignments in England, Germany, Libya, Thailand and the United States have included positions as squadron, base, group and wing commander; staff assignments in a numbered Air Force, Headquarters U.S. Air Force and the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a graduate of the National War College, 1963.
In February 1946 General Olds started flying P-80 jets at March Field, Calif., with the first squadron so equipped. In October 1948 he went to England under the U.S. Air Force - Royal Air Force Exchange Program and served as commander of No. 1 Fighter Squadron at Royal Air Force Station Tangmere. The squadron was equipped with the Gloster Meteor jet fighter.
He assumed duties as commander of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, in September 1966. He returned to the United States in December 1967 and served as commandant of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy through January 1971.
General Olds assumed the position of director of aerospace safety in the Air Force Inspection and Safety Center at Norton Air Force Base, Calif., in February 1971. Brigadier General Robin Olds retired June 1, 1973.
[edit] Awards and decorations
His military decorations and awards include the Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star with three oak leaf clusters, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with five oak leaf clusters, Air Medal with 39 oak leaf clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal, British Distinguished Flying Cross, French Croix de Guerre, Vietnam Air Force Distinguished Service Order, Vietnam Air Gallantry Medal with Gold Wings, Vietnam Air Service Medal, and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal. He is a command pilot.
[edit] Interviews
Robin Olds on "Dogfights" (YouTube.com)
| Commandant of Cadets | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Louis T. Seith | Robin Olds 1967-1971 | Succeeded by: Walter T. Galligan |
| Commandants |
|---|
| Stillman · Sullivan · Seawell · Strong · Seith · Olds · Galligan · Vandenberg · Beck · Richards · Beckel · Burshnick · Anderson · Westbrook · Redden · Bethurem · Gamble · Hopper · Lorenz · Welsh · Gilbert · Weida · Desjardins · Cox |
