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William Gregory, "Greg," to all, was born into a sharecropper's
life in the hills of northcentral Tennessee. From the back of a
mule-drawn plow, Greg learned the value of resilience and the
importance of living a determined life. Refusing to accept a life
of continued poverty, Gregy sought and found a way out - a
work-study college program that made it possible to leave farming
behind him forever. While at college, Greg completed the Civilian
Pilot Training Program and was subsequently accepted into the
Army's pilot training program. Earning his wings in 1942, Greg
became a P-38 combat pilot and served in North Africa during the
summer of 1943 - a critical time when the Luftwaffe was still a
potent threat, and America had begun the march northward from the
Mediterranean into Europe proper. Following the war, Greg served
with a B-29 unit, then transitioned to the new, red-hot B-47
strategic bomber. In his frequent deployments, he was always
assigned the same target in the Soviet Union - Tblisi, Stalin's
home town. While a B-47 pilot, Greg was selected to join America's
first high-altitude program - the Black Knights. Flying RB-57D
aircraft, Greg and his team flew peripheral "ferret" missions
around the Soviet Union and its satellites, collecting critical
order-of-battle data so desperately needed by the Air Force at that
time. When that program neared its design end, and following the
Gary Powers shoot-down over the Soviet Union, Greg was assigned to
command of the CIA's U-2 unit at Edwards AFB. It was during that
five-year command that Greg and his team provided critical
overflight intelligence, including during the Bay of Pigs, the
Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam build-up. He found time to
also become one of the first to fly U-2s off aircraft carriers in a
demonstration project. Following his U-2 command, Greg attended the
National War College, was assigned to the reconnaissance office at
the Pentagon, and then was named Vice-Commandant of the Air Force
Institute of Technology (AFIT). Greg retired from the Air Force in
1972.
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