Colonel Wilfred O. Boettiger, USA (ret.) “was born in Chicago, June 20, 1920 and he spent his boyhood in Rancho Santa Fe and South Pasadena, California. In 1939, certain that the US would soon be fighting World War II, 19-year old Wilfred Boettiger, an insurance clerk in Seattle, joined the Washington National Guard as a private to get some military training. That was the beginning of a 30-year career in the US Army Antiaircraft Artillery branch in the National Guard and on active duty during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War as an enlisted man and officer in antiaircraft units with three inch and 90mm guns, 40mm automatic weapons, 120mm gun batteries and Nike and Hawk air defense missile units during the Cold War.” Colonel Wilfred O. Boettiger is the author of Formerly Classified: Memoirs of a 20th Century American Soldier, Diplomat, Author, Sculptor, Sailor, Amateur Archeologist, and Adventurer and An Antiaircraft Artilleryman: From 1939 to 1970.

Formerly Classified: Memoirs of a 20th Century American Soldier, Diplomat, Author, Sculptor, Sailor, Amateur Archeologist, and Adventurer Wilfred O. Boettiger  More Info An Antiaircraft Artilleryman from 1939 to 1970 Wilfred Boettiger  More Info

After World War II, Boettiger served in the reserves until he was activated for the Korean War and describes his job as a post training officer at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and then his gung-ho service as a combat field artilleryman in Korea. He then tells about his command of a 120mm AAA gun battery in the Cold War air defense of the Hanford Atomic Reservation and his selection to be a pioneer Nike Missile battery commander.

He then describes his assignments to the American Embassy in Germany air defense missile sales advisor to the new German Army and Air Force during their missile build up in NATO joint air defenses from 1956 to 1959; his command of a nuclear-armed, improved Nike missile battalion in the joint Army-Air Force air defense of Loring Air Force Base; and his advise to the Japanese Army and Air Force on their joint air defense missile build up including the procurement of US nuclear-capable Nike air defense missiles. He describes his advisory service preparing the Virginia National Guard for active duty during the Vietnam war and finally, his experience as Chief of the powerful Army air defense missile forces in the joint air defense of Okinawa when Russian bombers were probing the islands air defenses.”