Bandstra enjoyed 20 year military career
Picured: Brigadier General Doyle (left) and Bob’s wife pinning on his first lieutenant bars.
Submitted article
Robert (Bob) Bandstra is one of our local military veterans who distinguished himself with a 20-year career in the US Air Force. Bob was born to Rick and Jennie Bandstra and raised near Chandler, Minn. He graduated from Chandler Christian Grade School and Southwest Minnesota Christian High School, graduating in 1974. After attending Dordt College for two years, he enlisted in the US Air Force in 1976 and married his high school sweetheart, Laura Van Dyke, just before he left for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Upon completion of basic training, Bob was assigned to Avionics Technical Training School at Chanute AFB in Rantoul, Illinois. He graduated from Tech School and was assigned to Dover AFB near Dover, Delaware, to support maintenance of the C-5 cargo plane autopilot systems.
At the encouragement of fellow Air Force members while serving at Dover AFB, Bob applied for the Airmen’s Education and Commissioning Program. He was accepted into the program in 1978 and was assigned to Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, where he earned his undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering.
Having earned his BS degree, he was then assigned to Officer’s Training School at Lackland AFB, Texas, and received his commission in March 1981. His first assignment as a 2nd Lieutenant was at Offutt AFB near Omaha, Nebraska. He served in the Trajectory Division of the Strategic Air Command that provided targeting materials for all the USAF’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Realizing that it was a great opportunity to have the military pay for his education, he applied for and was accepted into the master’s degree program at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio, in 1984. Bob graduated with an MS in Astronautical Engineering in December 1985. His follow-on assignment was at Los Angeles AFB, California, to the Titan IV expendable launch vehicle program. He spent six years in this assignment and supported the successful launch of five satellites. While at LA AFB, Bob was re-assigned to the National Reconnaissance Office in 1992.
