A Sun City retired Major General hits the pickleball courts just about every day, a hero hiding in plain sight.
This is his story. First, Mulder joined the Air Force in 1964.
“I graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater and I was asked if I wanted to go to Officer’s Candidate School. I had the option to join the Air Force and become a pilot. I had never flown before,” he said.
What training did he receive?
Mulder said, “In the very beginning I was put in a plane with tandem seats. This assisted students to learn basic military-style maneuvers. The instructor sits in the left seat and the student in the right seat. The cockpit has dual throttles, stick controls, electric elevator trim, and a sliding canopy.”
How did it go?
“The instructor had me do a 30-degree bank turn. I watched him carefully as he made the turn. I watched the instruments and executed the turn by a gradual roll into a bank until I achieved the desired roll rate. It did not go well. I did not apply the precise amount of back pressure on the stick and we dove. I was a little embarrassed.”
Mulder served in the Vietnam War before being given the command of the 64th Tactical Airlift Squadron. Later he was assigned to the Office of the United States Secretary of the Air.
Mulder said, “I spent 37 years in the military. Seven years active time, the rest of the years in the reserves. I was married and we moved often, we needed to settle down.
While I served in Vietnam my wife and kids were in Japan. I flew a C-130 aircraft and rotated bringing crews and picking them up into South Vietnam.”
While in the reserves, he lived in the suburbs of Chicago.
“We settled in Libertyville. I took a job with Delta Airlines. I was with them for 28 years. I flew mostly North and South America routes. I retired one month before 9/11. My wife opened a Hallmark shop and managed the store until 2006. We were married 50 years when she passed away. We have two children and 8 grandchildren.”
Did anyone follow in his footsteps?
Mulder said. “My granddaughter, Rian Becker, she is at the University of North Dakota. One day she texted me that she had been in an altitude chamber. I asked her to find out if that chamber had come from Grand Forks Air Base. It did. I had sat in that same Chamber 50 years ago.”
The chamber testing is used for new pilots to learn their body’s warning signs for hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen, during flight. This simulator duplicates the sensations a pilot would feel during various flight maneuvers.
Mulder received the Meritorious Service medal with oak leaf cluster, the Air medal with three oak leaf clusters, the Air Force Commendation medal, the Outstanding Unit Award, the Armed Forces Expeditionary medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, and the Vietnam Gallantry Cross.
Mulder said “My love was always with the Air Force. There was a unique comradery.”
Mulder’s favorite moments in the military include some notable names.
“I met five of our presidents. Presidents Ford, Nixon, Bush Reagan, and Carter. Once on a flight on Delta Airlines, I walked out of the cockpit, and I saw Rosalynn sitting in first class, but President Carter was in the back talking to everyone in the plane. It was something to see. Another favorite moment was when we used the C130 to fly low over the skyline of Chicago. The flight was a thrill for special needs children, some of them in wheelchairs.”
Mark Schinler, another pickleball player, has met this quiet, reserved gentleman.
Schinler said, “I have an obsession about remembering people’s names, and there were a lot of pickleball players whose names that I wanted to remember. I introduced myself to a gentleman named Grant. I try to make associations in my head to make it easier to remember names, I blurted out that I am going to call you General, after General Ulysses Grant. He just smiled back. Whenever we’d meet on the courts, I would greet him with a very enthusiastic Hi General! After two months, he pulled me aside and quietly said, you know Mark, I am a real general. My jaw dropped and I apologized profusely. He was kind, he was gracious, he was soft-spoken. A true gentleman.”
Barry Newman another pickleball player said, “Grant is so delightfully unassuming; a true officer and gentleman. It would have been an honor and privilege to serve under his military or civilian command.”
Schinler said, “I am amazed and humbled that Grant found his home in our community. We are all better for having him in our midst so let’s honor him with our utmost respect and appreciation for his service to our country. As General Ulysses S. Grant once said, ‘it will be all right if it turns out all right. It turned out all right after all.’”
