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- My father Robert 'Bob' Kuberek, Jr., was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 13 Oct 1929, just before the Crash of '29 and the depression that followed. Raised under these circumstances, to a working father, he early learned the virtues of thrift and self-reliance. His parents certainly did not have a lot, but pictures of him as a young boy show a barefooted scamp, blissfully unaware of his family's circumstances.
As a young man he showed great promise--particularly strong character and initiative. He was an Eagle Scout and a good student. He was enterprising and apparently very trustworthy, if we can judge by the responsibilities placed on him by the adults in his life.
Although he claimed that he really wanted to study letters, his parents pushed him to study engineering and he was accepted to Yale on an NROTC scholarship. (This happened in an unusual way. As I've heard the story, while living in Newton Center, he mowed grass to make money on the side, and one of his customers was a senior administrator at Harvard. Bob so impressed the executive that he gave my father a personal recommendation to Yale. As I've heard the story, he could have gotten into Harvard on the same recommendation, but chose to distance himself from his parents, who lived in Newton Center at the time. If true, he certainly would not have been the first child to want that!)
Graduating from Yale with a BS in Engineering, Bob entered the Navy. According to his Navy service record, my father was first assigned to the U.S.S. John Craig (a destroyer) and later to the U.S.S. George Clymer (an Arthur Middleton-class attack transport) and deployed to Korea where he served from Nov 1952 to July 1953. He served as a gunnery officer and earned the following decorations: Japanese Occupation Medal, United Nations Service Medal, Korean Service Medal (3 stars) and National Defense Service Medal. He was promoted to the permanent rank of Lt. J.G., U.S.N.R., effective 1 Jan 1953. He was released from active duty in 1954, at his request, and honorably discharged 25 Aug 1960. After leaving the Navy he became an aerospace engineer, first in San Diego and later in the Los Angeles Area. Bob worked on many interesting projects, perhaps most notably, ion propulsion, for which he earned a patent for his employer, Hughes Aircraft, and the Maverick Missile System, for which he was a program manager.
The Maverick Missile, now the Maverick AGM-65 is the workhorse air-to-ground guided missile system in use today (2011) by U.S. air forces for close-air support. Although the earliest versions of the system, fielded in Vietnam 50 years ago, suffered from the kinds of problems that most all new systems of its complexity endure, later experience proved the system extraordinarily capable. Iran used the Maverick AGM during the Iran-Iraq War to accomplish the near complete destruction of the Iraq Navy. Nato forces used the Maverick extensively during Desert Storm. All but the E-version of the system are fire-and-forget missiles. Launch platforms have included F-4E (Iran), F-16, A-10 Thunderbolt II's, P-3 Orion and the Soko J-22 Orao (Serbia). Most recently, U.S. forces used the Maverick AGM during operation Odyssey Dawn engaging a Libyan Coast Guard vessel in March 2011.
Sadly, my father died young, but he nonetheless lived a full life, and in his military service, professional work and volunteer work with the Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls contributed more than his share to the welfare of the community and the country which raised him. He was a decent and accomplished man.
-- Robert C Kuberek, on FindaGrave
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1929 - 1997 (67 years)
