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Veteran finally gets his medals
By Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., warned Frank Ketchie to stay away from airport metal detectors,

Or was that medal detectors?

The good-natured warning came Wednesday afternoon after Coble presented the Rowan County military veteran with many of the medals and ribbons he should have received during a distinguished career, spent mostly as an Air Force photographer.

"It's a surprise," said Ketchie, who for decades knew there were awards he should have received but never did at his military retirement in 1968.

The credit goes to Coble's staff, especially Rowan County aide Terri Welch, who had numerous conversations and correspondence with the Air Force, Navy and National Personnel Records Center in documenting Ketchie's long-ago service record.

"I think our veterans deserve all the recognition they can get," Welch said Tuesday after taking several pictures of Ketchie and his family with Coble beside them.

Ketchie's family asked Coble's office for help in May and learned three weeks ago that the medals and ribbons were on their way.

On Wednesday, Ketchie's family members included his wife, Lucille; their daughter, Lucretia Schewe of Wilmington, and her son, David Dudding; their son, Mark Ketchie of Athens, Ga., and his children, Joshua and Sarah; niece Jean Lefler of Faith; and Bobby Webb, a friend from Ketchie's volunteer days at Rowan Regional Medical Center.

A Gold Hill native, Ketchie had another career with the civil service at Fort Bragg until 1989. In 1994, he and Lucille returned to Rowan County, and they now live at High Rock Lake.

The awards Ketchie received Wednesday included five medals and a packet full of ribbons. For example, he received an Air Force Longevity Service Award with four oak leaf clusters, a Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, an oak leaf cluster to go with an Air Force Good Conduct Medal, four bronze loops to accompany an Army Good Conduct Medal and a bronze service star to go with a National Defense Service Medal.

Family members and Ketchie recounted some of his experiences.

In the Navy during World War II, a young Ketchie served in a construction battalion for the SeaBees. He returned to Rowan County, earned his high school diploma and worked briefly at Rockwell Casket Co. before signing up for the Air Force and a 21-year career. He learned photography at an Air Force school in Denver.

In 1961, Ketchie was part of the Project Talking Bird Air Force flight crew that flew around the world, setting up communications for the Mobile Air Command Post. He served in the Korean War and on a command aircraft during the Cuban missile crisis.

Ketchie recalled fondly his work documenting the Project Mercury days of the space race when John Glenn and other original astronauts were training at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va. He also proudly remembered his work with Polaroid in developing the machine to make instant photo identification cards.

Once featured on a "PMMagazine" segment and in a 1998 story in the Post, Ketchie also deserves credit for helping to develop the first cameras used in dentistry and for proposing that people be allowed to smile on their passport photos.

Mark Ketchie says his father also was a courier during the Cold War.

Frank Ketchie has a theory about creativity, enterprise and invention: "Get a lazy man," he says. "He will find an easy way of doing it."

His family quickly added that Frank Ketchie was never lazy.

During his photography career in the Air Force, Ketchie says, he may have saved the life of a test pilot when the Air Force was trying to figure out why F-86 Sabres were crashing.

Ketchie and his camera were there documenting the tests, when Ketchie pointed out suspect rivets on an aircraft scheduled for a test flight.

In flight, the rivets weren't holding, allowing a scoop to dislodge and damage the aircraft.

"I never did get any award for that," Ketchie said.

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