David Wade ( Louisiana ) David Wade ( June 15 , 1911 - May 11 , 1990 ) was a decorated American lieutenant general from three wars who after military retirement on March 1 , 1967 , served in two appointed positions in the state government of his native Louisiana . The David Wade Correctional Center , a prison in Claiborne Parish , is named in his honor . Background . Wade was born in Minden in Webster Parish , which had been created in 1871 from Claiborne Parish . He was reared in the Holly Springs community , known today primarily for a Baptist church and a cemetery located off U . S . Highway 79 between Minden and Homer in Claiborne Parish . He attended the long since defunct Harris High School and Homer Junior College and procured the Bachelor of Science in engineering from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish . He entered the United States Army and served thereafter in World War II , the Korean War , and the Vietnam War . Military , 1935 - 1954 . In February 1935 , Wade launched what developed into a 32 - year military career when he enlisted as a cadet in the United States Army Air Corps , the forerunner of the Air Force . He underwent pilot training at Randolph Field in San Antonio , Texas . He was an until November 1941 , when he was named assistant director and then director of training at the U . S . Army base in Big Spring in Howard County in West Texas , a position which he retained until October 1943 . For that point forward , Wade was constantly reassigned , usually every two to four years , to different locations by the Army and later the Air Force . In the fall of 1943 , he assumed new duties as commanding officer of the 34th Combat Crew Training School and then the 9th Bomb Group in Blythe , California , and Walla Walla , Washington , respectively , until March 1945 . At that time , Wade became deputy commander of the 320th Bomb Wing in Sacramento , California . In August 1945 , Wade began a 26 - month tour of duty in the South Pacific . He was the commander of the 9th Bombardment Group in the Marianas and the Philippines until April 1947 . At that time , for seven months he commanded the 19th Bombardment Group on Guam . He returned to the United States in November 1947 and entered the Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk , Virginia , from which he graduated in July 1948 , when he was named the vice commander of the U . S . Air Force Security Service at Brooks Air Force Base , which necessitated his return to San Antonio , where he remained until June 1950 . Then Wade returned to California to become the deputy commander of the 93d Bombardment Wing at Castle Air Force Base near San Francisco . In April 1951 , Wade was sent to Japan to command the 98th Bombardment Wing . He selected the targets in the strategic bombing of communist North Korea . He remained in Japan until September 1951 , when he assumed the command of the 303d Bombardment Wing at Davis - Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson , Arizona . On February 18 , 1952 , he was named commander of the 92d Bombardment Wing at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane , Washington . Nine months later he took command of the 57th Air Division at Fairchild . In April 1954 , Wade was named commander of the 21st Air Division with headquarters at Forbes Air Force Base near Topeka , Kansas . He remained there a full year , when he was reassigned as inspector general at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha , Nebraska . In July 1956 , he was promoted to the position of SAC chief of staff . Military , 1958 - 1967 . On January 1 , 1958 , Wade was assigned as commander of the 1st Missile Division at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc , California . There he commanded the first operational missile unit in Air Force history . His commission was two - fold : ( 1 ) maintain operational capability with intercontinental ballistic missile s , and ( 2 ) establish operational readiness training for the missile crews of the SAC missile sites . He hence worked to develop the Discoverer , Samos , and Midas orbiting satellite programs . From Vandenberg , General Wade was sent in April 1961 to Torrejón Air Base near Madrid , Spain , where he commanded SAC ' s 16th Air Expeditionary Task Force . He received his promotion to lieutenant general on August 1 , 1963 and assumed command of SAC ' s Second Air Force with headquarters then at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City , some fifty miles west of his hometown of Homer , Louisiana . Then on August 1 , 1966 , he assumed command of the Eighth Air Force at Westover Air Force Base near Springfield , Massachusetts . As the commander at Westover , he was responsiible for bombers , tankers , and missiles located south from Goose Bay , Labrador , to Ramey Air Force Base in Aguadilla , Puerto Rico , and extending westward from Loring Air Force Base in Aroostook County , Maine , to Clinton - Sherman Air Force Base near Clinton , Oklahoma . Wade received the Legion of Merit with Oak leaf cluster , Distinguished Flying Cross , Soldier ' s Medal , Air Medal with oak leaf cluster and the Air Force Commendation Medal . Later years . After Wade ' s military retirement , Governor John McKeithen appointed him in 1967 as the director of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections , with authority over both state police and prisons . From 1968 to 1972 , he was the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard . In 1972 , Wade got into an open dispute with Democratic State Representative Dorothy Mae Taylor of New Orleans , the first African - American female to serve in the Louisiana legislature . Wade called Taylor " a real phony " and accused her of seeking media attention by inciting trouble at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola as well as the parish prison in Orleans Parish . Wade said that Taylor catered to a black militant group with an eye toward her own political agenda . Wade died in 1990 at the age of seventy - eight . He and his wife , Dorothy , donated memorabilita to the Herbert S . Ford Memorial Museum in Homer , Louisiana , which he considered to have been his hometown . On display are the general ' s portrait , flags , medals , and awards as well as various weapons from World War I to the Vietnam era , including a World War II " Liberator , " a rare pistol meant to be discarded after a single use .