Dewayne Rudd joined the U.S. Air Force with a dream of one day becoming an astronaut and flying to space. Instead he became a versatile pilot the military and NASA would turn to on some of their most important projects, including a U-2 reconnaissance pilot, a test pilot during the development of the B-2 Stealth Bomber, and the chief test pilot for the space shuttle crew escape system following the Challenger disaster.

In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Major Rudd walks us through his days as a refueling tanker co-pilot and a couple of moments he and his unit thought they were being called into action to face the USSR. He also shares how his U-2 missions were conducted and how he evaded detection from hostile powers.

Rudd also takes us into the devastating aftermath of the Challenger disaster and his work in giving astronauts the best possible tools to survive any future shuttle crisis. And he explains what is was like to test fly the B-2 and produce an exceptional plane in such a high-profile project.

Finally, Major Rudd tells about his time volunteering at a memory care unit full of veterans in Wilmore, Kentucky, and how he came to write "Fading Away at Wilmore," a book honoring the stories of many of those veterans and chronicling their final, difficult battles against dementia.