Robert Hale Hutches, 91, passed away Saturday, July 20, 2019 at the Missouri Veterans Home in Mt. Vernon, Missouri.

He was born February 24, 1928, to Hale and MaryAnn (Carson) Hutches in Sturgis, South Dakota. The oldest son in an Army family, he lived at Fort Meade, SD, Fort Des Moines, IA, and at Schofield Barracks Army Base, Honolulu, HI. The family lived briefly in San Francisco, CA during his father's illness and early death in 1940, when they returned home to Sturgis.

He joined the US Navy at 17 and trained for fighting in the Pacific Theater in WWII, but was fortunate to see the end of the war without going to battle. He served with the Fleet Post Office and returned to South Dakota to attend college. He later joined the US Army and was stationed in Europe during the Korean Conflict. Between times, he toured the US by motorcycle, on his beloved 1947 Indian Chief.

He then enlisted in the US Air Force, and met his wife Mary (Cradeur) while stationed in Lake Charles, Louisiana. They were married in 1960 and later deployed to shared base RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, England where he worked on Cold War radar technology. They returned to the US in 1965 and retired from Ellsworth Air Force base in South Dakota. He worked for the US Post Office until his retirement in 1983. The family moved to Springfield, Missouri in 1988.

Bob was preceded in death by his wife Mary in 2004, their first child (Eugene Hale, infant), his parents, two beloved brothers (Richard and David, both veterans), and sister Patricia, who was killed at age 11 by a hit-and-run driver in Sturgis in 1945. He is survived by four children – Roger (Stacy) Hutches, Sandra (Shawn) Whalen, Debra (Jeff) Kerr, and Alan Hutches, and six grandchildren.

Friends and family knew Bob as good humored, intelligent and a grateful American proud of his service to his country. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Missouri Veterans Home in Mt. Vernon, Mo, or to a local veterans' support organization.

He will be laid to rest in a private family ceremony on Monday, July 29, 2019, next to Mary at the Missouri Veterans Cemetery in Springfield.