Minot Air Force Base's commander has retired after nearly 30 years in the military but he's not hanging up his uniform. He'll be looking for some "young knucklehead kid" who needs a mentor.

Col. Eldon Woodie, 50, ceded command Tuesday to Col. Bruce Emig, the former vice commander of the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, just east of Rapid City, S.D.

Woodie, who worked his way from an Army private to an Air Force base commander, overseeing some 4,600 airmen, plans to move to his native Alabama. He plans to run a Junior ROTC program at a high school near Birmingham.

He'll wear his uniform to class, he said, calling it "a great excuse to keep in shape."

Woodie, who's quick with a quip and has a pronounced southern drawl, said his new job is "not a real lucrative deal for me" but is a way of repaying the military and mentoring young men and women.

"I suspect I'll find some young knucklehead kid like me who has more potential than he thinks he has," Woodie said.

He was a below-average student in high school and came close to dropping out, he said.

"An Army ROTC instructor encouraged me to finish high school and I did - at the very top of the bottom of my class," he said. He enlisted in the Army at age 18, after finishing high school.

Woodie's climb from an enlisted man to commander of the 5th Bomb Wing, which operates 35 B-52 bombers, is a rarity in the Air Force. He said he knows of no other former enlisted service member who has been the commanding officer of an Air Force base. He was the 46th commander of the Minot's 5th Bomb Wing.

Woodie said his enlisted service was valuable. While in the Army, he met his wife, Bonnie, who also was in the service, working as a clerk typist. The Army also gave him "a lot more maturity a lot more quickly," he said.

"I feel good about my enlisted service," Woodie said. "For a lot of young women and men, it is the right thing to do. I think it makes them better citizens."

Woodie was stationed in South Korea in 1976, and remembers Air Force fighters flying overhead after North Korean soldiers beat to death two U.S. Army officers trimming a tree along the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas.

"I thought to myself, 'That's the way to go - those are the guys that can really take it to them.' And that's when I began thinking about flying for the Air Force," he said.

Woodie left the Army and got his undergraduate degree on the GI Bill. He received a commission in the Air Force in 1981, through Officer Candidate School.

He began his Air Force career as a T-37 flight instructor, and later flew B-1 and B-52 bombers.

He ends his career with 4,758 flight hours, including about 200 hours in combat over Afghanistan.

Besides North Dakota, Woodie was stationed with Air Force units in South Dakota, California, Guam, Texas, Virginia and Louisiana.

He said his North Dakota assignment was among his favorites.

"Living in North Dakota has been great - great air space and great people," Woodie said.