After serving on the U.S.S. Maryland, Herchel was discharged in the spring of 1946. He also wasted much of a year, until he started dating Lorene Calhoun, a member of Junior’s Senior Class of 1947. They married soon after her graduation and moved to Washington, D.C., where Herchel worked for a grocery store. They soon returned to Weatherford, where he worked in an oil tool factory for a few years. At about the time he started working for General Dynamics in Fort Worth, they had their first child, Jack. Ronnie and Vicki followed.

Herchel became a machinist, operating a computer controlled milling machine that produced tools and parts for the construction of aircraft and missiles. He retired from that job. All three of his children earned college degrees. Ronnie was killed in a motorcycle accident. Vicki became a medical technician. Herchel’s wife, Lorene, died in October 1997.

Herchel’s son, Jack, followed his father’s example and joined the military, serving in Southeast Asia, flying out of Udorn, Thailand, the same as Roy. Jack’s two-man warplane flew cover during the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Jack left active duty in 1979, to return to school, earning his M.D. degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He then served as flight surgeon in the Texas Air National Guard. He said his closest brush with tragedy was on a training mission when his F-16 took on a Texas buzzard that flew directly into the engine, causing the plane to crash. He sustained a crushed vertebrae as he ejected. He retired from the military in 1995, but continues in his family medical practice in San Antonio.