Ret. Colonel Archie Andrews, Jr

Archie Daniel Andrews, Jr. 78, of Mt Pleasant SC, husband of Selma Andrews from Mansfield GA,  passed away unexpectedly Friday, Oct 4, 2024.  He was preceded in death by his parents, Archie Andrews Sr and LaVerne Booth Andrews as well as his brother, Sam Andrews and sister Betsy Huffman.  

Born in Mississippi and grew up in Sandy Springs Georgia, Archie met and married his college sweetheart at University of Georgia.  After graduation from UGA with a degree in Journalism, he then proudly served as a signal corps officer in the army for 25 years. When he was “thanked” for his service as a veteran, he always responded with “It was my pleasure”.  

Archie served in Vietnam, at the pentagon, the Army War College in Carlisle PA, at NATO headquarters in Brussels Belgium, pursued his PhD in computer security at University of Texas Austin and concluded his military career as Director of the US Army Computer Science School at Ft Gordon, Augusta GA.  As a young major, he was awarded the Legion of Merit for helping the Army War College develop computer war gaming program.

After retiring from a 25 year career in the military, he went on to be a Director at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He was then lured back south to the South Carolina Research Association in Charleston SC. Carnegie Mellon enticed him to help establish the Computer Emergency Response Team program overseas in Doha, Qatar prior to his heading back to Pittsburgh as a Technical Director in Security Software Systems.

After his 3rd retirement, Archie finally had more time to pursue his hobbies: pottery, biking, photography, travel and playing the harmonica. Note his dream of bagpipe mastery was subtly discouraged but he did carry a spare harmonica in case of emergency.  He was able to travel and tour (and photograph) many places on his bucket list prior to his passing.

Archie was a devoted husband, loving father and grandfather.  In addition to his wife of 58 years, Archie is survived by his daughter, Stacy Andrews; grandson, Daniel Gage Andrews and many loved nieces and nephews.  A man of immense humor and wisdom, Archie was loved by family and well respected by friends and acquaintances and will be greatly missed.

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