He continued his education at Maryland while assigned to the U.S. Naval Academy from 1952 to 1955, receiving his master's degree in 1953 and his doctorate in government and politics in 1955. He entered command staff school of the Air University in 1955, and upon graduation in 1956 was assigned to Japan, where he was assigned to the psychological warfare section of the Far East Command until it was deactivated. Colonel Strange was secretary of the Joint Staff of the U.S. forces in Japan from 1957-1959. While in Japan, he taught political science at Sophia University, a Jesuit school in Tokyo, and with the University of Maryland, Far East division.
Assigned to the Pentagon in 1959, he served as chief of the school branch of the officer assignment division, where he doubled the number of Air Force volunteer scientists and engineers educated in American Universities. In 1962, Colonel Strange returned to Illinois to head the University of Illinois department of aerospace studies, teach political science graduate courses, and head the Air Force detachment in Champaign. When the ROTC became a voluntary program in 1963, he developed a new program for the unit. Colonel Strange was very active in area civic and political groups with a focus on history and education.
In 1966, he was named acting head of political studies at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. He was killed in October 1966 in a car accident en route to Charleston. At the time of his death, he was a Director, former vice-president, and long-term member of the Illinois State Historical Society.