Dear Fellow Missileers
Happy Independence Day! Still to this day I have a strong memory of coming off alert on July 4th, 1976 at Ellsworth AFB and enjoying our Nation's Bicentennial celebration--a day full of flags, fireworks, and BBQs as we celebrated 200 years of independence from the British empire!
In the next few weeks, we will be sending our new book The Silent Sentinels: Minuteman Artwork Revealed to the printers. In this 324 page book, Missileers reveal the intricate details of the mission, the events, and the people through morale patches, schoolhouse painted ceiling tiles, underground mural walls of the launch control centers, and finally music. Copies will be available for purchase later this year.
Rock Star Missileers:
The Air and Space Forces Association recognized the 321st Missile Squadron with the 2024 Gen. Thomas S. Power Outstanding Missile Crew Award.
The award recognizes 1st Lt. Alex Tarbet and 1st Lt. Patrick Finan, 321 MS combat crew, as the best missile combat crew in the Air Force. “It is a humbling experience,” Finan said. “We couldn’t have done it without our peers’ and leaderships’ support. In the end, it's just confirmation that we were surrounding ourselves with a network of amazing people and improving ourselves along the way.”
AFA recognizes the best missile combat crew in Air Force Global Strike Command annually with this award. General Power was commander-in-chief of Strategic Air Command from 1957 to 1964. He was the father of SAC's intercontinental ballistic missile force and was directly involved in the planning and deployment of the Atlas, Titan and Minuteman ICBMs.
In the last year, Finan and Tarbet distinguished themselves through their dedication to the mission leading to the development and implementation of a new flight deployment construct and missile procedures training schedule, their leadership while completing five nuclear communications tests over four platforms, winning the Linhard trophy for Best Operations Crew and the McMahon Trophy for Best Weapon System Crew.
Memorable Moments from the Field!
Place: Vandenberg AFB in the Missile Procedures Trainer.
Instructor: In a simulated LCC fire scenario, states “You smell smoke”!
New DMCCC in training: Yes sir, I know, but I am trying to give it up and my wife doesn’t like the way it smells either!
Place: Minot on the way to an A2 alert in 1975:
As the A2 shift was driving to Lima; the sun was setting, and a glorious sunset was emblazoning itself across the sky. The crew commander commented how beautiful it was.
His new Deputy replied...
“If you kind-of squint a little bit it looks like a “25 Megatoner” detonating in Lima Flight!”
Place: Malmstrom AFB at the crew vehicle barn:
As the Crew Commander was just pulling out, she looked out the side rear-view mirror and saw a muddy dark liquid running down the back side window. She looked at the Deputy and asked, “where’s our coffee”?
The Deputy replied, “I put both cups and the box of donuts on the roof on your side!”
Place: 44 SMW, K01, 1968, on a very windy, cold, winter day.
Crew Commander: “Did you get all the used code pages destroyed in the burn barrel?”
Deputy: “Well...sort of”...
Commander: “What do you mean sort of?“
Deputy: ‘When I opened the barrel to put more pages in, some of them blew away!”
Commander: “Did you pick them up?”
Deputy: “They blew away over the fence”
Commander: “Let’s go get them!” .Note: a couple of half burned pages were found during the
spring thaw.
Place: 91st Missile Wing O01, 1975. The A1crew was turning in their Smith and Wesson 38
Handguns after a daytime alert.
The Commander and his Deputy went outside in the cold weather to the red clearing barrel.
The Deputy went to the clearing barrel first, put on his cold weather gloves and started to unload his 38. As he opened the cylinder and ejected the rounds into his gloved hand one round fell to the rubber mat under the barrel and bounced to the asphalt. When the round hit the asphalt, it detonated, and the shell casing flew between the Commanders legs and landed around twenty feet away. The 1960’s Vietnam era lead bullet flew around three feet.
SAC approved solution: Move the clearing barrel into the FSC’s office, don’t wear cold weather gloves when unloading weapons and, of course, retrain the crew on handling weapons.
Nuclear Hell on Wheels: Examining the Need for a Mobile ICBM
In 2015, Lt Col Matthew Dillow, a student at the Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies wrote a Trinity Site Paper revisiting the need for a mobile land-based ICBM. Lt Col Dillow’s paper contains an older, but well said statement from General Robert Kehler.
“And what the ICBM force gives to the president is the ability to respond promptly. I think that’s still a valuable component of the range of alternatives that we could offer to the president. ... I think there’s a big difference between a force that you can use promptly and one that you must use promptly. And I no longer see us in a scenario where we must use the ICBMs promptly.
General Robert Kehler, former Commander, U.S. Strategic Command
Given the fact that the USAF and DoD Sentinel Program is undergoing a Nunn-McCurdy cost review, the original concept of installing Sentinel in 60-year-old silos is uncovering some MM silo infrastructure and supply line issues that are adding to the program costs. Regardless, the Sentinel ICBM is needed in the Triad and there are ways to lower costs to get the missile deployed faster with less expense. Lt Col Dillow’s paper addresses a wide range of deployment alternatives regarding the existing strategic environment in 2015. Since 2015, the strategic nuclear environment and technology has changed, and some of his ideas in the paper are relevant again today and should be revisited. Both Russia and China have developed operational mobile ICBM’s. In addition, China is building hundreds of silo-based ICBMs with the possible ability to survive a counterforce strike. For more information see Russia's Nuclear Weapons and China's Mobile ICBM's .
Want to know more? Trinity Site Paper
Final Quote: “The entire world will be in nuclear war, and only the Swiss will be going, “Vhats that noise?”
-- Robin Williams
Sincerely,
Jim
James F. Warner
Executive Director
