Fellow Missileers
I hope you all had a great holiday. Here is some interesting updates on current events and some history in the missile world:
Torchlight Initiative Visits the Space Power Conference
Danny Sebeck posted this on Linked In: A powerful day in Orlando. The Torchlight team showed up strong — sharing the stories of our ICBM community, honoring those we’ve lost, and raising awareness about the documented hazards missile community members faced for decades, from PCBs and contaminated water to asbestos and VOCs. We told the stories of teammates like Lt Col (ret) Anthony Spaduzzi, whose confirmed PCB exposure at L01 led to his terminal cancer, and Maj Mark Holmes, one of many diagnosed decades earlier than the national average. These stories moved people — and opened doors.
Today we built new connections with senior leaders, Guardians, Airmen, veterans, and families committed to accountability and meaningful risk mitigation. We shared solemn moments while remembering our fallen teammates. Torchlight came to Orlando to shine a light for our community and spread some hope and awareness. We will keep speaking for the wounded, the sick, and those who cannot speak for themselves. Thank you to all those who are listening.
AAFM has invited the Torchlight Initiative to speak at our 2026 National Meeting in Minot, ND
General Curtis E. Lemay's View of ICBM's in 1957:
Top Secret Declassified
General Lemay's 21 May 1957 speech to the USAF Scientific Advisory Board at then Patrick AFB. He encapsulates his thinking about SAC’s mission, its
capabilities, and on-going plans for the development of new weapons systems to target the Soviet Union and its allies. In this speech, LeMay argued that the
popular view of deterrence was based on fear of the destruction of urban centers, but what deterred the “professional military” was a capability to “destroy long-range delivery of nuclear weapons.”
No, that is not the Blanchard Trophy. In 1962 Gen Lemay presented the first place trophy to Roger Penske at the Marlboro Speedway. Makes you wonder where the Blanchard idea came from. Penske's suit would have made some cool looking crew blues!
On ICBMs, then not yet deployed, LeMay partly appraised them for their utility to the bomber mission because, in their early stages, their accuracy would be low. Thus, “using it initially to damage Soviet air offense and defense systems on the ground holding them down until they can be destroyed by the manned bomber. ICBMs could also be used to “disrupt” control centers and their communications networks."
Want to know more? See Gen Lemay's View of ICBM's
Going Back for the Future?
Top Secret Declassified
During the summer of 1964, Air Force science advisers were writing favorable reports about a new technical possibility that would increase the lethality of U.S. nuclear forces. At that time, the Minuteman force was limited to 1,000 missiles. The invention of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) made it possible to put more warheads on each missile, with each one capable of striking a separate target. Moreover, accuracy improvements were making it possible to strike targets with some precision.
To evaluate whether the U.S. needed a 1200 or 1400 Minuteman force, then Secretary of War McNamara wanted the analysis to use the following “blocks” of forces. (see MIRVs and Mad below). What McNamara said about the first block captured the basic idea of “assured destruction:” that level of “force essential to deterrence – sufficient visible deliverable strength to destroy the Soviet Union as a viable society.” He defined that level of destruction quantitatively as a “30% loss of population and 50% loss of industrial capability.”
Want to know more: See: MIRVs and MAD
SOURCES: The above excerpts came from the Digital National Security Archives (DNSA) a public law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets. is an online collection of more than100,000 declassified records documenting historic U.S. policy decisions. (See: Reading Room or DNSA )
Interesting Note: The National Security Archives has a tab on its home page called "PYCCKNNE CTPAHUNTBL". especially for DNSA Russian readers. It Translates to the words "Russian Pages".
The Other "Long-range" Land-based Missile:
The conceptual egg for this missile was laid in 2018 to the early 2000s with the Department of Defense’s Conventional Prompt Global Strike initiative. It was never meant to be nuclear.
The goal was to develop the non-nuclear capability to strike high-value targets anywhere on Earth within one hour using a warhead combining raw kinetic force with fragmentation. This led to the US Army’s Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) program, which served as the direct technological ancestor to Dark Eagle.
Dark Eagle was designed to strike high-value targets at hypersonic speeds using a maneuverable glide body to evade enemy defenses. This truck-launched system is a joint project with the Navy, sharing the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), and represents a major step in fielding advanced, rapid strike.
Dark Eagle hypersonic glide missile, features speeds over Mach 5 and ranges of ~1,725-2,175 miles, designed for rapid, precision strikes against high value, defended targets in under 20 minutes, with deployment starting in late
2025. Picture of the 70 t0 80-foot TEL in exercise Bamboo Eagle 2024 on Nellis AFB.
Want to know more? See Dark Eagle
Do you have a story to share?
The editors of both the monthly dispatch and the newsletter are always looking for ideas and stories to include in their editions—both current events and stories from the past. For our active-duty members it can be a report on a recent alert event, the latest test sequence, or bad weather making life miserable in the field. For our former operators, maintainers, and defenders it can be a story about the best part of your missile life…or the worst, a leader you admired, a strange event in the field, or the experience of moving a missile from your base and seeing it launched as part of an operational test launch at Vandenberg. As they say, the sky is the limit on the topics but our limit is 1,200 words for the newsletter and shorter blurbs for the dispatch.
Sincerely,
Jim
James F. Warner
Executive Director
