Association of Air Force Missileers
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Air Force Missileers The Quarterly Newsletter of the Association of Air Force Missileers Volume 26, Number 4 “Advocates for Missileers” December 2018 New Features this Issue The 20th Air Force Page 8 The Missile Poetry Page Inside Front Cover Executive Director’s Corner 14 My First Missile Assignment is Where? - “Moses What?” 1 Movies and Nukes 2 Another “My Journey in Missiles” 4 Disappearing LF Access Road 5 Vandenberg’s First Launch - an AAFM Member Earns his Badge 6 AAFM Member Stories 7 Update on Minuteman Missile NHS 9 AAFM and Wyoming 11 AAFM Board and General Meetings 12 Enlisted Heritage Hall 13 Letters to AAFM, Taps for Missileers 14 New Members Page 15 Donations Pages 16 Member Application Inside Back Cover Reunions and Meetings Back Cover The Mission of the Association of Air Force Missileers - - Preserving the Heritage of Air Force Missiles and the people involved with them - Recognizing Outstanding Missileers - Keeping Missileers Informed - Encouraging Meetings and Reunions - Providing a Central Point of Contact for Missileers MISSILE MAINTAINERS By Robert A. Wyckoff In the missile ings cross he northern ier, Tere s ecial bree o irmen ose erormace has o eer I conditios oft emanding, both ambient and rofesional, It ppear that ese maintainer ruly re eceptiol. Te ulif or S clearce and pass he RP, At e he most are till decding hat he ant to be The lern her iscpline rom those ho ent beore, To fulfill heir basic uty of deterring nucler war The FMTs re Buttcrcs”, he EMTs chase prks, Te MMTs re Kuckle Drggers” i maintainer rude remar. But it’s just a way mong hem o try o ee hings light, As e labor t maintaining our nation’s missile might. Teir day begins at 04hundre ar, Te et heir ools nd briefings; the deplo in weather trk. Te reac heir estination n early mori light, And begin the ageold ritual o eerate he site Te clear away e ow nd tar te lu do, Whe doe, te ait or he Z et before heading back o ton. But bewee hese aits heres challenge hey mus mee, To reserve e ready’ tatu of our ging missile lee. With tigue n col urin minds nd bodies umb, Do our ob nd ge it right,” is her constant rule o humb Whe wor is oe--acros ime’s rindi span, They ur n eir ools, ebrief; the go uel and was heir an. Althou te re invisible bu o ome recious e, Thee unsung me d women re to elve and ation rue, Te, rom ithin, their re trengt reew. Writen the reques of ol chael uton completed 21 Jue 2011) o oor ll Maintaiers he 2nd Training Suron. rtwork courtes o James twaer 1 Air Force Missileers The Quarterly Newsletter of the Association of Air Force Missileers Volume 26, Number 4 “Advocates for Missileers” December 2018 Larson AFB Front Gate, 1961 Broadway, Moses Lake, WA, 1961 Moses Where? – by Col (Ret) Charlie Simpson, AAFM Executive Director Emeritus Recently, I turned south on Interstate I-35 off I-70 on the way to New Orleans, and a couple of miles down the road, I noted a large structure off to my right, one of the remaining big buildings at the former Schilling Air Force Base (AFB), KS. Those of you who served in the 550th Strategic Missile Squadron (SMS), the Atlas F unit there, probably know it well. We called buildings like this DC Hangars (for double cantilevered, a type of construction for large buildings). I worked in one like it at Laurence G. Hanscom Field, MA, during my first assignment in the Air Force. The one at Schilling sits on the north end of the flightline, looking like a lonely, unused building. My thought when I saw the DC Hangar was, “How many of you who got sent to Schilling at Salina, KS, knew where it was?” Was it like those who got sent to the Titan I squadron at Larson AFB, WA, the 568 SMS, responded when you were told the base was in Moses Lake, WA? Those of us who came into missiles in the early 1960s went to a lot of places that were unfamiliar not only to us, but to many people, especially our families. Most of the Missileers before us served in Matador and Mace, and were in overseas locations in Germany and the Pacific. Those of us who came into the new Atlas D, E and F, the Titan I, the Hound Dog, Quail and BOMARC, ended up on bases all over the United States, mostly in the west, at some pretty interesting locations. Most of the new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) units were on existing Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber bases, with a couple of notable exceptions. Those of you who worked the airlaunched systems went lots of places – we had Hound Dog and Quail on 27 bases. SAC had a lot of bomber bases in the early 1960s. The BOMARC folks ended up at or near a lot of Air Defense Command locations. You may have gotten notified like I did – Carol and I were home on leave in Miami, when a sergeant from Person- nel at Hanscom called me and said, “Lieutenant, you need to come back to Hanscom so you can process out. Your request for missile duty was approved and you depart for Sheppard AFB for training in a month, before you report to Titan I duty at Mountain Home.” When I asked where Mountain Home was, he told me Idaho – I hung up and told Carol we needed to head back to Massachusetts so we could pack up and move. We then explained to my mother and Carol’s parents where we were heading – but only after looking at a map. In 1961, we didn’t “Google” anything – we went into the living room and dug out the “I” volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica to look at a map. We found Mountain Home east of Boise – a long way from Miami. When we arrived there in February, 1962, after almost six months of missile training at Sheppard AFB, TX, we found that the town and the base were somewhat misnamed. Mountain Home isn’t in the mountains – it is in the high Idaho desert, with sand dunes, sand storms, dry lakes and tumbleweed. We were told by locals that when the town was founded, it was a few miles north of its current location, on the edge of the mountain range there, but when the new railroad line went in, the town was moved south to be near the railroad. Some of you had no problem finding your new home – you got sent to a base near a state capital, and we all could name all of the state capitals in those days. If you went to Atlas E at Forbes, Atlas F at Lincoln, Titan I at Lowry or At- las D or E at Warren, you were heading for a “big city.” At least, a big city by the definition in those states. But if your new orders sent you to Presque Isle, Plattsburgh, Dyess, Roswell, Altus, Beale, Larson, Fairchild or Mountain Home, you 2 time later, the Air Force decided to use all the vacant base AAFM Newsletter housing at the base for families of people who were sent to Volume 26, Number 4 December 2018 Southeast Asia. For a few years, Schilling AFB was home to a lot of Air Force families waiting for a father to return from the war. We did the same thing to at least one other base, Glasgow AFB, MT. I wonder if any of our members had any experience with that phase of Air Force history. Do you have a good story about how you heard about your first assignment in missiles “way out west” or in some ofher little known place? Tell us about your familiy and your experi- ences when you got assigned to a place “in a galaxy far away.”. The DC Hangar Today, Former Schilling AFB probably had to use one of those encyclopedia maps to find where you were heading. You Hound Dog folks had even more to choose from – take a look at the March 2012 issue of our newsletter for a listing of all the bases that had that system. All of you BOMARC Missileers headed to bases in New York, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Michigan, Virginia or Canada. Of course, most of your bas- es were around something important, since your job was to provide air defense to protect valuable resources. If you came along a little later in Titan II, you ended up near a fairly well known city. We all knew where Little Rock, Wichita and Tucson were. By the time Minuteman was getting built, most of us were closely following ICBM developments in Air Force Magazine and other publications, so we knew about the new bases in the Dakotas, Montana, B-52 Aircraft Commander Slim Pickens on His Way to his Russian Wyoming, and we could probably even find Knob Knoster Target in the Movie “Dr. Strangelove” on the Missouri map. Of course, the ICBM folks faced a Movies and Nukes – by Col (Ret) Charlie Simpson, challenge not applicable to the airlaunched Missileers – we AAFM Executive Director Emeritus also had to learn the local geography once we got to our new One of my favorite movies is about nuclear weap- base, since our missile sites were scattered over large areas ons – a dark, satirical comedy titled “Doctor Strangelove, or around each base.