Nuke Field VigilanceBy Aaron M. U. Church, Associate Editor very day, combat missile crews, barely affected its day-to-day business explained Col. George R. Farfour, 90th security forces, maintainers, of keeping the US land-based deterrent Missile Wing vice commander. and support personnel of reliable, credible, and ready. Every 24 hours, a new shift of mis- USAF’s 90th Missile Wing at Located on the outskirts of Cheyenne, sileers, facility staff, and security forces F. E. Warren AFB, Wyo., fan Wyo., Warren accommodates one of set out. They traverse interstate highways out over 9,600 square miles USAF’s three ICBM wings. The other and dirt and gravel roads, no matter the of missile fields. The wing is two are at Minot AFB, N.D., and Malm- weather—howling winds, rain, and even Eresponsible for 150 Minuteman IIIs—a strom AFB, Mont. These wings are the snow—to relieve other crews. “We drive third of the Air Force’s deployed ICBM only Air Force units on wartime alert at about 7.5 million miles in a year because force—housed in silos on the plains of all times. For the men and women of the everything is ‘out,’ ” said Farfour. Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. 90th Missile Wing, assuring the constant Working in hardened launch control security and readiness of a major part of Through All Kinds of Weather centers buried some 60 feet underground, the nation’s nuclear deterrent arsenal is Farfour likened the vast F. E. Warren missile crews stand constant alert, ready a significant achievement. missile complex to an archipelago of to launch their nuclear weapons imme- The size of the 90th’s area of respon- “166 [separate] Air Force bases.” He diately upon presidential order. sibility, nearly as large as Vermont, poses referred to the fact that the complex F. E. Warren recently shifted its mul- major challenges for the operational, comprises 150 missile silos and 15 tiple-warhead ICBMs to single-warhead support, and security forces. “That’s what launch control centers, as well as F. E. configuration. However, this changeover we have to worry about every single day,” Warren itself—all of them geographi- 26 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2012 At Warren Air Force Base, an effective Staff photo by Aaron Church M. U. ICBM deterrent requires a nonstop buzz of activity. First Lt. Paul Comaroto (l) and Capt. Paul Hendrickson train in a Minuteman III launch control simulator. Missile Alert Facility Echo-01 is as- signed to F. E. Warren AFB, Wyo. The base’s missile fields house one-third of USAF’s deployed ICBMs. cally separate bits of operational real estate. A two-man missile combat crew in an underground capsule runs each LCC. Above the capsule, at the surface, is a supporting missile alert facility. Security forces, a short-order cook, and a facility manager continually staff the MAF. In all but the most menacing weather, members of an LCC/MAF drive to the assigned alert site. There are, however, other means available. The wing’s UH- 1N helicopters—usually held for security response needs—can shuttle crews when heavy rains turn the roads into seas of mud or icing and snow drifts make them impassable. On a good-weather day, it takes crew members two hours by land vehicle to USAF photo AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2012 27 reach the most remote site, said Lt. Col. Once they descend to the capsule, the Stober and Bridges turn to their right Matthew Dillow, commander of F. E. two lieutenants officially report directly through another blast door to enter the Warren’s 321st Missile Squadron. In to the head of US Strategic Command, control center, where they swap notes the normally harsh High Plains winter, USAF Gen. C. Robert Kehler, who has with the departing crew. They learn that it can take considerably longer. a direct line to the President. the preceding 24 hours at Lima-01 had When necessary, an alert crew can During the ride on the elevator down been unusually eventful. A mechanical be held over at a site for 48 hours. This to the LCC capsule, Stober and Bridges problem forced the capsule to switch happened only twice in the last year, each remove the AFGSC patch from over to its own generator, a diesel unit in part because the winter was mild, a Velcro spot on their flight suits and used to power everything inside. Farfour said. replace it with a USSTRATCOM patch, India-01, one of the squadron’s four Each alert cycle begins with a wing- symbolically marking the transition of other LCCs, also lost commercial power wide mass brief, introduced by Col. authority. overnight. India-01 switched to generator Christopher A. Coffelt, the wing com- “They have a unique mission here power, but when the power grid resumed mander. On a typical day in May, 1st in the continental United States in that operations, the site had failed to switch Lt. Jeremy Stober, a missile combat they are supporting combatant command back. This forced a temporary shutdown crew commander with the 321st Mis- operations day-to-day,” said Dillow. of the site to resolve the problem. sile Squadron, and 2nd Lt. Christopher “Everything’s running fine [at Lima], Bridges, his deputy, are assigned to Fail Safes so no shut-down issue like [at] India,” Missile Alert Facility Lima-01. Dillow noted that the Minuteman III is says Stober. At the surface facility, the alert crew, the only Air Force weapon permanently Normally, each LCC is responsible for including the facility manager and the kept on full-up war footing. Indeed, even 10 ICBMs. In cases like that of India-01, cook, process through security. It is a AFGSC’s nuclear-armed B-2 and B-52 any of Warren’s 14 other control centers precisely scripted ritual, requiring each bombers “are not on alert on a day-to-day can instantly take control of India’s mis- person entering to affirm that he or she basis. They can generate to that state, but siles, ensuring full control. Even if all is under no duress from an outside force. [only] the ICBMs are ready to do what 15 LCCs were to fail simultaneously, Once inside the gate, they proceed to needs to be done.” an E-4B airborne command post aircraft the MAF, essentially a mini-base, with its At the bottom of the shaft the crew pass can still control missiles from overhead, own electrical generators, water supply, through a massive, vault-type doorway providing an additional layer of certainty. kitchen, beds, and security station. Inside into the capsule. To their left lies an Today, Stober and Bridges are engaged the MAF, the two missile crew members engineering plant providing everything in an annual “code change” of missile halt at the top of an elevator shaft. At needed for self-sufficient operations. In hardware. The secret codes needed for the bottom is a launch capsule. Stober the event of an overhead nuclear detona- the activation of each of the 150 missiles and Bridges repeat the security routine tion, the plant can purge the capsule’s are changed every year as a security pre- before entering the secure station at the air of toxic particles, supply water to caution. The 321st MS personnel must head of the elevator shaft. the crew, and generate electrical power. physically change codes at five LCCs Up to this point, they come under the These actions could allow the crew to and at 50 Minuteman III launch facilities. Air Force Global Strike Command’s chain survive and, if ordered to do so, launch The changeover makes the operations for organizational and training purposes. a retaliatory strike. tempo unusually hectic. “We can only do Staff photos by Aaron M. U. Church 28 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2012 about 10 [code changes] in a day because it involves a team actually going down Helos and the New Kids on Alert to the missile,” said Dillow. “It’s pretty Placing a helicopter and a small security response team on 24/7 alert involved.” last October was the “first step” toward fielding a full-up Tactical Response He explained that for each missile, Force capable of rapidly responding to security threats at all times, said Lt. there are two sets of codes to be changed Col. Robert S. Mackenzie, commander of F. E. Warren Air Force Base’s 37th out, one at the LCC and another at the Helicopter Squadron. ICBM. Each of the wing’s 150 ICBMs Depending on the helicopter’s fuel load and how much equipment the TRF team are miles away from the LCC, and the needs, the UH-1N can only lift about a third of the team, due to payload limits. whole process takes a week of cooperation “With security, obviously, we want to move as many people as we can. Our game is about numbers—how much capability we can get on the ground,” said from maintenance teams, missile crews, SMSgt. Jared Skinner, the 90th Security Forces Group TRF superintendent. and security forces. He added, “The more people we can get to respond, the more ability we Once the new missile crew is on alert, have to either contain or deny” the enemy access. Stober and Bridges are the only two The TRF is a small part of Warren’s 90th Security Forces Group, but it people in the LCC, responsible for 10 plays a powerful deterrent sub-role, discouraging would-be aggressors from nuclear-tipped Minuteman IIIs for the attacking the ICBMs. next 24 hours. With current aircrew manning, the squadron could surge to put three Hueys The Minuteman III originally con- on alert for about a month.