Growing up and getting places as a kid,  I was always fascinated by the art.  Some of it makes it smile today thinking about it.  Some creative sunsa bitches in the military.  

Oh and in most cases the cartoon mascots for the missile groups or MCC's and MLC's were based on their Phonetics.  B= Bugs Bunny.  O=Oscar the grouch And so on.  





This was in Oscar Zero.  But I believe it was an import.  


AHH!  There it is.  O-0 mascot!  In the Bunker!

Nope, Bugs has been there forever!  

When I first got there, I was assigned to Delta.  In the 80s, the was a push to have the facility managers have a theme for the site.  Delta became Dodge Zero, western theme, saddles on the wall, etc.

They even went so far as to paint the entire elevator shaft brown, with painted in layers of dirt, and glued gold-painted rocks to the wall, so it felt like you were going down a mine shaft.  Pretty cool.  

ETA--Charlie had an interesting piece of artwork--on the left side of the deputy's console, there was a painting of Garfield the Cat.  The crew at the time (mid-80s) actually got permission from Jim Davis to put it up there.

fascinating, thanks OP.

i have to imagine that manning one of those bunkers was/is not the most exciting possible job in the AF.

I have been inside Cheyenne Mountain.  Around 1992.  They would not let me take pics.  

cool pics so far, but I ain't got all night.

Very cool!

Thanks again for that.  I always assumed that the mascots were related to the phonetics.  Alas While I had some access to some neat places as a child,  there were places I was never allowed.  MCC's and MLC's were defiantly a no-no.

The most intriguing places I was taken was the "basement closet" (radar,targeting and observation room) in the Buff while it was active.  Followed by the B1B when it was newly introduced to GFAFB in the 80's.

There's more of you where you came from but these computers are expensive!

Cool pics.

Fuck cutting all of that grass.

Boring is good, in this case.

The best computers 1960s money could buy!  

What was unusual about the exterior of the airframe of the AGM-69 missile?

What would the bomber crews do to the missile as a sign of good luck while pre-flighting the missile? (The ones that were accessible)

That was the facility manager's (NCOIC of the site) job.  @Hanzerik

And people would sell their own mothers for a shot at an FM job. Pretty much king of the castle, waaaaaaay away from the base (i.e., oversight), the officers on site usually left you alone (too busy watching TV), you worked 5 on, 5 off.  Most of the FMs I talked to thought it was a pretty cake job, the mowing was a small price to pay for the perks that came with it. I was told the biggest downside was working with the cops.  Because, cops.  

Rubber coating?

?

That is AWESOME!!! thanks for posting that, I'm so happy someone documented that. I have a few film pics of some of those, but our escorts were a bit wiggy about where we took our camera...haha

Yes. The crews would squeeze the soft rubber coating during preflight as a good luck sign.

On the Minuteman II, what was the third stage motor case material made of?

321st MW history

I do. I think about the men in the holes every time I hear the word "nuclear" or see a bomber or fighter fly over.

I was looking for a long stick and set of binos in the pics.

oh i believe it!

just seems like a mix of boredom and high stress at the same time, with a big helping of close quarters.  

seems kind of like being in submarine, but with less chance of accidental drowning, and greater chance of participating in the end of the world.

Tag.

Fascinating stuff, and a very interesting thread to read thru.......

Thanks guys

Easy.....

I'm waiting.... As you Google to try and find your answer.

Adamantium

Goddamit. I was all ready to start poking fun at UFOs and you had to come here and get Lima posting recipes with that shit.

Nope. It's much simpler, actually.

Can't exactly remember, but I think it was what it was made of--SRAMs were stupid fast, like Jimmy John's delivery boy fast, and there was something special about the material because of that?  

Not a clue!    

Crew traditions and rituals (mil and civ) always fascinate me for how they come about and what they mean. Some of the ones we had in the capsule would be outright weird if seen somewhere else.

Fiberglass.  

What makes you think I need google.  Ill admit,  there are things I do not know.  But I was for the most part raised on SAC bases.  And the construction of the stages of the MM1 and MM2 and 3 missiles are pretty well known.

I know the III had an outer casing of cork.  Treated with a fungicide, which gave it the dark green color.

I miss my broomstick.  

It had a rubberized ablative coating that had some radar absorbing capabilities, though limited.

The crews would squeeze the coating to check it's condition and as a good luck sign.

Here's what was interesting about that--for the most part, we knew that being a good deterrent meant the "end of the world" wasn't really a thing. As one of my mentors put it--"Every day, they (the Russians) look across the Arctic Circle, see how ready we are, and say, "Today's not the day, comrades." So the point is, be that good at what you do."  

So, while we were trained and ready to do the deed, the fact is we knew that by the sheer fact we were sitting on alert, that it wouldn't happen.  This was late 80's/early 90s, so past the point of the hair-trigger, MAD days of the 60s and 70s;that'd be a little different atmosphere back then, obviously.  

The more stressful parts of the job were, as my first commander showed me, the "23 ways to go to jail on alert."  23 separate things that if you did, didn't do, screwed with, lost, or in some cases even TOUCHED, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to jail.  

So, yeah, the stress was mainly about "how many times did I avoid ruining my career and life today?"  

Surprising that even crashing a fighter jet won't do that...

What were some of the 23 things?

There is a Minuteman launch scheduled at Vandenberg AFB tomorrow.

I was born there in 1963

My dad was with Minuteman in the very early days.

God Bless our Missileers


Attached File

Brings back some memories. 564th, 341st & 741st here. Most hated the missile field, but I had a blast.

"Sir, we're at launch, turn your key!"

Awesome thread. Thanks to everyone contributing. Always been fascinated with this subject.

this damn thread is making me possibly volunteer for the Alert Facility Manager special duty assignment next year when my SRB ends

Great pics and thanks for sharing.

When I visited the NPS one in South Dakota they didn't have access to the mech.  pill.   

Thanks.

Very cool thread OP; I love the pics of the MAF, it really takes me back!

limaxray, thanks for your info, as always, you can be counted on to provide some unique missile field info.  I'm old school missile field (Security Police/Security Forces) having started out working (ART's) Titans while in the 308th SMW at Little Rock AFB; those were a whole different animal than my later experience while working (ART's, FSC's, and Flight Sergeant) the Minuteman and Peacekeepers at FE Warren.

Missile Field story of the day for you guys...  As Security Forces we worked three days on and six days off...it sounds good but you didn't always get a full six days off, usually three of the days were eaten up with training, PT, and a Commander's Call; half of your first day off was spent traveling from the missile field back to base.  After you have drawn your weapons and before you head out to the missile field on your first duty day you have what is called a "Guard Mount" which is basically an open ranks inspection and a brief on relevant job related info.  During one particular Guard Mount we were briefed that we were not to attempt to club badgers with any object as badgers take such actions personally. 

While were were on break a Security Police ART (Alarm Response Team) in our flight area (321st, K, L, M, N, and O) had responded to an alarm at one of the LF's (Launch Facilities, the missile, launcher, and support equipment) discovered a badger under the launcher closure door between the rails.  The ART guys knew that if they left the badger on site it would just trip the alarm again and they would have to respond again, taking them away from watching TV, playing basketball, etc.  The ART guys proceeded to "kill" the badger by poking/beating it to death with a shovel; after killing the badger they decided to take it back to the MAF (Missile Alert Facility, where the rest of the cops and the capsule crew for that flight are live) and show off their "kill."

The ART guys finished running their alarm checklist at the LF and then returned to the MAF with their kill in the backseat of the Ford Bronco.  As soon as they put the vehicle in park on site at the MAF the dead Badger woke up and was now furious; the ART exited their Bronco post haste and the Badger remained in the vehicle for quite a while as it shredded and destroyed every bit of the interior of the Bronco while all the cops and facility manager looked on; after thirty minutes or so it finally got tired and departed the Bronco.

1.  Lose control of anything with an orange cover. (Top Secret)

2.  Screw with any code component (launch, enable, inhibit, or crypto), let alone lose control of one.

3.  Two-person concept violations.  Don't fall asleep when you're supposed to be on the console.  People make some pretty big assumptions when the nuclear missile launch control center doesn't answer the phone. And when you do fall asleep, it's assumed you've done #1 and 2, so that's three scoops of awesome heading your way.  

4.  Anything, ANYTHING involving the tamper-proof seals on the equipment (which fulfills the role of the second person in a two-person concept team; this gives you the ability for one of you to sleep on alert).  At best, you're going to get investigated out the wazzoo. (Accidents do happen, and the system takes that into account, but it still has to check.)  At worst, your crew partner will kill you because now both of you have to stay awake.  Grumpy, tired crew commanders are a badness thing.

Do anything at all unauthorized to anything in the safe--and that includes even opening it when not required.  The President gets briefed on incidents with anything in the safe.   Junior officers being the subject of a briefing to POTUS...what could be bad about that, right?

The missileer mantra is "live paranoid, live long."

When were you in the Odd Squad?  Have some friends who did time there.

Cool.

Thanks for posting.

LMAO!


Best part of that story....  May father told me that when I was a kid.

What's a shame is the AF has strict rules prohibiting cameras in restricted areas (for obvious security reasons), so you only get official photos.

I'm kinda the same with Army artillery Special Munitions.  Except I never did Pershing.  155, 8", Lance, ED, EAP, PRP, movement, storage, blah, blah, blah I have covered.

I remember the Titan crews (We lived with the Titan crews in their capsule unlike the Minuteman and Peacekeeper systems where we lived topside) half asleep on the couch and when an important message came in they would pull a rope...which ran up and over misc pipes and conduits...and down to a cleverly placed ruler..which activated a switch...which acknowledged the message so that they never had to get up from watching TV on the couch; was that on your 32 item list?   

Thanks for the pics..

A couple years ago I took my family to see  https://www.nps.gov/mimi/index.htm on your way to the Badlands...

We also caught the museum at  Ellsworth. Between the both, you got to see/touch everything.. What I liked the best was that my grandfather had helped build those sights, including the Ellsworth silo's... So I knew I was walking the same spots he did...

Side note, my GF had to go and retrieve one of his guys after the SP's were done with him... It seams that he wanted to go for a walk and take a look at one of those brand new B-52's... Red Lines,,,,, what are those..

I didn't realize that up until 2008 we had an additional 50 Minuteman IIIs at Malmstrom AFB

prior to the stand down of the Minuteman II's in the early to mid 90s how many of those did we have?

Also apparently the New START treaty say nothing about MIRVs in our ICBMs so are we allowed to play with them again?