Memories of Crew Life - IV

My EWO instructor was Capt Marty Bessant (iirc).  One day during December he wrote a time and a date on the blackboard, and then erased it.  He said it was classified Secret, and it was self-evident he was referring to a missile launch from Vandenberg.  He didn't say why or what.  He just told us the time and date so we could watch for it.  The time was 1700 hours.  The date is gone from my memory.

Vandenberg AFB is dark by 1700 in December, and typically foggy.  The fog was thick that night.  Instead of watching the missile launch, I went to the EWO building to study.  I figured the fog would obscure any view.  I was studying at a table around the appointed time when I suddenly heard the loud report of a rocket engine being ignited.  It continued for some 20 seconds and then there was a loud 'Boom!' followed by silence.  The missile had exploded soon after lift-off.  The noise of that launch and the even the vibration in the building was beyond my expectation.

Years later I discovered that the failed launch was an Atlas F carrying Navstar 7 - one of the early GPS satellites.  The date of the failure is listed as 19 December 1981.  Which is strange because I remember it being a weekday, and 19 December is a Saturday.  Was I really studying EWO at 1700 on a Saturday night?  Memory is a tricky thing.

carl

Memories of Crew Life - III

We started Emergency War Order training during the first week in November.  It's the stuff you really want to learn when you first get to IQT.  How does the US plan to fight a nuclear war?  You get to it during the third week of training.  It takes a little while to learn how to operate the weapon system before you can execute a launch command.

IQT had both class room and practical instruction.  The practical instruction occurred in the Missile Procedures Trainer.  Each trainer ride took about five to six hours.  Two hours of weapon system training, another two hours of EWO training, plus a break, and pre-and post-ride instruction.  Since a missilier acts in a crew, we were all assigned crew partners from the class.  We took all of our trainer rides with the same crew partner.  EWO was introduced on our fifth ride soon after we started EWO training in November.  That was the first time we turned keys.  It was the first time I fought a simulated nuclear war.  I would repeat the exercise hundreds of times over the next four years.

The next day was an academic class, and when we showed up in class there was a piece of paper on the tables in front of each chair.  In contained a short statement saying we understood the nature of the mission we were being assigned, and that we agreed to perform that mission.  We had to sign the paper. If we didn't sign the paper we would be administratively discharged for attempting to qualify our duties. They let us perform one commit before they asked for this promise.  It was reasonable even if the MPT couldn't quite indicate the gravity of the mission.

I signed the paper without hesitation, mental reservation, or purpose of evasion.

carl

Fold, Spindle, and Mutilate

Football makes strange bedfellows.  Here I sit enjoying the sight as Pittsburgh as folds, spindles, and mutilates the Eagles.  It's really not right for me to feel this way - the Steelers being the Incarnation of Evil in the NFL and all.  But I can't help it.  Sure, it's only pre-season, but ... it's the Eagles.  You can't predict these things.

My daughter says it's not very Christian of me to delight in the misery of the Eagles.  I tell her that football doesn't have anything to do with the Christian life.  She just doesn't get it.

carl

Memories of Crew Life - II

My EAD was Wednesdsay 14 October 1981.  I had to report to Vandenberg AFB by 1200, and I was the only one dumb enough to show up in my Class A's on the first day.  Somehow, I got from the Main gate to the VOQs, but I don't remember how.  I had no car at the time.  It was the beginning of four months TDY enroute at Initial Qualification Training.  Welcome to the 4315 CCTS.

The first class I remember was Friday afternoon at 1300.  The filed us into a room, and had a stack of books for each of us on the table.  That stack of books must have been a foot tall and it was quite intimidating.  There was a Tech Order, and an AFR 207-16, and book of CPO guidelines that I never read once in four years, and some other stuff IIRC.  You looked at that stack and asked yourself  "How are we going to get through that in four months?"

My response to that afternoon was to study hard that weekend.  We had a syllabus that said we were supposed to cover Section I of the TO the first academic class day that following Monday, and so I spent all day Saturday and Sunday reading Section 1.  It was the hardest I studied at IQT.  The instruction turned out to be easier than I expected.  That weekend stood me well for the rest of the class.  I was always ahead of the power curve.

My Class instructor was a guy named Capt Scott Westfall.  I often wonder what happened to him as well.  He was a good instructor.

carl

Memories of Crew Life - I

I pulled my last alert at India LCC on 5/6 September 1985.   Minot got its last pound of flesh by sending me to the ACP.  By tradition, crewmembers going on their last alert get to address the alert force at Pre-Departure, and it just so happened that both my Olympic Arena deputies were going on alert that day as well.  I got to say good bye and thank them for their efforts.  Of all the people I knew at Minot, it is those two guys that I still wonder about.

I don't remember much about that last alert except leaving the LCC after changeover.  I remember standing on the hinged walkway and taking a last look at a place I would never see again - a place that had become such a formative part of my life.  I remember standing outside and watching the blast door swing shut for the last time.  Through August, I couldn't wait to be done with crew duty.  The petty irritations - like receiving 53 retransmissions of the same message over SACCS in one hour - were wearing on me.  But now it was September, and I already missed it even before the blast door was closed.

It's funny.  I still miss it.  

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