My Cold War Years (Part Three): Missile Field Duty
- Tracy's Thoughts
- Jan 8, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 16, 2019
The Security Police of the 44th Missile Security Squadron would normally work a 3 and half day tour out in the field. That didn't mean that they also had 3 and half days off. Some of those days, when not in the field, may consist of Training, Commander's Call, Appointments or other duties. So there may have been times they had no days off. When out in the field they would work a 12 hour shift and would consist of 6 Security Policeman at each LCF. This would include 2 Flight Security Controllers, who were usually a Sgt. or higher. A 2 two-man Alarm Response Teams that could be from an Airman Basic up to a Senior Airman/Sgt. The senior ranking person on the ART would be the Team Leader. When "off-duty" the FSC and ART would act as the Security Response Team to the on-duty FSC and ART if needed.
As an ART Leader/Member it was your duty to respond to any and all alarms at each of the 10 LF's in your flight area along with conducting routine checks at them as well and included responding to any other security breaches that may occur. The Missile Combat Crew, the guys with the keys to launch the missiles, who lived down in the Launch Control Center, or capsule, buried deep beneath the ground under the LCF would monitor each site. They would call up to the Flight Security Controller when an alarm happened at an LF and then the FSC would dispatch the ART to investigate. It would seem that the majority of alarms were either weather related, especially during the winter months, or wildlife would have been the cause of an alarm.
Each of the LCF's and LF's were surrounded by an 8 foot high chain link fence with one foot high strands of barbed wire, but yes, wildlife, usually rabbits, would find their way onto those LF's. Those rabbits, some of which were very large, were probably some of the most sworn enemies to those Security Police working out in the missile field. Excessive snow along with snowdrifts, some of which could be as high as 8 feet or more, were also a common cause of alarms during the winter time. Other alarms may have been caused by a Flight Security Officer, Flight Security Supervisor or the Standardization/Evaluation Teams that would be conducting an exercise on the Security Police Teams by hiding simulated explosive devices or creating other situations to grade the ART's on how well they followed the alarm checklist procedures. And in the Strategic Air Command (SAC), there was a checklist for everything!
Other than that, there were occasional peaceful protest conducted near an LF somewhere, where people were making a stand against the use of nuclear weapons. Also on occasions there may have been peaceful protest at the main gate on Base, in which there would usually be a handful of individuals that would end up being detained for unlawfully entering government property once they were allowed to cross the base perimeter.
It's just a "rite-of-passage" for a Newbie or "FNG", someone just out of training, to be the recipient of a few jokes and pranks at first and of course I was no exception. On my first full official trip out to the missile field, while riding on a bus, another person on my Flight tried to convince me that a grain silo we were passing was actually one of the missile silos. However the joke was on this person, as I had already been out in the field several days earlier with another Flight. When one of their personnel had gotten sick and had to return to Base, I was sent out as a replacement for about a day and a half. And since I was from the South, I had seen a few grain silos myself so I knew better. But I made sure to hold up this tradition of pulling those jokes and pranks on other "Jeeps", another name for those new guys, that were assigned to my Flight in the years that followed.
[NOTE: This is Part 3 of a 10-Part series of stories about some of my memories of when I was in the US Air Force from 1982 to 1988 and stationed at Ellsworth AFB near Rapid City, South Dakota.]
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