The Denver Post / by Andy Cross
Monday, January 13, 2003 - NEW RAYMER - Guests who make their way up the driveway to an oversized yellow house here on the Colorado prairie are not greeted with country hospitality or a cup of tea.
Lt. Col. Tim Adam stands by a chain-link fence surrounding a missle silo near New Raymer.
Instead, two men in camouflage green, one carrying two M-16 rifles and the other toting a grenade launcher, march to the fence.
In the "basement" of this yellow ranch house, 65 feet below ground in a steel capsule, two-person crews from Wyoming's F.E. Warren Air Force Base monitor and control intercontinental ballistic missiles, the most powerful weapons in the world.
This "house" is actually a Missile Alert Facility, one of 20 on the plains of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. From these facilities, any of 150 Minuteman III missiles can be launched. The nuclear warheads can travel 6,000 miles in any direction at speeds of up to 15,000 mph. Each missile is 15 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb, which killed a total of 200,000 people.
The nuclear arsenal buried in Colorado's backyard is a holdover from the Cold War. Its purpose is the same now as then: deterrence.
"There's a lot of nations out there that have weapons of mass destruction," said Capt. Stacy Vaughn, spokeswoman for Warren AFB. "We use these as a deterrent. If nations know we have these, hopefully they won't use theirs against ours. And there's probably some nations that have capability that we don't know they have."
During the Cold War, the missiles were aimed at Russia. These days, the Air Force won't say where they are pointed. Civilian analyst Bruce Blair, who heads the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., said the target remains the same for now, but military planners are looking at new missions for the weapons.
The military is unlikely to use the missiles in Iraq, Blair said. For starters, nuclear fallout could poison neighboring friendly nations or even American troops. Secondly, Blair said he doubts the U.S. would launch weapons from the Western states to Iraq because the flight path would put Americans in harm's way if there were a mishap.
Some critics say the United States has too many Minuteman missiles, given the diminished threat from Russia.
"This is a legacy of the Cold War. ... Both the U.S. and Russia have retained and continue to retain, vastly more nuclear weapons than either country needs," said Thomas B. Cochran, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's nuclear-tracking program.
Minuteman IIIs have been on around-the-clock alert in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska since they were put in underground silos in 1963. None has ever been launched. Wyoming also has 50 Peacekeeper missiles, a more lethal variety of missiles that each carry 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads. Warren AFB recently began spending $20.9 million annually to deactivate the Peacekeepers to comply with a May arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia.
Every day, between 75 and 80 "missileers" - the men and women trained to launch the weapons - watch over the 49 Minuteman silos in Colorado. The young lieutenants and captains have taken a 21-week course at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. Exercises and simulated-launch scenarios round out their training.
The missileers sign agreements acknowledging the gravity of their mission: They might be asked to launch a nuclear warhead. The workers have to be in top mental and physical shape. They can only take drugs prescribed by Air Force doctors. Even things such as Vitamin C and Slim Fast require prior approval. Reliability is paramount, said Lt. Col. Tim Adam, commander of the 321st Missile Squadron.
Each missile silo is topped with 5 feet of concrete weighing 110 tons. The silos are connected to the Missile Alert Facility through a system of hardened cables. Chain- link fences enclose the silos, which are monitored with security sensors that can be triggered by wind, tumbleweeds, coyotes or intruders. When that happens, alarms sound in the Missile Alert Facilities. Within minutes, roving security forces can respond.
In October, when Catholic nuns sat on top of a silo near New Raymer to protest the nuclear weapons, security police rolled over the chain-link fence in an armored vehicle, not stopping to open the gate. Within seconds, the nuns had high-powered machine guns pointed at their heads.
Each morning, dozens of missileers meet at Warren. Commanders talk to the crews about safety, road conditions, weather forecasts and maintenance.
In the meetings, every missileer learns "duress words."
"Let's say someone takes them down at gunpoint. They can pass these duress words so people know they're in conflict," said Col. Frank Gallegos, who commands the missile operation.
The meeting ends with Gallegos saying: "Have a good alert."
The young captains and lieutenants load up in blue pickup trucks and head for the various Missile Alert Facilities, which are all more than 80 miles from Warren. On bad-weather days, the crews are flown to the sites in helicopters.
When they arrive, they show identification at the facility gate, again before entering the building and a third time inside.
"We're paranoid," Adam said. "We consider anyone and everyone a threat."
Above the bunker, a chef and facility manager work in the "house," which is equipped with bunks, a kitchen, television and exercise room.
Launch crews take an elevator 65 feet underground to the steel capsule. Before the 8-ton blast doors are opened, crews swipe their ID cards yet again through an electronic system.
Beyond the blast door is a cramped office the size of a boxcar. It rests on giant shock absorbers to protect from nuclear attack or earthquake. The room has two computers that show the status of the 10 missiles under the team's watch and communications from higher commands.
If ordered to launch, crew members would verify the information a number of different ways. Both missileers in the capsule would punch in the combination to the locks that secure the keys. A code would be verified again. (No one person ever has the combination to both locks.) Then, the keys would fit into the console and the switch could be turned to "launch."
The very same scenario has to occur at a separate Missile Alert Facility. Then, the two keys are turned at the same time.
The duty can be nerve-wracking, especially the first few 24-hour shifts, said Lt. Jeremy Johnson, 24, of Portland, Ore.
"My first shift, I sat up all night staring at the computer screen. 'Please don't let anything go wrong. Please don't let anything go wrong.' It's one of those exciting terror feelings," Johnson said. "It's a detail-oriented job. You have to pay attention to the little things."
Johnson said people are impressed when he tells them what he does.
"You get a lot of sense of awe from people because of the term 'nuclear.' That responsibility combined with the day-to-day events on TV, it's very humbling."
Most of the silos are located on private land leased by the government. The farmers and ranchers who live nearby say the missiles are mostly out of sight, out of mind.
"I've never had a fearful or uneasy feeling about them," said Janet Fogale, who owns a Logan County cattle ranch with her husband. "If a missile ever went off, it would be at its target before we even knew it had been launched."
Fogale said Air Force personnel inform neighbors when they do routine maintenance at the silos.
"We've had them for so long, it's just a part of us," said Lynn Rogers, who has two silos on the ranch she and her husband manage in Logan County. "You feel good knowing someone's always taking care of them."
But Dale Schmeeckle of New Raymer, population 120, said he's had a handful of hostile interactions with the Air Force over the silo on his land. He said the site and its maintenance have at times obstructed dryland wheat farming on a portion of his property.
The 5-acre site off of Colorado 14 has been the focus of protests by peace activists, including the nuns. The missile at the silo site called "November 8" is a mile from his home.
"They said if they ever had to use it, it would blow the windows out of my house and I don't like that idea," Schmeeckle said. "I'm not comfortable with it at all, but what can I do about it? I wish we could stay out of war."
Monday, January 13, 2003 - NEW RAYMER - Guests who make their way up the driveway to an oversized yellow house here on the Colorado prairie are not greeted with country hospitality or a cup of tea.
Lt. Col. Tim Adam stands by a chain-link fence surrounding a missle silo near New Raymer.
Instead, two men in camouflage green, one carrying two M-16 rifles and the other toting a grenade launcher, march to the fence.
In the "basement" of this yellow ranch house, 65 feet below ground in a steel capsule, two-person crews from Wyoming's F.E. Warren Air Force Base monitor and control intercontinental ballistic missiles, the most powerful weapons in the world.
This "house" is actually a Missile Alert Facility, one of 20 on the plains of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. From these facilities, any of 150 Minuteman III missiles can be launched. The nuclear warheads can travel 6,000 miles in any direction at speeds of up to 15,000 mph. Each missile is 15 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb, which killed a total of 200,000 people.
The nuclear arsenal buried in Colorado's backyard is a holdover from the Cold War. Its purpose is the same now as then: deterrence.
"There's a lot of nations out there that have weapons of mass destruction," said Capt. Stacy Vaughn, spokeswoman for Warren AFB. "We use these as a deterrent. If nations know we have these, hopefully they won't use theirs against ours. And there's probably some nations that have capability that we don't know they have."
During the Cold War, the missiles were aimed at Russia. These days, the Air Force won't say where they are pointed. Civilian analyst Bruce Blair, who heads the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., said the target remains the same for now, but military planners are looking at new missions for the weapons.
The military is unlikely to use the missiles in Iraq, Blair said. For starters, nuclear fallout could poison neighboring friendly nations or even American troops. Secondly, Blair said he doubts the U.S. would launch weapons from the Western states to Iraq because the flight path would put Americans in harm's way if there were a mishap.
Some critics say the United States has too many Minuteman missiles, given the diminished threat from Russia.
"This is a legacy of the Cold War. ... Both the U.S. and Russia have retained and continue to retain, vastly more nuclear weapons than either country needs," said Thomas B. Cochran, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's nuclear-tracking program.
Minuteman IIIs have been on around-the-clock alert in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska since they were put in underground silos in 1963. None has ever been launched. Wyoming also has 50 Peacekeeper missiles, a more lethal variety of missiles that each carry 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads. Warren AFB recently began spending $20.9 million annually to deactivate the Peacekeepers to comply with a May arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia.
Every day, between 75 and 80 "missileers" - the men and women trained to launch the weapons - watch over the 49 Minuteman silos in Colorado. The young lieutenants and captains have taken a 21-week course at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. Exercises and simulated-launch scenarios round out their training.
The missileers sign agreements acknowledging the gravity of their mission: They might be asked to launch a nuclear warhead. The workers have to be in top mental and physical shape. They can only take drugs prescribed by Air Force doctors. Even things such as Vitamin C and Slim Fast require prior approval. Reliability is paramount, said Lt. Col. Tim Adam, commander of the 321st Missile Squadron.
Each missile silo is topped with 5 feet of concrete weighing 110 tons. The silos are connected to the Missile Alert Facility through a system of hardened cables. Chain- link fences enclose the silos, which are monitored with security sensors that can be triggered by wind, tumbleweeds, coyotes or intruders. When that happens, alarms sound in the Missile Alert Facilities. Within minutes, roving security forces can respond.
In October, when Catholic nuns sat on top of a silo near New Raymer to protest the nuclear weapons, security police rolled over the chain-link fence in an armored vehicle, not stopping to open the gate. Within seconds, the nuns had high-powered machine guns pointed at their heads.
Each morning, dozens of missileers meet at Warren. Commanders talk to the crews about safety, road conditions, weather forecasts and maintenance.
In the meetings, every missileer learns "duress words."
"Let's say someone takes them down at gunpoint. They can pass these duress words so people know they're in conflict," said Col. Frank Gallegos, who commands the missile operation.
The meeting ends with Gallegos saying: "Have a good alert."
The young captains and lieutenants load up in blue pickup trucks and head for the various Missile Alert Facilities, which are all more than 80 miles from Warren. On bad-weather days, the crews are flown to the sites in helicopters.
When they arrive, they show identification at the facility gate, again before entering the building and a third time inside.
"We're paranoid," Adam said. "We consider anyone and everyone a threat."
Above the bunker, a chef and facility manager work in the "house," which is equipped with bunks, a kitchen, television and exercise room.
Launch crews take an elevator 65 feet underground to the steel capsule. Before the 8-ton blast doors are opened, crews swipe their ID cards yet again through an electronic system.
Beyond the blast door is a cramped office the size of a boxcar. It rests on giant shock absorbers to protect from nuclear attack or earthquake. The room has two computers that show the status of the 10 missiles under the team's watch and communications from higher commands.
If ordered to launch, crew members would verify the information a number of different ways. Both missileers in the capsule would punch in the combination to the locks that secure the keys. A code would be verified again. (No one person ever has the combination to both locks.) Then, the keys would fit into the console and the switch could be turned to "launch."
The very same scenario has to occur at a separate Missile Alert Facility. Then, the two keys are turned at the same time.
The duty can be nerve-wracking, especially the first few 24-hour shifts, said Lt. Jeremy Johnson, 24, of Portland, Ore.
"My first shift, I sat up all night staring at the computer screen. 'Please don't let anything go wrong. Please don't let anything go wrong.' It's one of those exciting terror feelings," Johnson said. "It's a detail-oriented job. You have to pay attention to the little things."
Johnson said people are impressed when he tells them what he does.
"You get a lot of sense of awe from people because of the term 'nuclear.' That responsibility combined with the day-to-day events on TV, it's very humbling."
Most of the silos are located on private land leased by the government. The farmers and ranchers who live nearby say the missiles are mostly out of sight, out of mind.
"I've never had a fearful or uneasy feeling about them," said Janet Fogale, who owns a Logan County cattle ranch with her husband. "If a missile ever went off, it would be at its target before we even knew it had been launched."
Fogale said Air Force personnel inform neighbors when they do routine maintenance at the silos.
"We've had them for so long, it's just a part of us," said Lynn Rogers, who has two silos on the ranch she and her husband manage in Logan County. "You feel good knowing someone's always taking care of them."
But Dale Schmeeckle of New Raymer, population 120, said he's had a handful of hostile interactions with the Air Force over the silo on his land. He said the site and its maintenance have at times obstructed dryland wheat farming on a portion of his property.
The 5-acre site off of Colorado 14 has been the focus of protests by peace activists, including the nuns. The missile at the silo site called "November 8" is a mile from his home.
"They said if they ever had to use it, it would blow the windows out of my house and I don't like that idea," Schmeeckle said. "I'm not comfortable with it at all, but what can I do about it? I wish we could stay out of war."
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