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In the mind of a nuclear missile man

Missile training fosters an unquestioning, automation mentality. I was trained to be a cog in the machine: Orders were orders, and a lawful command from the president was not subject to debate or dissonance.

Every missileer is carefully screened for mental aptitude and stability, yet they’re evaluated for their readiness to unleash hell.

In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie | Danger Room | Wired.com,

• By John Noonan
• January 14, 2011

“………America and her nuclear warriors have an odd relationship. For decades, missileers (as we’re known in the military) have quietly performed their duties, custodians of a dying breed of weapon. But American citizens have no real connection with the shadowy operators who stand the old posts of the Cold War, despite the fact that they spend up to $8 billion a year to maintain our country’s nuclear deterrent. The truth is the job is an awesome responsibility, but it’s deeply weird…………..
The Ultimate Enemy: BoredomIn four years on nuclear-alert duty, I ran through an infinite number of attack sequences and fought countless virtual nuclear wars. I knew how to target my missiles within minutes and launch them within seconds. The process was rigorous, thorough and fully governed by a checklist that was, to our knowledge, without defect. The room for human error was minimal……..
For the missileers of the 9/11 generation, relevancy — a dwindling commodity in a dwindling community — is a vicarious experience. During the Cold War, they had real-time intelligence briefings, screaming klaxons and a force three times larger than the current inventory. Today there’s Facebook and PowerPoint.

The missile field is attached to Wyoming’s FE Warren Air Force Base, one of three such fields nationwide. It’s approximately the size of Rhode Island.

When the deep silos for the ICBMs and underground alert facilities were dug in the 1960s, military planners spaced each site several miles apart as a survivability feature. The distance ensured a perverse tit-for-tat approach to nuclear game theory, born of the outdated mutually assured destruction epoch but sophisticated enough in its simplicity. An attack would require one nuke to kill one nuke. ……
I’ve spent long, quiet hours with lights dimmed — reading, monitoring the status of the missiles, watching DVDs (Lost and Entourage were favorites), and fighting a growing sense of boredom, containment and isolation……..
used to imagine that I’d have some sort of stiff-upper-lip moment should I receive “the order,” where I’d shed the Snuggie and slippers, zip up my flight suit, and make imperial references about “going out proper.”Though the USSR is gone, the assignment still has a kamikaze feel to it, left over from the Cold War, when a launch meant instant Soviet counter-battery fire. You resign yourself to the fact that you sit 100 feet underground while bombs that crater down to 200 feet are headed in your direction. It doesn’t make for much peace of mind.

Isolation often gives way to reflection, and missile duty brings out strange conundrums.

Missile training fosters an unquestioning, automation mentality. I was trained to be a cog in the machine: Orders were orders, and a lawful command from the president was not subject to debate or dissonance.

Every missileer is carefully screened for mental aptitude and stability, yet they’re evaluated for their readiness to unleash hell.Though I never doubted that I would execute a launch order without question, other misgivings occasionally surfaced. We arrested a group of Catholic nuns staging a peaceful protest on one of our launch facilities a few years back. For a missileer who is a practicing Catholic, such a situation brings up questions: If women who have committed themselves to the Word of God feel so strongly about the immorality of nuclear weapons that they’re willing to be confined for their convictions, what kind of Christian am I to sit at the launch switch? How do you resolve a conflict between duty to your God and duty to your country? Who wins, faith or flag?…………..

John Noonan is a policy advisor and defense writer. He served as a Captain in the United States Air Force, assigned to the 321st Missile Squadron in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie | Danger Room | Wired.com

January 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, USA