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Nuclear Officers Napped With Blast Door Left Open
Lasrick writes "AP's Robert Burns reports that 'Air Force officers entrusted with the launch keys to long-range nuclear missiles have been caught twice this year leaving open a blast door that is intended to help prevent a terrorist or other intruder from entering their underground command post.' Why is that signifcant? At least one of the officers was napping at the time. Airforce officials said other violations like this have undoubtedly occurred and gone undetected. Yeesh. 'The blast door violations are another sign of trouble in the handling of the nation's nuclear arsenal. The AP has discovered a series of problems within the ICBM force, including a failed safety inspection, the temporary sidelining of launch officers deemed unfit for duty and the abrupt firing last week of the two-star general in charge. The problems, including low morale, underscore the challenges of keeping safe such a deadly force that is constantly on alert but is unlikely ever to be used.'"
It gets hot in there, and Johnson is always farting.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Hey there troops, listen up! It's your job to sit in this drab, overbuilt concrete coffin, sitting on your lazy asses like the cold war relics you are, until such a time as you are instructed to commit the greatest mass slaughter in human history. Any questions?
You'd think about the obvious reasons for nuclear disarmament, but nobody ever spares a thought for the poor sods who have to sit there watching these doomsday devices: if they ever get used it's the end of the world, if they're ever attacked it will be with overwhelming force, and they are expected to be running their AAA-game 24/7/365, no holidays, no vacations.
(Interesting thought experiment: replace "nuclear weapons officer" with "megabank sysadmin")
If you planned to take a nap on the job - Why the hell wouldn't you close the door? It at least makes getting caught a bit less likely.
Maybe this is a clue as to some of the reasons a couple of high ranking officers have been fired in that command recently. Figures.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
No longer in effect.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I would nap and probably do a bunch of much worse stuff too if I were them. My other buddies from the academy are stationed in tropical paradises picking up the locals when they go on leave, General Sleeps with His Biographer is getting some, and here I am stuck in America's asscrack buried deep in a bunker with another guy who won't shut up and keeps eating my lunch out of the fridge.
Seriously do these guys get hardship pay or anything? Is it a rotational program where they get to go somewhere better after they do their time in the bunker? Or is this really just the worst assignment in the Air Force?
Anecdotally by buddy's father who is in the Air Force Reserve was deployed somewhere in the Arabian Sea doing logistical support for the operations over there. He said it was the best vacation he ever went on. He loaded and unloaded planes, planes that sometimes came frequently and sometimes did not. When he wasn't loading and unloading planes he was playing golf, hitting the beach, or hanging out with his fellow airmen. I would be pretty envious if I were stuck in a bunker in Idaho.
A) There are two blast doors.
B) They are [REDACTED] meters below ground.
C) There is an elevator
D) They are their for more than a day, so they sleep.
This isn't really much of a deal. There is nothing that can happen that they can nap through.
Their Job is extremely boring, and their isn't a regular thing to watch. Like gauge, or pressure valves.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Except perhaps, closing the blast doors while napping."
That's what's this all about.
1. If you sleep, the door must be closed.
2. If the door is closed, nobody can catch you sleeping, even if you sleep at times when you shouldn't.
3. Ergo, always close the fucking door.
It's ok, though, because between the NSA spying on literally everybody, the TSA feeling us up at the airports, and the government spending millions pursuing "terrorists" such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, there is no way somebody is going to be able to walk through an unsecured, open door and wreak havoc; because the sheer irony itself would tear a hole in space and time.
Promotion in that position? What's that look like?
I hereby promote you to the rank of "Corporal Chair-napper over by the nukes"...
How about a nice game of chess?
Ever since we built enough nuclear ICBMs to threaten mutually assured destruction, the most important military personnel have been those who diligently guard their country's nuclear weapons arsenal . As long as we possess nuclear weapons, their job performance (or lack thereof) may one day save or destroy millions or billions of lives. Like the Night's Watch in GoT, being a nuclear officer is not a glamorous job, but this work is infinitely more important to the safety of regular citizens than any other section of the armed forces or law enforcement (obviously TSA would be near the opposite end of the spectrum of usefulness). Its time we reassess our definition of heroism around the people that really make the difference in our continued survival.
... if all the lauch codes are zero anyway?
(Well, alright that was some time ago, but really... this points to systemic issues, and I don't think they'll have been fixed within a few years.)
HAND.
It's a horrible, awful job. My father was in the airforce and maintained a lot of that equipment. Think of it this way, you are locked underground with 2 other guys. Everyone has a gun and have been psychologically tested to be sure that they could kill YOU immediately if ordered to, or if you hesitate in following an order. Spend 6 months with those guys and try and have meaningful interactions with them... oh right, you might have to shoot them to... so don't get too attached.
It's basically a recipe for the worst reality show ever. My father said the second he'd show up to work on stuff the guys would begin yapping their traps non-stop. Being the first human they'd seen in months that had no designs on shooting them in the head, he was their new best friend.
Lastly, the blast doors aren't the only doors. It's an entire facility. It just takes the blast doors a loooong time to open. So they dont close them unless they absolutely have to. Granted, his experiences were in the 60s and 70s so I'm not sure how much of it still applies. But I bet it's still pretty much the same.
How come we're not all dead? I thought (was told) there was a terrorist hiding around every corner.
This is why the Navy is better than the Air Force. This could never happen on a Trident!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
On Slashdot 'marrying above your pay grade' usually means getting the tricked out version of a Real Doll.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Your dad has some facts wrong there bucko (especially if he is talking about Minuteman, the facts are a bit different for Titan II). They don't sit underground for months at a time. They go on 24, and sometimes up to 72 hour alerts. So the longest they go with out seeing another person is 24 hours, which I am sure most people on Slashdot do on a weekly basis.
It does sound like your dad is talking about Titan II, but even then its not nearly as bad as you make it out to be (still pretty shitty though) and better than MM LCCs (the Titan II facilities were much larger... but also built right next to the silo).
Far worse were SAC B-52 crew alerts. You'd go on on ground alert for days at a time, where you had to eat/sleep/live within running/short drive distance of your bomber and couldn't really leave.
I bet the button pushers job title is "Mass Population Control Specialist" /DNRTA
He also has the kill your colleague if they don't follow an order thing wrong.
All those missiles can be controlled from another launch facility, so if one of the missileers doesn't want to turn their key, control of their silos is just assumed by another launch facility and their missiles are launched anyway.
The sidearms were for defense of the facility, not to use on fellow officers is my understanding.
Wax on, wax off baby!
Oh, I think of the 'poor sods' in the missile silos... to laugh uproariously at them and how 'hard' they work. They're on duty in the silo for 24 hours once a week or so, and when they're not on duty they work 9-5 and get weekends off. When something in the system breaks, they phone home and someone else comes out to fix it.
I sat my missile fire control console six on, twelve off, mumble feet under the North Atlantic for sixty to eighty days a pop. If the system went down, it was on us to fix it. No nine to five. No weekends. No meals at home. No sunshine. And back then, the Walkman was brand new and the absolute height of personal electronics. (Not that personal electronics make up much for what you're missing.) I truly had to have my AAA game, because there were dozens of ways to die or be badly injured surrounding me 24/7 for days on end.
When it comes to a hard life in the strategic weapons world, the chumps out there with the prairie dogs aren't close to having the hardest. That (dubious) 'honor' belongs to my brothers and sisters boring holes out there in the deep blue.
x-FTB2/SS, USS Henry L. Stimson 655B 1983-87.