The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles

Lasrick writes This is a rather disturbing read about the troops who guard our nuclear weapons."'The Air Force has not kept its ICBMs manned or maintained properly,' says Bruce Blair, a former missileer and cofounder of the anti-nuclear group Global Zero. Nuclear bases that were once the military's crown jewels are now 'little orphanages that get scraps for dinner,' he says. And morale is abysmal. Blair's organization wants to eliminate nukes, but he argues that while we still have them, it's imperative that we invest in maintenance, training, and personnel to avoid catastrophe: An accident resulting from human error, he says, may be actually more likely today because the weapons are so unlikely to be used. Without the urgent sense of purpose the Cold War provided, the young men (and a handful of women) who work with the world's most dangerous weapons are left logging their 24-hour shifts under subpar conditions—with all the dangers that follow."

Comments

Scale down the land based forces

[Crashmarik]

Shift their responsibilities to the bomber and submarine forces. Land based missiles don't offer any benefit over the other two legs of the triad. Bombers can be recalled and submarines are much more likely to survive to deliver a counter strike. Both bombers and submarines lessen the need for launch on warning. The missile forces as constituted are an artifact from a very different technological era.

Poor Promotability too

[Fire_Wraith]

Part of the reason that morale is so low is that not only is the work long and tedious, but it's also horrible in terms of career path. The most desirable/promotable career path in the Air Force is that of a pilot, and (at least as I understand) the missile officers are about as far from that as it gets.

Re:Poor Promotability too

[DerekLyons]

It's a fairly shit job (Hey! It's time for work! 99.99% chance says it'll be a long stretch of pure boredom in some unpleasant bunker with a few instances of my superiors fucking with me as part of a 'routine drill'. Failing that, I get to be responsible for a few million deaths!)

24 hours on watch in a bunker, with maybe a short drill or two? *yawn*.

I sat console (mumble) feet under the North Atlantic six out of every eighteen, with no TV and no daylight for three months. And back in my day, no laptops or portable game devices, or email, or... pretty much any personal electronics beyond a cheap-ass cassette player. Monday through Friday, ships drills in the morning and training most afternoons - both of which you racked out for if you weren't on watch. Saturday morning was field day. Most days, on top of all that I averaged 2-4 hours off watch working on quals, handling collateral duties, or standing proficiency watches. The guys who had to do their maintenance off watch had it even worse.

(And all this on a 640 class, an original 41' boat - not a 726 class Hilton. I'd been a month away from home before we even went to sea.)

Color me unimpressed that they're all emo because they have to spend a whole twenty four hours in a bunker.

How would you make doing a job like that not burn people out?

The same way they did in the Cold War - treat 'em like an elite and kick the lesser performers to the curb. Figure out how to give them a valid career path. Make 'em feel needed and coddled and wanted. (And even then they whined like little toddlers about that 24 hour thing.)

There are some problems with the story

[civex]

I was a Minuteman Missile Combat Crew Member back in the 70s, and I want to alert you that there are factual errors in the story about alert shifts and the like. I should also point out that Bruce Blair, as it says in the article, is anti-nuclear missile. I've read comments by him for a long time, and he has his opinion, but I don't agree with him much of the time. I would suggest finding additional articles and commentary by additional people to get a more nearly rounded view of the situation for Missile Combat Crews.

Re:There are some problems with the story

[mythosaz]

Would you care to share any of those factual errors, or did you just want to announce that they existed?

Re:Science fiction comes to life, again

[tburkhol]

blame the anti nuke crowd for causing the mess. I mean we all dont want nukes but alas, we have them. so we need to take care of them, and the people maintaining them

Or, we could, you know, dismantle them if they no longer serve the purpose intended for them. Then we wouldn't have them, they wouldn't need maintaining, and there would be no risk of misuse or accident.