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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 956578" data-attributes="member: 508">Originally posted by DocMoriartty:I was one of "those guys who sit with pairs of keys around their necks in the missile silos" -- kind of.  First of all, missileers don't wear their launch keys around their necks; day to day, the keys are stored in locked containers until it looks like we may have to go to war.  Secondly, God forbid we should sit around in the missile silos -- that not only wouldn't get the missiles launched if needed, but it  would be death those of us sitting around there if they did get launched.  Missileers pull their alerts in underground launch control centers (aka "capsules"), several miles away from the nearest missile under their command.I was a missile launch officer for the first four years of my Air Force career.  Many people disparage the job, but I loved my four years of combat crew time.  I pulled an average of 8 alerts a month; each of those took up about a day and a half, considering you spent 24 hours in the capsule at a time and then factored in travel time there and back from the capsules.  There were generally about 4-5 days of training each month, maybe a commander's call and some squadron additional duty days, but the rest of the time was yours.  I have never had as much free time as I had while pulling alert.Alerts weren't all that bad, either.  Sure, it's not something for the claustrophobic, but for an avid reader like me, it didn't matter that I was in a tiny room filled with equipment racks so long as I had enough reading material to keep me occupied.  And I managed to crank out my Master's degree while I was on crew -- plenty of time to do the required reading while monitoring missiles from an underground bunker.In my career, I have actually turned keys with my crew partner and launched a Minuteman III ICBM -- naturally, this was a test launch that involved first removing the nuclear warhead and firing the ICBM at a test range facility.  Still, there's only a limited number of people on the planet who can honestly say they've launched an ICBM, and I'm proud to be included among their number.Also, for the record, I have 20/20 vision, and I volunteered for missile duty.  Not all missileers are disgruntled, washed-out pilots.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Johnathan M. RichardsMajor, USAFMissile Staff Officer (and proud of it!)</blockquote>

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