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Global Shield, 1985
This video below shows a MITO (minimal interval takeoff) of B-52G and KC-135 aircraft at the launch of “Global Shield” in 1985. (I was the navigator in, as I recall, the second B-52 to depart in this video.) Although not coincident with Earth Day, this annual exercise truly was global as bombers and supporting tankers launched synchronously from every Strategic Air Command (SAC) base. Our intended audience was the Soviets and the exercise was intended to demonstrate the credibility of the bomber component of the strategic triad.
My thinking is that to celebrate Earth Day, it should be an earth worth living on. SAC did its part to advance that objective. So, happy Earth Day everybody!
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Published in General
That was amazing – was it during the challenge by the Soviets during the Carter presidency when they had plans to move into Eastern and Western Europe? I live in NW FL – surrounded by 3 major bases and witness on a daily basis, military aircraft as well as loud booms and maneuvers both day and night – I am so proud of all they do to keep us safe.
The Vietnam vet F-4 pilot who guided me towards joining the USAF once got to personally visit his wing commander following a flight, which included an aerial refueling conducted by a new female boom operator (who, as the story went, was having some difficulty getting the nozzle into the F-4’s refueling port) – likely one of the very first women to become a boomer. His in-flight transmission: “would it help if I moan?” was apparently considered less than professional.
Reagan was in office by the time I joined the USAF and Gorbachev was General Secretary by the time I had my B52 assignment. I only stayed on active duty six years total (later was in the Air Guard), and that whole time the idea of sitting nuclear alert was starting to seem irrelevant to the direction things seemed to be headed. Still, I was amazed at how rapidly the wall came down and the Soviets collapsed – only about a year after I got out. I used to tell people my getting discharged was what brought credibility back to the US Armed Forces and which in turn was what won the cold war.
Happy Earth day to you too dude! My dad would take me and my brothers to a SAC base in Blythesville, AR from time to time in the 60’s & 70’s and talk to us about freedom, Barry Goldwater and such.
Oh, that is rich.
Did any of them argue your point?
I grew up in Bossier near Barksdale—very familiar with this. Always proud of our military. Also, I never worried much about surviving a nuclear conflict. My dad, who was stationed at Barksdale in WWII, assured me we wouldn’t. Whether that was really true or not, knowing that somehow gave me permission not to worry about it. That may or may not have been for the best. I’m certainly grateful that someone like Ronald Reagan believed that living under the threat of nuclear annihilation was unacceptable and determined to do something about it. Being born in the 60’s, I didn’t have any knowledge of a world without nuclear weapons.
Ah, Global Shield! I remember it well from my days at Loring. Standing a distant support sentry post, protecting my dog’s ears as plane after plane roared overhead…
Strategic Air Command – Peace is our profession. War is only a hobby.
F-16, B-52, Cockpit by Korry. I’m the new CCA (circuit-card assembly) buyer, and I buy parts for both aircraft, which are still flying. It makes me so proud to know that I am helping keep those birds in the air.
I attended college in Wichita in the early nineties. McConnell had the B-1B at the time and even though the wall was down, nuclear war was still a worry. During dorm room bull sessions, my friends and I decided that if the missiles were inbound, we were heading to McConnell. We thought being at ground zero would be better than living through the aftermath.
Now that is an impressive display of carbon emissions!
Wow! My office is going to reek of kerosene all day now.
That is not only an impressive show of military might, but economic power. Pity Khruschev was already dead: “Who is going to bury whom?!”
Great stuff! Peace through Strength – J-57s and burnt kerosene, along with training, practice, and skill. I lived in Warner Robins, GA when the 19th Bombardment Wing was stationed there and there were frequent alerts and scrambles. There was a Drive in theater near the departure end of the runway and I remember at least one movie interrupted by by the alert birds screaming off the runway! good times…
Ha ha! As an adult we always lived very near a military base. I would smile and say that to people who worried about nuclear attacks. Especially when that dopey movie “The Day After” was aired. If you lived near a base, you wouldn’t have to worry at all about surviving an attack. You would be comfortably residing in Paradise.
I was a civil engineer officer at Grand Forks from 82-84. By the end of Global Shield (always ended up with the base being nuked) we typically didn’t know what day it was after endless exercises and hours in the command post.
One year an Airman climbed a water tower at the alternate recovery location in Minnesota and painted “SAC Sucks” on the tower. Another time one of the missile maintenance squadrons unbuttoned a missile silo (no simple task) for a VIP tour and found someone had painted something obscene on the warhead shroud of a Minuteman III. Another emergency painting detail.
We had a flight commander, a Major (Kong-type for you “Dr. Strangelove” fans), who seemed to be the only one in the alert shack who actually believed attack was imminent – how he got that juiced up week after week was well beyond my comprehension. After one of his assumption of alert speeches (“yer waaf’s gonna be ded, yer dog’s gonna be ded, there ain’t gonna be no burger king, there ain’t gonna be no (effin) mall . . . ” and so on) – in an effort to get these snot nosed lieutenants to take the threat more seriously, a raised hand in back and the question: “what if I ain’t got no dog?”
As I look back on it I wish I had had a better appreciation for what we doing. I was so busy with the technical aspects of the job that I just didn’t have much energy for curiosity beyond what I needed to know. It was a doomsday scenario (duh) and I was just doing my part. Mainly, however, I was a guy in his twenties with the usual things on his mind.
My hat’s off to you – getting out of town was always the better deal as these exercises went. Admittedly I had no love for SAC, but as time has passed I’ve learned a bit more and can appreciate what was asked and what was being done.
That was my second SAC tour. In my enlisted days I mostly operated an Echo-9 at Wilder RBS (on IR300). Hours trying to shoot down on aircraft on the range. If you ever flew that route in 79 I was dueling with your EWO.
For the uninitiated, the RBS sites provided radar tracking on bombing ranges (no actual bombs dropped) while aircraft tried to evade the radars that simulated anti-aircraft artillery and SAM’s. Those long gone sites are one of two careers I had that became completely obsolete in 40 years.
All the pilots I knew called Blytheville “Hooterville”. I once met a guy who grew up there about it and he said he had never heard it,
Never heard it called that either, but we never talked to the pilots.