A bitter wind relentlessly whips throughout acres of frozen prairie at this distant base, the place tons of of airmen and girls keep on alert across the clock to do the unthinkable: launch a nuclear assault.
That is the one set up within the nation that hosts each intercontinental ballistic missiles and B-52 bombers, two legs of the so-called nuclear triad with submarines. But it has been besieged by scandals and mishaps which have marred its historic function.
In August 2007, crews at Minot mistakenly loaded six cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads onto a B-52 heavy bomber that flew to a different base in Louisiana. The warheads weren't correctly guarded for 36 hours earlier than anybody realized they had been lacking. Partly consequently, the secretary of the Air Power was pressured to resign.
Within the final two years, two commanders have been dismissed at Minot and one reprimanded after Pentagon brass misplaced confidence of their skill to steer. As well as, 19 officers had been stripped of their authority to manage and launch the nuclear-tipped missiles that sit in silos, and didn't get it again till they accomplished further coaching.
Now the huge base, near the Canadian border, is struggling to get better.
A 60-page Pentagon report launched final week detailed issues within the nuclear drive for the reason that Chilly Struggle ended 20 years in the past. The report singled out Minot as a “particular case” that wanted elevated consideration.
Sustaining the bottom’s 27 B-52 bombers and 150 Minuteman III missiles, which had been constructed and designed within the Sixties, is a continuing wrestle.
“Hydraulic seals leak, gear breaks, transport automobiles fail extra ceaselessly, and plane are cycled into restricted hangars for upkeep,” the Pentagon’s report stated.
Morale has been cited as a persistent drawback. A missileer usually wakes at daybreak, attends briefings and drives with one other missileer — typically for greater than an hour — to a ranch home ringed by razor wire.
The airmen then take an elevator 70 toes right down to a bus-sized metal capsule, known as a launch-control heart, that's supposed to face up to a nuclear blast on the floor. Chargeable for 10 ICBMs which are miles away, the airmen spend 24 hours beneath floor, respiration recycled air.
Cleansing crews have begun scrubbing the 15 launch-control capsules — a few of which hadn’t been totally cleaned since they had been in-built 1962.
Winter climate can get so dangerous that missileers typically spend 48 hours, and even 72, within the capsule.
“It’s uncommon, however it does occur,” stated Lt. Col. David Rickards, deputy group commander of a missile unit at Minot. “All of it relies upon how a lot snow is on the market and the highway situations we’re confronted with.”
The Pentagon report cited complaints of too few employees on the medical clinic, lengthy waits on the pharmacy, and insufficient day care for kids of missileers and upkeep crews.
“It may be a tricky place to work,” stated Mark Gunzinger, a former B-52 pilot who was stationed at Minot for six years within the Nineteen Eighties and who's now an analyst on the nonpartisan Middle for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. “It’s removed from household and pals, chilly as might be, and in case you throw dangerous management into the combo, it’s straightforward to seek out your self depressed with a scarcity of focus.”
An initiative known as the “drive enchancment program,” primarily based on airmen’s recommendations on find out how to enhance morale, seems to be serving to.
The Air Power will spend $12 million for brand new objects, together with upkeep vehicles, mattresses and weight-lifting gear for crews. The on-base sports activities bar, J.R. Rockers, is closed for renovations as a part of the initiative.
“Issues have actually began shifting alongside over the past a number of months,” stated Lt. Kathleen Fosterling, 24, a missileer. “We just like the modifications to this point.”
Earlier this month, Lt. Col. Jimmy “Keith” Brown, a missile squadron commander, was fired as a result of he “made statements to subordinates that created a notion inside his squadron that being pregnant would negatively have an effect on a girl’s profession,” in response to Lt. Col. John Sheets, spokesman for World Strike Command, which is in control of the Air Power’s nuclear drive.
Protection Secretary Chuck Hagel made it a precedence to fly to Minot final Friday after saying plans on the Pentagon to enhance coaching, enhance oversight and handle safety lapses within the nuclear drive.
He famous that the crews dealing with nuclear weapons see few prospects for promotion within the Air Power, and do jobs with little private-sector applicability.
“You shouldn’t be penalized to your service as a missileer or your service right here,” Hagel instructed a number of hundred airmen. “You ought to be valued and be given expertise that may be utilized to different profession paths, if that’s what you need. We’re going to vary that.”
william.hennigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @wjhenn
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