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Last week, I was fortunate enough to return to Las Vegas to join my comrades in arms as we said goodbye to the 99th Ground Combat Training Squadron, Silver Flag Alpha. Going back to say farewell was both wonderful and awful all at once. The unit’s primary mission (really simplified) was to train Air Force Security Forces to defend air bases. This was the Desert Warfare Training Center.

After only 34 years of invaluable service, the Air Force is inactivating the unit. I can’t tell you how much it sucks to say that. The few years I had as a first sergeant (1993-1995) with this small tight knit group of people changed my life forever, and I hate the idea that it’s gone. But the Air Force in its infinite wisdom feels the need to trim, cut, and consolidate, so the mission will move to Fort Bliss, where instead of owning our own ranges and controlling our destiny, we’ll be at the mercy of the Army and their schedules. Did I already say it sucks? Sorry. I’ll move on now.

The thing that some will understand (mostly my brothers and sisters in arms) is that “The Flag” was always there and it provided continuity in my world. Weapons and weapons systems change, but a location and tasking seemed so much more solid. We will always need to train men in a desert environment to defend our assets.

The Flag was where I last served. It was where the people I most cared about were from, where I became what I was always meant to be, and where I ultimately left a part of my soul and a big chunk of my heart. The Flag is where the young men and women I came to admire so much lived up to the expectations that we set and proved my favorite theory about leadership. If you set the bar high, your NCOs will not only meet your expectations, they will exceed them every time. Being the First Sergeant for The Flag was a dream job for me.

Three wonderful young NCOs from the current Cadre hauled us old folks around in vans, stopping frequently to let us out to wander in specific areas that had meaning to us. It was odd to find ourselves in the position of visitors on the ground we knew so well. Everyone in the vans had hauled visitors and dignitaries around this site in the past. We knew the stops and the history. Hell, most of the guys in these vans were the living damn history of the place.

Some showed up in their old patrol caps. I was very proud to represent CMSgt (Ret) Mike Nemcic, who sent his cap so he’d be with us in spirit. And Paul O’Keefe showed up in a shirt he’d designed for the Cadre.

One of our first stops was Terror Town. Twenty years ago, it was only a few concrete block buildings without roofs. One of the men who helped build those first structures was sharing the van with us. We paused to take pictures of his name in the cement, and to laugh with him at the idea that a bunch of young cops with no building experience would pour concrete slabs and build a MOUT village that still stands 25 years later. It’s expanded incredibly in that time, but the original buildings (including the 2 story in the picture with his initials in the slab) are still there.

When we finally moved on, we drove through areas in vans that are now smooth and all but paved. They’d once been so rough we would never have attempted them in something so mundane.

We stood around in the dirt laughing, had our pictures taken in front of the sign (I’m not really that short, I’m positive I’m standing in a hole), climbed berms, ignored the calls from the current Cadre to rally up as we shared some of the foolish and wonderful things that had occurred on the site. Attacks and ambushes that had worked properly were epic and the failures even more so. They laughed about instructors who could always find the concertina wire in the dark, illumination and mortar rounds that didn’t always work as planned, and told of students who could be unpredictable at best when the first explosions were set off at 0215.

We picked on each other and traded barbs as only true family can. I was teased about the time that one of my young staff sergeants threatened to tie me off to his belt with 550 cord when we went to visit the troops in the field because I was known to wander away to chat with the kids in their DFPs. Sadly, I rarely had any idea where I was wandering off to as I tripped over rocks, never knew the word of the day, and had a reputation for potentially being more lost than any second lieutenant – they were still keeping an eye on me Friday to make sure I stayed close.

There were a lot of surface changes to the range. New towers and buildings, paved and improved roads, and cell phones in a place where our radios barely worked before. And now my young men have gray in their hair and some of their children are serving just as we did. We’ve grown older, although I’m not sure some of us have matured any. I listened and laughed with my friends, but more than once, I just turned to look out at the rugged range complex. We may have changed, and we may have left a few more marks on the land, but the range and the mountains remain the same. The air still dries your lips and eyes too quickly, the sun is still blindingly bright, and the wind coming off the mountains still cuts through you like a knife. Some of the most harsh and forbidding terrain in Nevada remains some of the most beautiful to me.

I’d often thought that this was my guy’s world, and I didn’t really belong. But I wanted to be there with them more than I ever wanted to be anywhere else. I wanted to do my part to take care of these men so they could focus on doing their jobs. I clearly recall being scared to death the first few times I went up-range – scared of being lost in the vastness of the desert, of screwing up in front of my troops, or worse, doing something that would embarrass my men in front of their students. But they never let those things happen. So now what I remember best is the incredible feeling of safety and freedom that came from being with these warriors. The sure and certain knowledge that no matter what happened, no matter where we went on this range, or where we deployed to in the world, they’d bring me home in one piece. That for all the harassment and teasing about how lost and useless I could be in the field—they were okay with me being there. That I belonged to them in the same way they belonged to me.

With my face in the wind, I tried one last time to take it all in and embed it to memory; the shape of the distant mountains, the smell of the desert, and the feel of the ground. The echo of past voices and snapshots of the faces of the small group that worked so hard to teach others how to protect a base and the people on it so they could all come home alive. The absolute beauty and harmony of young men busting their asses as they worked toward a common goal in the desert sun filled my head and my heart, making it hard to breathe. I picked up a small rock and slipped it into my pocket to rest next to my first sergeant’s coin. The desert won’t miss it or us.

There were moments on Friday when the flood of memories and depth of my emotions staggered me. I wanted to go back in time and have the chance to do it all again. I wished for one more day to be the young and healthy first sergeant I’d been as I trekked through the dirt and brush following my guys or the boss on our way out to visit the students. To spend one more night sitting out in the middle of nowhere looking up at that dark sky and brilliant stars as the temperature dropped from hellishly hot to freaking damn cold. To spend a bit more time “serving” with the people that I was so proud to be part of and adored so much. I miss those days more than I can ever convey. But those days, like this glorious range, are now part of my past.

However, I’m also one very lucky old broad and I know it. Last Friday, I was able to spend several hours revisiting that time and place with a good number of those wonderful people. They held the door, helped me up and down the berms, in and out of the van, on and off the bus, and even carried my chow for me. And they reminded me that I am and always will be part of something wonderful and meaningful – a chosen family. Friday may have been the last day to stand in the dirt and take in the dust and sun of that particular piece of earth with the men and women I came to love and now call brother and sister, but our familial relationship will continue. I know that I’ll see many of them again. We’re too close and the bond means too much not to.

But that dirty piece of range that we called home is gone from us now.
Did I tell you how much that sucks?

Recently, I read Command and Control, Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser. I was most interested in his writings about the explosion at Titan II missile complex 374-7 near Damascus, Arkansas in September 1980. Both Mr. Scott and I were working in Titan when this disaster occurred. Schlosser’s detailed account of the events of that night brought home just how much I’d forgotten and also how much I never knew about the disaster. It also reminded me of the profound love that those of us who serve have for each other.

I don’t talk a lot about my first job in the military. As one of my friends told me the other day, “That was soooo last century, girl!” He’s right – it was a long damn time ago. I joined the military in 1978 and became a Propellant Transfer System (PTS) specialist on the Titan II ICBM (big ass missile for you civilians), and I was assigned to the 390th Strategic Missile Wing at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona. There weren’t a lot of us who held the title – probably less than 250 on active duty at any given time. We were divided between the three operational Titan II wings at Little Rock, McConnell, and Davis-Monthan, the tech school (it was at Chanute AFB when I attended), and the 3901st Strategic Missile Evaluation Squadron in California. Even if we didn’t all know each other personally, we were aware of each other by name and reputation.

Our primary job was to load and unload the propellants utilized by the Titan II, and handle any issues involving those propellants or the equipment. In a nutshell, we were the gas passers.

Those are PTS troops in the suits and while that red cloud looks cool – it was freaking lethal. We joked about the BFRCs – Big F***ing Red Clouds created when we spilled a little oxidizer, but that was the nature of the job. Every day, we worked with some of the most dangerous stuff in the world. There were two main components: Fuel – Aerozine 50 was a 50/50 blend of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and Oxidizer – nitrogen tetroxide (NTO to some N2O4 to us). They are hypergolic – that means you don’t have to light a fuse; they ignite from contact with each other. If properly maintained the propellants were stable and could be stored in the missile tanks long term

I’d arrived at Davis-Monthan AFB less than a month before the 24 August 1978 accident at complex 533-7 near Rock, Kansas. While loading the oxidizer tank, a Teflon O-ring became lodged in the poppet valve mechanism and the valve wouldn’t close.

When the team disconnected from the missile, the valve remained open and the missile downloaded itself into the silo. That accident cost two PTS troops their lives and permanently disabled another. Most documents state that Staff Sergeant Robert J. Thomas and Airman 1st Class Erby Hepstall lost their lives because the oxidizer penetrated their protective clothing through tears and design flaws.

We PTS troops know the real reason they died – it was because SSgt Thomas and A1C Hepstall went into a dirty hole and did everything they could to save the missile and their injured teammate. They got the more important of the two things done – they saved their teammate.

As happens after every major accident, fingers were pointed, blame was assigned, and crap rolled downhill. But good thing also come of these events. In this case, mechanical changes occurred, safety procedures were adjusted, and the suits were repaired and theoretically upgraded. But at the end of the day, the hazards associated with our job didn’t really change. We worked daily on a weapons system that was archaic, utilizing equipment that was older than most of the people operating it, and we wore protective gear that, due to its age and design, may or may not function when you most needed it to. We also worked for Strategic Air Command who’s informal motto was “To err is human – to forgive is not SAC policy.” All of us knew the risks – every day that a team dispatched to a missile site was a crap shoot, but we never considered not going. It was our job.

Eric Schlosser author of Command and Control… described us as a group:

“The PTS guys were a different breed. Outside of work they had a reputation for being rowdy and wild. They had one of the most dangerous jobs in the Air Force – and at the end of the day they liked to blow off steam, drinking and partying harder than just about anyone else at the base. They were more likely to ride motorcycles, ignore speed limits, violate curfews, and toss a commanding officer into a shower fully clothed after consuming too much alcohol. They called the missiles “birds,” and they were attached to them and proud of them in the same way that good automobile mechanics care about cars. The danger of the oxidizer and the fuel wasn’t theoretical. It was part of the job. The daily risks often inspired a defiant, cavalier attitude among the PTS guys. Some of them had been known to fill a Ping-Pong ball with oxidizer and toss it into a bucket of fuel. The destruction of the steel bucket, accompanied by flames, was a good reminder of what they were working with. And if you were afraid of the propellants, as most people would be, you needed to find a different line of work.”

Were we really that way? Sometimes. I specifically recall that PTS troops had a real thing for mooning each other and anyone in authority – not that I ever did that.

It wasn’t just our view of ourselves. Others perceived us as a bit of a wild bunch. I knew several security policemen at Davis Monthan who rated PTS troops in the same category of crazy as the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) guys. What I can tell you is that we were one of the few career fields (along with EOD, pararescue, and tactical air combat controllers) to receive hazardous duty pay for the work we did. Fewer than 5,000 people in the entire Air Force qualified to receive haz pay and even firefighters didn’t have it until 2005. I think Schlosser pretty much nailed us as a group. We were damn proud of what we did and our “bad boy” reputation was just a part of that.

I don’t think any of us ever forgot what had happened at 3-7, but I know we didn’t dwell on it. When you work with hazardous materials, you have to completely focus on what you’re doing when you’re doing it.

Schlosser writes in detail about the accident that occurred near Damascus, Arkansas in September 1980. At complex 374-7, a PTS troop dropped a heavy socket while working in the launch duct. The socket took a bad bounce and instead of hitting the wall or landing harmlessly in the bottom of the launch duct, the tool pierced the stage one fuel tank. The missile immediately began to download itself into the bottom of the silo. This was an operational missile with a full load of fuel and oxidizer as well as a nuclear warhead. The combined weight of the materials on what would soon be an empty fuel tank would cause the airframe to collapse and rupture the oxidizer tanks. Almost eight hours later, Senior Airman David Livingston and Staff Sergeant Jeff Kennedy went onto the complex in an attempt to gather critical information for the command staff. While they were on the site, the missile exploded, destroying the launch complex and blowing the nuclear warhead out of the silo. Sra Livingston died several hours later from the injuries resulting from the blast and the toxic cloud of vapor from the oxidizer that didn’t burn off. Amazingly, SSgt Kennedy survived. Twenty-one people were injured either in the explosion or during the rescue efforts that followed.

When almost everyone else fled the scene, the surviving PTS troops stayed behind to try to find their brothers. They weren’t leaving without them. And they didn’t.

Every person has a moment when they realize they are mortal. The explosion at 4-7 was my moment. I wasn’t there in person, but I felt the loss and the horror, just as every PTS troop did. Suddenly the earlier deaths of SSgt Thomas and A1C Hepstall had new meaning. Three men were dead, and all they’d been doing was the same job that I went and did every day. I’m also positive that every PTS troop had the feeling – “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

The men and women of PTS are still a small, tightly-knit community. We’ve been reaching out to each other and thanks to a Facebook group, we’re all reconnecting and the war stories have been flying. It’s been a lot of fun, but more importantly, it’s been healing for many of us.

There’s an unbreakable bond that occurs between the people who do work this dangerous. The title brother or sister has true meaning to those of us who use it amongst ourselves. Placing your life in the hands of your team members is an act of faith – our faith is based on the absolute and certain knowledge that no one would ever be left behind.

Nothing has changed. My brothers and sisters will always be there.

To read more about these mishaps I suggest you purchase Command and Control by Eric Schlosser available in Kindle or print from Amazon
Online summaries of the events at:
Complex 533-7 at Rock, Kansas
Complex 374-7 at Damascus, Arkansas

And get off your butts and visit the Titan II Missile Museum at Complex 5717 in Green Valley, Arizona.