Hanging out with the disgruntled guys who babysit our aging nuclear missiles—and hate every second of it.
—By Josh Harkinson | November/December 2014 Issue
llustration by Tavis Coburn
ALONG A LONELY STATE HIGHWAY on central Montana’s high plains, I approach what looks like a ranch entrance, complete with cattle guard. “The first ace in the hole,” reads a hand-etched cedar plank hanging from tall wooden posts. “In continuous operation for over 50 years.” I drive up the dirt road to a building surrounded by video cameras and a 10-foot-tall, barbed-wire-topped fence stenciled with a poker spade. “It is unlawful to enter this area,” notes a sign on the fence, whose small print cites the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, a law that once required communist organizations to register with the federal government. “Use of deadly force authorized.”
I’m snapping photos when a young airman appears. “You’re not taking pictures, are you?” he asks nervously.
“Yeah, I am,” I say. “The signs don’t say that I can’t.”
“Well, we might have to confiscate your phone.”
Maybe he should. We’re steps away from the 10th Missile Squadron Alpha Missile Alert Facility, an underground bunker capable of launching several dozen nuclear-tipped Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), with a combined destructive force 1,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.
Another airman comes out of the ranch house and asks for my driver’s license. He’s followed by an older guy clad in sneakers, maroon gym shorts, and an air of authority. “I’m not here to cause trouble,” I say, picturing myself in a brig somewhere.
“Just you being here taking photos is causing trouble,” he snaps.
An alarm starts blaring from inside the building. One airman turns to the other. “Hey, there’s something going off in there.”
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