This is Dave writing this evening, as the topic is military.
We are camping tonight in the Family Campground (FamCamp) at Warren AFB in Cheyene, WY. The buildings on this base are from the frontier cavalry days, very reminiscent of Forts Leavenworth and Riley in Kansas and other former cavalry posts in the western US. They've been upgraded and airconditioned, of course, but from the outside they appear as they did almost 200 years ago. What's housed here today, though, has nothing to do with the frontier or the cavalry.
The 20th US Air Force is based here along with one of its Minuteman Missile Wings. The United States today still maintains a nuclear triad on alert ready to respond nuclearly to an attack on the US or its allies. One arm of that triad is the nuclear missile subs of the Navy. The other two arms of the triad are in the US Strategic Command headquartered at Offut, AFB, Omaha, Nebraska. One of the Air Force arms are the B1 and B52 bomber and their supporting tanker aircraft. The second arm is the 20th Air Force here at Warren. Its Minuteman Missile wings are underground in Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana and elsewhere, and I believe they also have a mobile capability to move and fire their missiles from other than fixed locations. Its other Missile Wings are headquartered at Minot AFB, North Dakota, and Malstrom AFB, Montana.
A local newspaper article at Warren states that the 20th Air Force is DOD's "only immediate response nuclear alert force." Thus, these USAF personnel are the ONLY fingers on the nuclear trigger should our president need to command a nuclear retaliation. Apparently the Navy and the bomber crews are not on standby alert, although I question whether that is true.
So sleep securely tonight; the missile crews of the USAF 20th Air Force are awake and alert.
Good night,
Dave
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