Time travel: Just returned from the 21st Century!

[Trailrider]

To all personnel:

I just returned from the 21st Century (to the 19th, of course  ), where I attended the bienniel meeting of the Association of Air Force Missileers, which was held in the vicinity of Cheyenne, WY, with tours of a place called Francis E. Warren AFB (formerly Ft. D. A. Russell).  I re-connected with several troops with whom I served in Montana in the 20th Century...  Hadn't seen them in 37 years!  Other than larger waistlines and more wrinkles, they hadn't changed a bit! (Wait a minute... I resemble that!)

What really got to me was how YOUNG the active duty Wing Commander (an O-6!) and how even YOUNGER most of the enlisted troops and junior officers look!  Got to meet the 20th Air Force commander, MGEN Depes (who started out in missile maintenance, as a Targeting officer...like your obdt servant...but he stayed in), as well as CINCSPC (Space Command), Gen. Chilton, the first four-star astronaut (3 shuttle missions before going back to USAF).

I beg leave to report that our strategic deterrant force is in excellent shape, dispite personnel cutbacks (their are even rif'ing 1st & 2nd LT's...including one Distinguished Military Graduate of ROTC!   )   The threat, of course, is much different than during the Cold War, but we can't take any chances if the world situation reverts to the 20th Century conditions with the additional threat of the Bad Guys!

Most interesting, if disturbing thing was 20AF's relating that he recently awarded 3 bronze stars to personnel from a Montana base, for service in Iraq!  A major and a captain each received one for activities over there.  The third was a Bronze Star with V for valor!  This was awarded to a SRA (senior airman) who enlisted to drive trucks, and was assigned to the Montana base's transportation unit.  But those troops are now being rotated in and out of the Sand Box!  She...yes, SHE, wound up driving a truck in a convoy.  The convoy was ambushed and the gunner up top wounded and put out of action.  The airman pulled the wounded gunner down from the turret, manned the machine gun, and drove back the attackers.  Then she rendered aid to the wounded (there were others).  It is estimated she saved 38 people in the convoy by reacting as she did!  NOT what one thinks of when one thinks about AIR FORCE support personnel assigned to a strategic missile base in CONUS!  It sure ain't yer grandpa's Air Force!  God Bless them ALL!

[Frenchie]

Trailrider, one of my buds from high school name of Greene was a missileman, served at Minot and a couple other places. Not warm enough for him, he was raised in Texas 

[Trailrider]

Trailrider, one of my buds from high school name of Greene was a missileman, served at Minot and a couple other places. Not warm enough for him, he was raised in Texas 

Heh! Heh!  "Oh, come with me to the buffalo grass,
                     Where the missile maintenance troops
                  are freezing their (censored...this IS a family forum, of course!)" 

T'was -52 deg. F. New Year's Day of 1969, in Great Falls, MT.  NO WIND!  Just pure temp.!   

[Frenchie]

    "Why not Minot?"

He told me there was an electric power outlet on a post next to the driveway of every house, to plug in the engine heaters that kept the oil from becoming as thick as asphalt. Now that's cold!

[Trailrider]

  "Why not Minot?"

He told me there was an electric power outlet on a post next to the driveway of every house, to plug in the engine heaters that kept the oil from becoming as thick as asphalt. Now that's cold!

I can think of a bunch of reasons!     At least at Malmstrom AFB (Great Falls, MT), you'd get a Chinook wind blowing down from the mountains.  The downslope effect would warms things up in a hurry.  Could go from -10 to +40 in about 10 minutes.  But watch out if the wind shifted to the Northeast!  At the time I was up there, Anaconda Copper had a smelter just across the Missouri River in Black Eagle.  It belched out black smoke that made a perfect weather vane!  I could look out my window and tell what the weather was.

Of course, they tore down the smokestack in the 1970's.   
That worked for me when the temp was above -37 deg. F.!  But, at -52 deg. F, even allowing the battery to warm up in the house for 12 hours, the STRAIGHT 5W oil was just too thick to allow my 1965 Ford Station wagon to turn over. (Or anybody else's vehicle, for that matter!) Actually, when I was out on a dispatch to the missile sites, I left my wagon in the parking lot all the time!  Never failed to start.  And there were NO plug-ins available!