I am surrounded by nuclear missiles. They lurk in their hidey-holes on the rolling prairie of Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado. I give little thought to them on most days. I sometimes drive past F.E. Warren AFB's main gate and see the three Cold War missiles that greet passers-by. Convoys of missileers pass me on the highway on their way to their `24-hour shifts underground. A recent CBS 60 Minutes piece spoke of the antiquated launch equipment at Warren. This gave me pause, as "antiquated equipment" is not a term you want to associate with our nuke strike force. It's bad enough when films of the 1960s scared us with untoward nuke launches. Col. Jack D. Ripper went a little funny in the head and plunged us into a celluloid Armageddon. While the fail-proof fail safe system showed its flaws, our bomber crews carried out their mission. And the Russkis Doomsday Machine went off without a hitch.
So, when 60 Minutes showed that our local launch equipment is falling apart, that our airmen and airwomen are using computers from the Stone Age to take care of Space Age missiles, the Pentagon sprang into action.
It's a good thing that the U.S. Government is funneling taxpayer dollars ($90 billion) to Boeing and Northrup-Grumman to modern our nuclear capabilities. Cheyenne is agog that at least $5 billion of that will be spent locally. Boeing, one of the contractors, will hold a meeting April 11 for businesses "to learn about program support and Boeing supplier needs." N-G cannot be far behind with its own round of meetings..
I scrolled through the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent web site -- GBSD Bound. In flowing language, the writers describe the past, present and future of this program. The Chamber eloquently supports all this. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades. Really good shades, as the flash of a thermonuclear fireball can melt the eyeballs.
It is good news for Cheyenne. Our capital city has experienced incremental growth the past five years. Many here say that this is the spillover effect from Colorado's boom. Cheyenne is the northern terminus to the Front Range. As such, it benefits when billions are being invested into infrastructure and businesses in Fort Collins, Denver, and Colorado Springs. That same boom has caused Coloradans to question their devotion to a Denver filled with overpriced housing, crazy traffic, and herds of shaggy hipsters roaming the territory as bison once did prior to 1859. "This isn't the Colorado I knew" is a common refrain among family and friends in the Centennial State. They ponder moves to the wide-open spaces of Wyoming and Montana and Idaho if only someone would buy their two-bedroom house for $500,000 and some visionary start-up would pay them bundles of cryptocurrency to telecommute from Laramie. The cryptocurrency/blockchain thing is no joke. Our legislature has passed a dozen bills in support of this as-yet unproven e-currency but is scared shitless with the thought of brown or transgender people moving into their neighborhood. And damn that federal gubment (except when it brings $5 billion to town).
Despite my peacenik roots, I am fond of missiles and rockets. My father fed his large family by planting ICBM sites through the West. He worked as a contract specialist with the Martin Company, later Martin-Marietta. He didn't so much build the sites as find reliable people to do so. He later did the same job in Florida for the space program, helping get Neil Armstrong to the moon in 1969, the year I graduated from high school. I saw Apollo 11 blast off. I canoodled with my girlfriend on the beach as we listened to the crackly car radio announce that "The Eagle Has Landed." My brother Dan and I spent our childhood building missile models and memorized all the names of the U.S. arsenal. I read all the Tom Swift books, in which rocketry played a key part. I watched Sputnik arc across the night sky. We were looking up, all of us. We did it together, maybe the last time that Americans were together on any one thing.
As we revamp our nukes, we are faced with new problems. The main one is in the White House, Donald Trump, buddy of the old Soviet spy who runs Russia. We have the North Koreans and Iranians. Saudi shenanigans. Dirty bombs from terrorists. Clean bombs from China. "Paranoia strikes deep/Into your life it will creep/It starts when you're always afraid/You step out of line, the man come and take you away."
We've come a long way from the so-called peace dividend we expected with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Remember that?
Cheyenne hasn't been a boom town since the Iron Horse rolled into town and Hell on Wheels was born. Its incredible growth back then earned it the nickname of "Magic City of the Plains."
Let's hope we're ready for this boom.
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