N.O.R.A.D. - NORTH AMERICAN AIR DEFENSE COMMAND

 While I was stationed at Erhac Turkey most Security Policemen were getting orders for Ellsworth South Dakota, Malmstrom Montana, Minot and Grand Forks North Dakota. These were all SAC or (Strategic Air Command) bases. It was the Cold War and if you were an SP you were either going to hump B-52 bombers on the flight line or guard ICBM missile silo's. Winters in the Dakota's and Montana are brutal. Temperatures can go as low as twenty below and the wind chill factor even lower. At Lackland, Kingsley, and Erhac I was always given a (dream sheet). You were allowed to make three choices of bases that you would like to be stationed at and I would usually choose places where the weather was warm. Bases like Patrick AFB in Coco Beach Florida, or Hickam AFB in Honolulu Hawaii. I also picked Sewart in Smyrna Tennessee until I learned that the base was going to be closed in 1970. At Erhac my third choice was Peterson Field in Colorado Springs. This was because a friend had been stationed there and told me how much he enjoyed Colorado. I never expected to actually get any of my choices because I had never been that lucky in the past. To my surprise I received orders for N.O.R.A.D. or North American Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs. Although I didn't get the warm climate I wanted I was excited about going there. Most of the cops at Erhac were envious of my orders since they all ended up going to the aforementioned SAC bases.

 I was very excited about my new duty assignment at N.O.R.A.D. It was located in Cheyenne Mountain and looking at Pikes Peak you can easily see Cheyenne Mountain off to the left of it. Construction of the mountain complex was supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers beginning on May 18, 1961. The Space Defense Center and the Combat Operations Center were fully operational on February 6, 1967 and the cost of the complex was $142.4 million. It was built under 2,000 ft. of granite comprising five acres. In order to get to work I had to drive each day up a long winding two lane road to a parking lot that was in front of a large building that housed the Security Police. This is where our armory, training and administrative offices were. Each day we would check the duty roster to see who was posted inside the mountain and who was posted outside of the mountain. The Flight Chief stayed outside and only went into the mountain to eat at the chow hall or to do an occasional post check.

At the beginning of each shift we would have a guard mount. At guard mount we would get a safety briefing and pass on and receive any pertinent information. The Flight Chief would inspect us and our uniforms had to be sharp because we were at N.O.R.A.D headquarters surrounded by high ranking Air Force brass. In the summer we wore 1505 khaki's with spit shined low quarters and our blue service hats with a white cover. Since our posts were in a cave and there were steel building's all around we were only armed with .38 caliber revolvers. Our service belt was blue with a large shiny silver buckle. Winter uniforms were the sharpest. We wore blue dress pants with a dark blue long sleeved shirt and a white ascot. Our spit shined boots were bloused with white parachute cord that were ladder laced. After guard mount those of us who were working inside the mountain would board the bus. On the north end of the building was a room with turnstiles. We had an exchange badge system and when a person walked into the turnstiles they would hand a colored line badge to the SP behind the counter. He would then exchange that badge for a different colored badge. After exchanging our badges we would then board a blue AF bus.

When it was full the driver would drive into a large tunnel entrance in the side of the mountain. It was one mile from the entrance of the tunnel to the blast doors. The bus would back into a parking space in front of the doors where the passengers would disembark. There, a Security Policeman was posted by the outer door and another Security Policeman operated the doors at a post just inside the inner door. Inside an SP monitored two black and white T.V.'s from which they could see what was going on in front of the outside door and between the doors. The outside door would slowly open as a buzzer sounded while flashing a red light. After everyone was safely inside that door would slowly close. After the door closed, steel pins slid into holes on either side of the door. When the pins were secured, the SP on the inside would then open the inner door and everyone would walk into a huge man made cave where a group was usually waiting to leave. This group would walk inside the doors and the process would then be reversed.

 Out of a crew of six Security Policemen a man would be posted at the outer door and one at the inner door. From there the remaining four of us would walk into the inner tunnel and before us was the entrance of the steel buildings that made up the NORAD complex. A man would be posted in CSC or (Central Security Control) and the remaining three would become the SAT or (Security Alert Team). On most air bases the SAT was mobile but because of the nature of our duty at NORAD we were on foot. Upon arrival at NORAD I was still an E-4 but just after a few weeks I was promoted to E-5 or SSgt. As an E-4 I worked on the permanent day shift while I trained. There was a permanent day shift, swing shift, and midnight shift. Then there was a rotational shift that relieved the other three shifts for their 72 hour breaks. After my promotion to E-5 I was quickly trained to become the security escort for General Seth McKee, CINC NORAD and a Canadian general that was VICE CINC. General McKee was a U.S. Air Force 4 star general. He was a highly decorated WW2 fighter pilot in the P-38 with two enemy kills and the Canadian was a 3 star general. General McKee was 100 years old when he passed away in 2016. I would also be responsible for any VIP's visiting the complex along with the many public groups that routinely toured the mountain.

General Seth Mckee

 After training I was transferred to the relief Flight where I became responsible for the men on the inside of the mountain that worked my shift. I was permanent SAT leader and I provided break relief for all of the men. The day shift was usually the busiest for me because this is when the Cinc and Vice Cinc were the likeliest to visit the complex and many times they would bring along VIP's. Just before I was stationed at NORAD John Wayne visited the complex because he was in Colorado filming the movie (The Cowboys). There was a chair in a briefing room that had a brass plate on the back of it saying that Richard Nixon had sat in that chair when he visited. While there we had governors, senators, congressmen, and foreign dignitaries visit. The most famous visitor that I ever escorted was Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine who had run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964.

 Between these tours and the public tours, I learned a great deal about the state of our national defense. In command post they would show us North American airspace in real time. They would point out Soviet nuclear submarines sitting just off our east and west coasts and we had American nuclear subs pulling similar duty off the coast of the Soviet Union. There would sometimes be suspicious airplanes that were being tracked. Command post would check in with our airborne command posts called Looking Glass and Silver Dollar. These planes were in the air 24 hours a day. Looking Glass was code name for the B-52 that flew over SAC Headquarters in Omaha Nebraska and in the event that our command structure was wiped out in Washington it would be able to respond to a nuclear attack. Silver Dollar was the code name for the plane that flew over Washington D.C.

 I learned that America had a TRIAD offensive nuclear system and the Soviet Union also had a TRIAD system. This simply meant that both countries had three ways of attacking each other. Land based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or ICBM's. Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles or SLBM's. Finally, American B-52 and Russian Bear bombers. NORAD was a joint US and Canadian operation. The DEW Line, (Distant Early Warning Line) was a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic region of Canada. There were additional stations along the North Coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska. It also extended to the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. If the Soviets attacked from the Eurasian land mass with ICBM's we would have about a thirty minute warning and we would have an even longer warning time if it were a bomber attack. If the attack was by SLBM's we would only have about 15 minutes if we even had that. Their nuclear subs were always sitting off of our coasts, including the Gulf of Mexico, and our radar detection capability was less sophisticated along the east and west coasts. It was even worse from the direction of the Gulf. There was a chance that we would receive no notification at all if the attack came from the direction of our coasts.

 In 1970 the Soviets were attempting to implement FOBS or Fractional Orbital Bombardment System which was a platform from which they could launch nuclear weapons from a low orbit in space. This system was implemented but it never really got off of the ground. Eventually the U.S. and Russia would ban nuclear weapons in space by treaty. The really terrifying thing about the TRIAD system was that we had no way to defend against a nuclear attack. We had no defense against an ICBM or SLBM attack. There was some defense against a bomber attack but although we could destroy two thirds of their bombers, the remaining third was still enough to destroy our cities and military installations. Nothing but the Grace of God, and our nuclear policy of MAD, or Mutual Assured Destruction, kept us from destroying each other during the Cold War. If an attack was detected NORAD would relay that information to the White House and the White House would contact SAC headquarters at Offutt AFB in Omaha in order to launch a retaliatory attack upon the Soviet Union.

 In 1971 the United States had MIRV and MARV technology. MIRV stood for Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle. A MIRV could fire multiple warheads from one missile. This was money saving technology and allowed us to keep up with the Russians for years. They had more single warhead missiles than we did but our MIRV technology gave us parity with the Russians. As I understood the difference between MIRV and MARV was that once a MIRV warhead was targeted, it's destination could not be changed in flight. A MARV, on the other hand, could be redirected in flight.

 One night while I was escorting a public tour through the complex we were listening to a briefing in Command Post. The briefing officer suddenly stopped talking and asked me to take the tour just outside of Command Post and wait there. We milled around about twenty minutes until an officer walked out and told us to come back in. At that time Command Post was a large open space with three levels where officers and airmen sat at computers. On one side of the room was a large screen that reminded me of movie screen in a theater and there was an electronic image of the north American continent on the screen. The officer that had been conducting the briefing told us that the reason we were asked to leave was because of a situation that had suddenly developed over North American airspace. He then put up on the screen a computer image of what had just occurred. On the screen there were multiple tracks representing Russian Bear bombers flying from all directions over the north American continent. As they were intercepted by our fighters they began turning around in order to return to Russian airspace. The officer told us that we were seeing a game of cat and mouse that was routinely played between the Soviet Union and the United States. These situations were always treated as real until the bombers left our airspace and they were designed to test our alertness and response time.

 Just outside the entrance of Command Post was a very small office that was always occupied by one man. He had a window in front of him with a view of Command Post but I could never see his face because he always had his back to me. This was our Civil Defense office. He was the guy that sent out the daily civil defense warnings that you always hear on TV and radio. It would say, this is a test of the emergency broadcasting system and this is only a test. On Saturday February 20, 1971, at 10:33 AM, teletypes in every single radio and TV station across the country were notified by this office that we were at war. The war warning had been sent out by mistake. Many of the radio and TV stations simply ignored the message. The reality of nuclear war was just too much to comprehend I guess. The fact that this message had exposed weaknesses in the system made the US government question the status of the Civil Defense warning system.

 Another interesting place at NORAD was the Space Defense Command center. They kept up with all of the space junk flying around in low orbit and any other threat that might come from outer space. Because of the law of gravity all debris that is in orbit will eventually fall back to earth. Most of it disintegrates but occasionally large pieces get through and these pieces are capable of killing and injuring humans. Most of the larger pieces fall into the ocean or isolated areas of the world. Some of these pieces are very large and Space Defense Center tries to warn areas that might be in harms way. They also look out for any meteorites that might be on a collision path with Earth.