CHAPTER 3 - I WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE

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.

There were 11 steel buildings that made up the NORAD complex and each building had 3 stories. While I was there construction was started on additional buildings and it is my understanding that there are now fifteen. Each of these buildings sat on huge steel springs that acted as shock absorbers in the event of an earthquake or a nearby nuclear blast. I was told that a direct hit would destroy the complex, but in 1971 the Soviets did not yet have the technology for pinpoint accuracy in their missiles and a direct hit would have been sheer luck. Inside the NORAD complex was the Command Post, a surgical suite, billets, a Base Exchange, a barber shop, a physical training room, a very nice dining facility and numerous offices. There was a huge room full of computers that was managed by Mountain Bell telephone company. We also had an underground water reservoir.

Not only were civilians working at NORAD but the Canadian military along with every branch of the U.S. military. There was a slew of high ranking brass always on duty at NORAD and for this reason you always had to be on your best behavior. There was at least one brigadier general or full bird colonel on site twenty four hours a day. Whenever I wasn't giving tours I was managing the men inside the complex, giving them post breaks, or conducting training. I would run simulated problems in order to keep my SAT ready for post checks and actual real world situations. For this reason we usually performed well when we were tested by the Flight Chief. We had no fire department but Ft. Carson army base was near the complex and their fire department would respond if we had a fire. Because of the distance and the our special circumstances we were trained in fire fighting so as to be able to fight a fire until the real firefighters arrived.

 Although I got along well with my men I did have a couple of troublemakers.. One man in particular was a large barrel chested guy with a Polish last name. For the short time that I was an E-4, and he was an E-4, we got along well with each other. After I was promoted to E-5, however; his whole attitude changed. I believe that he was resentful toward me because of my promotion because I can't think of any other reason his attitude would have changed toward me. Every time I passed him he would bump into me or say something sarcastic. This went on for a while until I realized that I was going to have to put a stop to it because it was happening too much in front of the men. One day as I was leaving CSC he bumped into me pretty hard as we passed each other in the doorway. With an evil grin on his face he said, "Segroves, one of these days I am going to sniper your ass". I calmly unbuckled my gun belt and laid it on a nearby chair. I said, "Okay, you take off your weapon and we will settle this thing right here". He glared at me for a long moment but finally with a sheepish grin he told me that he was just kidding. Better yet this all happened in front of several of the men and I never had another problem with him after that.

There was a friend of mine that was notoriously unsafe with his weapon. One day I was relieving him for a break on the inside blast door when without warning he drew his pistol and stuck it in my stomach. He began laughing hysterically but to me there was nothing funny about it. I was both frightened and angry at the same time and I warned him that he better not do that again. On another occasion I walked into CSC and he was holding his pistol to the head of a WAF, or what we called women in the Air Force at the time. He was joking around and again I gave him a warning. The last straw came when I was unloading my pistol at the clearing barrel and I heard a noise behind me. He was unloading his revolver while pointing it at my back. This time I threatened to write him up if I caught him doing anything unsafe in the future. In retrospect I have always regretted my handling of these situations. My friendship with him interfered with my judgement. I have always been an advocate of gun safety and his irresponsible behavior was something that I hate. If I had it to do over I would have written him up after the first incident. He could have possibly gotten an Article 15 or a court martial but maybe it would have jolted him into changing his behavior. At the very least he should have been forced out of the Security Police career field. He was not responsible enough to carry a weapon and he was the type of person that gives the rest of us a bad name. This guy was definitely different because he was 21 and married a 42 year old woman just before I was discharged.

At Christmas and New Year we combined the Flights in such a way that two Flights would be off the week of Christmas and two Flights the week of New Year. I was off the week of Christmas because I was married and had a family. The single guys were off the week of New Years. This meant that my Flight had to work from 0700 to 1900. This was weird because I went into the mountain before sunrise and got off after sunset. I did not see the sun for a week. On rare occasions I worked posts outside of the mountain. There was the Flight Chief and Assistant Flight Chief along with the cops that worked the turnstiles handing out line badges and there was an entry control post leading into the complex parking lot. Then there was the mobile SAT team that patrolled by vehicle all up and down the mountain. I was patrolling the access road on SAT one midnight shift when we rounded a curve and were just in time to see our Assistant Flight Chief drop a dear standing on the side of the road. He did it with one well placed shot to the head from a .22 caliber rifle. If the Sgt. had been seen by the wrong person I am sure that he would have gone to jail. I wasn't going to say anything but all witnesses enjoyed a hefty portion of venison in reward for our silence. There was plenty of wildlife around NORAD and the deer in Colorado were huge. At that time in Tennessee you never saw deer like you see now running wild. These deer were bigger than our deer and it was nothing to see a huge buck standing on the side of the road. Many times at night I would hear a mountain lion and they sounded like a woman screaming.