Quoted from RCA1:Growing up, we were 15 miles from what was rumored to be the third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the US.
KI Sawyer air base in Michigan's Upper Peninsula was not that far from the Soviet Union if you fly straight over the North Pole.
They had B-52's and fighters that we would see flying over once in a while.
A B-52 flying low for practice is pretty impressive.
We always figured that if things went bad, we would just be vaporized and wouldn't even know what happened.[quoted image][quoted image]
Quoted from DCP:I grew up less than a mile from Nike missile site C-93. It was active until I was a junior in high school, 1974. We would occasionally see the missiles as we drove by on the highway when they had them lifted up out of their bunkers.
It's crazy that they actually had nuclear warheads, ready to launch, stored right next to suburban neighborhoods.
This did have a big effect on the worldview of many of us who grew up in those days.
You are talking M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction. The guarantee was if you launch your missiles then we will launch ours and we all die. It was insane foreign policy.
I saw one of those old cartoon type educational movies put out by the Dept. of Defense ( I wish I could find it on you tube). The U.S maintained 3 Air Force bases along our northern border. I think Minot North Dakota was one base. The other was in Washington state. And the 3rd might have been your base in Michigan, but not sure.
Anyway, all 3 bases had 3 B-52s in the air at all times. They flew in a counter clockwise circle over Canada and to the edge of the Soviet Union from over the North Pole. Within this 3-base 9-plane rotation, there was always one B-52 in position to launch its nuclear missiles at a moments notice.
As soon as Michigan's ( I'll say MI) B-52 rolled out of the Soviet orbit, a North Dakota B-52 would roll into position. As soon as the 2nd B-52 rolled out, the B-52 from Washington state rolled into position.
It has been several years since I saw this military "cartoon", but I believe this is what the U.S practiced for years. Always 9 B-52s in the air. Just the amount of jet fuel consumed for this Cold War action boggles one's mind.
There were missile silos all around Wichita's surrounding areas. The reason was to protect McConnell AFB which was a Strategic Air Command (SAC) base.
Here are just a few. Everybody loved Uncle Sugar keeping them in jobs building enough weaponry to blow us all up.
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