In December 1985, I awoke in West Germany, detailed out as a custodial agent for a NATO nuclear site. My job was to provide access control and defense to ten nuclear missiles. And not the sexy new nukes of the dazzling 1980s -- these were Nike Hercules missiles, aka the weapons people in the '60s thought would bring about their gloriously retro apocalypse.
United States Army
Y'know what modern nightmare weapons lack? Sweet-ass fins.
I was a little blindsided by my change of fate. If they'd asked my friends or family "Hey, do you think this guy should guard nuclear missiles?" not one of them would've said that was a good idea. Hell, if they'd asked me, I would've told them it was a worse idea than storing beer in the freezer. The Army had faith, though. Sweet, misplaced faith.
I guess I somehow proved that I could blow things up better than my peers, so I was appointed the Emergency Destruction NCO. In the event that our site needed to be evacuated, I was responsible for destroying the ten nuclear warheads. My job was to make sure my guys got out all of their shaped charges, strapped them to the missiles, ran detonation cords across everything else useful, and then set a time fuse. Detonating missiles like that doesn't lead to a nuclear yield -- the actual mushroom cloud explosion needs to be specially triggered.
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