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Stories such as?

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Geez, it's hard to even pick one - LOL. I was an enlisted guy in Minuteman ICBMs in my AF career. The 'fancy' name for my job was 'Missile Systems Analysis Specialist', but in not so grandiose terms, I an elector-mechanical team (EMT) specialist. In that job we did a little bit of everything, mostly somehow related to electronics, computers, command and control type stuff. But we were also the go to guys for about anything missiles, when the proper mechanical or refrigeration team, etc, wasn't available. I did ten years in the AF before I was lured away for more money and promise with a government contractor, Autonetics, who did ICBM guidance systems and was a division of Rockwell International. Eventually we were bought out by our arch enemy, Boeing ... and then I became the enemy - LOL.

Anyway, I digress. I spent the majority of my career at Vandenberg AFB, CA ... my wife was also in the AF (on and off) she got out when we had our first daughter, then went back in. She was in a job similar to my own, but worked on repairing electronic equipment in a shop. At Vandenberg, I was part of the Minuteman test launch program in one way or another for most of my career. Then suddenly they needed experienced, higher ranking techs at Grand Forks, so lucky me, I got picked. With an AF wife, and five year old and newborn daughters, we packed up and moved the ND. There, instead of playing like I was part of a NASA launch program type thing, I got to play being a real world EMT guy, and it was a lotta fun ... I always enjoyed the hell outta all my various jobs.

In the real ICBM world, guys like me get in trucks as part of a two man (now they have women, too), drive for hours with a truckload of tools and troubleshooting equipment out to an ICBM site to repair a faulty missile site. One day you may be with others like yourself manhandling a generator the size of a VW outta the underground missile silo, the next it's just you and your teammate (along with a guard with an M-16), spending ten hours trying to troubleshoot why this computer isn't talking to that guidance system, or whatever. The missile sites are literally spread out across half of ND, and rain, shine, or thirty below in a blizzard, you drive to that site and fix it.

So stories abound ... great times were had by all ... God I miss those days - LOL. It wasn't always easy, but the memories are priceless.

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Sounds like an interesting job, also a good lesson hard times can make for good memories.

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Hard times probably make for the best memories. You won't think so when you're going through them, of course, but in the end, you win!

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Man, you ought to tell some stories in a minicast.

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I'm not into talking much, don't even own a cell phone - LOL. I prefer writing ... since I ended up as a technical writer before I retired, I'm more into that, I guess.