14 weeks, September 1969 – December, 1969

Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls, Texas

My next stop in my Air Force tour of duty was at Wichita Falls Texas, a small town in northern Texas near the border of Oklahoma. I drove here from my leave in Green Bay with my wife. This school was an intensive eight hour a day class on the inner workings of a Titan missile silo. We needed to understand every detail and every machine involved in managing and maintaining an underground missile site. I have always been impressed with how effective the Air Force training schools were at that time.

Because it was war time, I believe married officers were sent to missile bases and single officers overseas to Thailand or the Philippines. Socially, we got to know the other couples well while training there. Most of us were going to end up in Wichita. It was a fun time as we spent many evening together after class. We had a small upstairs apartment that the landlord rented to trainees like us. This is where my daughter Jennifer was conceived.

Below are some pictures to show what a Titan underground missile system was like back then. They were decommissioned in 1987, many years after their planned lifespan. There is a Titan Museum in Green Valley, Arizona, south of Tucson, that offers public tours. On a visit there many years ago, I got a special in depth tour because of my history as a launch officer. I was surprised to find out that a few years after I left, missile crews became coed.

Tap on any picture below to see it in more detail.

Multiple pictures of a typical missile silo. Each site was designed to withstand almost a direct impact and still function. Three Air Force bases in the United States had 18 sites each. Each site was at least twenty miles from the closest next site. From above ground, if not for all of the electronic antennas, you would probably have driven right by without know it was there.

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