I just watched that recently. Thought it was pretty good.
As I said even tho I was stationed at LRAFB at the time I wasn't assigned to SAC, in fact I was assigned to MAC which protected the flight line and did LE duties on the base. I specifically remember Mondale flying in on AF1 and being assigned to some path in the middle of nowhere. I never even saw the VP and never saw a Titan complex my entire time there.
We knew something was happening at a missile sight and we found out when it blew and a guy died. SAC put a lid on the entire thing and SAC was able to do that back then. I remember being told there was no chance the warhead could have gone off, which was BS but I was like 21yo at the time. Had it blown we probably would have died because we were only about 40 miles from it. They have a Titan ll preset here
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ just type in "Damascus AR." into the search engine.
And thats my memory of it. We just didnt mix with the SAC people. Shortly after I went TDY for a year convoying the old Tactical weapons from Europe around the South West because they were going to be replaced by Pershing-ll's and GLCMs. When you around that stuff so much you just dont think twice about it.
I dont blame those guys for being bitter but around special weapons the "two man rule" is like something Moses came down from the mountain with. Not only with the weapon but also anything involved with delivering it. "One" person couldnt even go into a KC-135 that was on alert and tasked with refueling SAC B-52s. It always has to be two authorized people of equal skill and knowledge and they can never be outside of each others line of sight. Had he just taken that other missile guy down with him he never would have gotten jammed up. Had the other guy just went outside the complex and got the authorized tool not only would the accident probably never had happened but he wouldn't have lost a stripe over it as well. In the end thats what almost caused a 9 MT explosion. A tired young airman who didnt want to take an extra 20 mins to go get the authorized tool.
I guess they call SAC Global Strike Command now. Anyway thats what my kid tells me. Its a different era now.
