Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2019
Two missile maintenance officers were caught drinking at a Minuteman III missile Launch Control Center (LCC) May 14, adding to a string of drug use scandals at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base. Security forces from the 90th Missile Maintenance Squadron at the Wyoming Air Base evidently found a Staff Sergeant and a Senior Airman boozing in an exercise room while “resting overnight” at the LCC. One officer reportedly confessed to the partying in the above-ground section of the land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch site. The giant Minuteman III rockets have a range of at least 6,300 miles. Joseph Coslett, a spokesman for the 90th Missile Wing, said in an email that the officers “were not in contact [with], nor had any access to, weapons or classified material” at the time. However, Air Force Global Strike Command (its real name) regulations, which govern the ICBM crews, prohibit “consuming alcoholic beverages … within the confines of any missile alert facility … [or] while en route to or from duty in the missile complex,” Coslett said. ICBM crews at Warren Air Base have a repeat offender record of illegal drug abuse. In May 2018, a ring of 14 airmen was busted for doing and distributing LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana.
—Daily Mail, and AP, May 27; airforcetimes.com, and TheDrive online, May 24, 2019
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