Notes from Underground: A Cold War Missileer Goes Home
()
About this ebook
The author, a missile launch control officer in the waning years of the Cold War, returns to his old Air Force unit in North Dakota. His goal is to learn firsthand how today's missileers are faring in the gray environment of the post-Cold War era. Have they managed to maintain a sense of mission, and if so, upon what is it founded? Do they harbor any bitterness toward military or political leaders, feeling like forgotten pawns on an anachronistic chess board?
Paul Kijinski
Paul Kijinski is the author of the novel CAMP LIMESTONE, a winner of the 2007 Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers, and other works of middle grade fiction. THE 11:15 BENCH is his first novel for adult readers. Kijinski was born in Garfield Heights, Ohio, and earned degrees from Oberlin College, The Ohio State University, and John Carroll University. He began writing seriously while serving as a missile officer in the U.S. Air Force. The solitude of underground launch control centers provided a uniquely rich environment for putting pen to paper. His final assignment in the military was teaching English at the Air Force Academy. Kijinski is currently an elementary school teacher in South Euclid, Ohio. He and his wife, Eileen, have two adult sons. Follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paul-Kijinski/543152702417355
Related to Notes from Underground
Related ebooks
Soft Spots: A Marine's Memoir of Combat and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taming the Taildragger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeneral Leemy’s Circus: A Navigator’s Story Of The Twentieth Air Force In World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPilots of Valor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSurly Bonds: Hard Broke, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorn in Brooklyn... . Raised in the Cav! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPunk's War: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“Purple Heart Valley”: A Combat Chronicle Of The War In Italy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBattle Hymn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDanger Close: My Epic Journey as a Combat Helicopter Pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fight for Triton Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAeroplane Poems 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRazor 03: A Night Stalker’s Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collision Over Vietnam: A Fighter Pilot's Story of Surviving the ARC Light One Tragedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If You Fly... Don't Crash! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFighting the Flying Circus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwenty Days in the Reich: Three Downed RAF Aircrew on the Run in Germany, 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Am Krait Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Cat Weekly #104 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath of a Gemini: And Other Military Mysteries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMickey 6 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Exit Wounds: A Novel of the Iraq War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoft Targets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBattleTech: Shrapnel, Issue #4: BattleTech Magazine, #4 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cream: Retrospections of an Aviation Cadet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBattleworn: The Memoir of a Combat Medic in Afghanistan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrowing up in the Land of Tattooed Men: Another Vietnam War Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAs Good As It Gets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer - The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Notes from Underground
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Notes from Underground - Paul Kijinski
Introduction
I originally wrote this article in 1995 while on assignment for Harper’s Magazine. Paul Tough, a contributing editor at Harper’s at the time, took a chance on an unknown writer and sent me to my old Air Force unit to investigate how missile launch control officers were dealing with their nuclear responsibilities in the post-Cold War era. However, Lewis Lapham, the legendary editor at Harper’s, wasn’t convinced that the young officers depicted in my piece were psychologically interesting enough,
and so he killed it. I received a check for $750 that literally had Kill
written on the memo line!
After recently dusting off this article and rereading it, I’ve decided that those officers—who, in 2013, would be in their mid-forties and likely not on active duty anymore—still deserve an audience for their service. I see Capt Fewster and Lt Barker as wonderful ambassadors for the generations of missileers who have quietly protected—and continue to protect—our nation while performing alert duty in subterranean launch control centers.
To Mr. Lapham I now reply, I respectfully disagree with your assessment.
To you, reader, I say, Please judge for yourself.
Notes from Underground
The whole squadron is going to hell in a handbasket!
my crew partner yelled while throwing open the heavy vinyl curtain to the sleeping compartment where I had been enwombed for all of two hours. As I bolted to a sitting position, I glanced down at my digital watch, which I wore continuously while on alert duty—5:00 a.m. From the other side of the launch control center, I could hear the steady beep of the Status Change alarm and the incessant droning of the system printer, which was chunking out a series of numerical printouts that would indicate the welfare of the launch facilities where our missiles were housed. Shit,
I muttered and rose to my feet, wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt. Sorry,
my crew partner said pitifully while