The Night a Nuclear Missile Exploded: A Firsthand Account of Survival (411)

32:40So I'm 21 at the time. I'm sliding faster and faster. And my left eye cracked, just cracked open slightly. I didn't open it. And when I went, what I saw out of there looked like lava and glowing steel and concrete going past me at a thousand miles an hour. And I went, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. And I was sliding by. My face wound up really badly burned. It was second degree burns. That's kind of saved me. But the only reason it wasn't third degree burns is because remember I had my hands on the gate. So when it blew me backwards, my arms were like elbows were bent in and my hands were close to my face.

33:26And I had no control over them. They're bouncing around left, right, left, right in front of my face. But I truly believe they kept a lot of the flames went up over my hands and my hair. And then I still want to burn badly burned in the face But most of my hands took the brunt of it Which you know in the end If you look at me now you can't tell I've had any Had a skin graft on my left hand but The skin looked good but so picture sliding You're sliding and burning I'm going to tell you a story and I don't know if you believe in guardian angels But you this is you just Think this out So I'm sliding so fast up the concrete And I really feel like any second I'm going to pile drive into something But I was on the asphalt road and there was nothing behind me.

34:08There was no trees. There was no concrete back there yet. So I'm sliding and sliding and sliding and sliding. And I slide 60 feet and come to a dead stop in. I had all the wind knocked out of me. I'm burned badly. I'm stunned. I'm in a daze. I mean, I'm really messed up. And two inches from my ear, I hear a woman. There were no women out there that night. hear a woman scream bloody murder, a long-winded scream to run, like, like she's in fear for my life, and then a second one, oh my god, as I'm telling you the story, gives me goosebumps to tell you the story, so it's like, oh my gosh, lady, I said, who's laying next to me, so I roll to look, and I look, it's three o 'clock in the morning, it's dark, and there's nobody there.

34:59That scared me worse than the missile explosion. I was like, oh my God, who's screaming at me? I jump up, I take off running and I get five steps, 15 feet and a chunk of concrete bigger than a school bus hits the ground behind me. It's eight foot tall. It's about 25 feet long. It's, you know, eight foot wide and it has 20 foot strands of rebar hanging out of it. Now, as it hits the ground behind me, I'm not turning around. It feels like an earthquake, and it feels like, and I'm running forward, it feels like I'm going to fall backwards into a hole. I was like, oh, my God, Greg, keep running, keep running, keep running.

35:39Well, the next step I took, my right leg went down, my left leg comes up in stride, and it felt like a Major League Baseball player took a home run swing and shattered my ankle and severs my Achilles tendon with a baseball bat. Now what it was was a two inch thick 25 foot strand of steel rebar that's hanging out of the concrete This shat slammed into my ankle Now I didn't care I couldn't feel my foot but then I said I'm still running The next time I put my left foot down it buckled and then I slammed on the ground I felt no pain there all that time there was zero pain to me I think because I was in shock and in trauma but you know so now this thing shatters my ankle i can't go anywhere i i'm down i'm laying on the ground and i have my hands over top my heads i'm kind of in a fetal position you know covering up like it would make any difference if you saw the the debris field from the concrete the small chunks of concrete were as big as your coffee table they they were everywhere the big ones were as big as cars and trucks and bigger i mean i had photos of them and they were landing around me and you're hearing this boom boom and i'm going oh my god man you know nothing's hitting me right so then then after the big pieces hit the ground then the coffee table size and then smaller rocks you know the handheld size a grapefruit size hitting the ground and then gravel and then sand And in my entire, I'm 65, in my entire life, for three seconds, maybe five, three seconds, everything was perfectly silent.

37:19There was no birds chirping. There were no people talking. There were nobody screaming. It was pure silence. And then five or 10 seconds later, I started hearing guys screaming, oh, God, help me, help me, you know, around me. and i'm laying there so i i the story goes a little bit farther here but i if you want to stop me anywhere in the middle i want to tell you a neat story about uh i guess i call him one of my heroes he was a uh lieutenant colonel that was just just just keep going i don't want to stop your flow in this greg i'm on the edge of my seat okay so so you know i see everything slamming the ground.

37:59So after it finally, the dust settled, I rolled to my, I was kind of on my stomach on the right side and I rolled over to the left and I looked and I see what, and I think I've sent you the photo, but I see a, the front edge of what looks like comes to a point, a black shadow, a massive black shadow laying next to me. What happened to be the concrete and that concrete is the abutment. So the silo door, which weighs 743 to anywhere from 758 tons, those estimates I've heard, blew 400 feet high and 600 feet off the complex away from us. Thank God. But the abutment, so where the silo door closes up against that wedge-shaped concrete abutment, that came toward us.

38:47And that's what had landed and hit the ground next to me. But when I rolled and looked, because there was a moon out, I could see a black shadow that came to a point laying next to me. And I thought, oh my God, I'm laying right next to the Titan missile of freaking more heads. It looked like a point that turned out to be concrete, but you know, it was like, oh my gosh, right? So I'm not sure the timeframe, but it had to be very shortly after all this. I see a Colonel, Colonel Jimmy Morris. He's running by me fast. And honestly, where he's going is to the end of the road, which is about an eighth of a mile out where you come to the road, where you get off the highway to come down to the silo.

39:29He's running in that direction. And he actually runs past me and then he sees me. So he turns around and scoops me up like a baby, man. He's got me like, you know, one arm under my legs, one arm behind my back, and he's running with me. Now, at the time I weighed 155 to 160 pounds and he was probably 160 pounds, right? So he's running with me and he's now, remember, I told you there are chunks of concrete as big as trucks and cars and coffee tables. It's dark. He's running into them as he's carrying me. He must've carried me 50 yards. Bam, bam, bam, bam. And the whole time he's running, I'm looking at his face and he is pouring blood.

40:11There's blood streaming down his face from like forehead down. So, and he's running with me and he gets finally to a point. And it's the only time in my whole life I've ever seen adrenaline work in a person. It's the only time I've ever seen adrenaline because he, what he was doing was superhuman that day. But anyway, he's running with me, running 50 yards. I couldn't, you know, if you and I said, we're going to grab somebody that weighs our weight and run 50 or 60 yards with them, that's, that's pretty tough deal. You know, he's, he's probably in his forties at a minimum. And, um, so it may be later, but he's running with me.

40:44And finally he gets, he's finally totally exhausted. He says, Devlin, I got to put you down, man. He said, if I don't get to the end of the road, they will leave us. And here's the reality. They all left except, except for the PTS guys. They were ordered to leave. And Jim Sandacre is one of them. He's in the film command and control. He's a blonde haired kid talking to a black police officer right there. And they're telling him, you know, go back to base. He said, I'm not leaving without my friends, man. I'm not. So, you know, our guys started getting trucks, ton and haps and pickup trucks and trying to bring them back to get us.

41:23But, but anyway, so you wind up getting those guys and, and they, they eventually got me in and they put me on the back of a flatbed truck and with 55 gallon drums of Freon and stuff that up there. and they said, take him to the hospital, Conway's Hospital. It's about 22 miles away, I think. They said, take him to the hospital. And I said, no, no, don't go anywhere. Get all the guys, get the rest of the guys that are here, get Livingston Kennedy, you know, get everybody before we leave. They said, Devlin, you're so bad, man. We got to get you to the hospital quick. We're not leaving them. We're going to get those guys too.

41:59So then I was like, you know, okay, that's fine you know if you're gonna send me like that so so buddy Boylan Pat Boylan was fairly new maybe even in the service a year at the time he was only guy trained with that hydraulic pump he's real close friend of mine he jumps up on the back of the truck and they start taking off for the hospital well because of the news media the news media are trying to get video and they're trying they're driving side by side with the truck and around the corners and stuff and you know and the trucks turned out, we're in the news media and, and you know, our truck driver's like, you know, get away.

42:32And then they're telling our driver, slow down. Somebody's going to kill us in the back here. But so picture this, my, I felt like I was on fire. And here's the thing about the fuel hydrazine. If hydrazine gets on your skin, it mixes with the moisture in your skin and becomes acid and it keeps eating until it ends, you know, till you, till you neutralize it, which takes water. So I realized I was burned from the fire, but my, that wasn't my fear. Like I'm going to be in burn pain. That's this way it goes. But my fear was, I was like, oh my God, I got hydrazine on me. Massive amounts, 14 ,000 gallons in that tank, six or 7 ,000 in the other tank.

43:12In today's world with UDMH, unsymmetrical diamethylhydrazine, if you happen to be at the Kennedy Space Center and you get a whiff. If you just get a whiff of it, they send you to the medical center. I tell people, all of us that were out that night inhaled more hydrazine than anybody on earth because that's what burned up. That's what propelled us in the direction we were going. So anyway, they raced me to the hospital and finally get me there. And a lot of the newspaper clippings were a picture of me coming off the back of that truck. It was kind of national news because there was a camera crew from, I think, Channel 4 News that was there.

43:53And it had a great, you can tell the cameras of the old days were great big body cameras, you know, bigger than pumpkins, you know. So they got this big bright camera in my face, man. I'm in agony. I'm, you know, hyperventilating. And they bring me to the hospital. But that photo, when they took a still shot off of that and then put that in the national news, you know, missile explosion kills one, injures 21 people, that kind of scenario there. But that's how I wound up at the hospital By the way, I'll tell you Rex Huckel, my partner's story So he's sitting on the back of the truck Halfway suited up When the explosion happened It blew Rex off of the back of the truck And you know, obviously Oh my god, he's scared He's like, where's my only cover?

44:34So Rex dove back up into the back of the pickup bed He figured that was better than just being out in the open there Dives back up in there Shatters his left kneecap as he's doing that And then he's taking cover in the truck Well, that same pickup truck they found a chunk of concrete that you know was blown so high when it came back down it came right through the hood of the truck right into the carburetor you know so if you get hit with that concrete if rex is in the back and gets hit with it you're a dead man you know hit you in the head or whatever but so so yeah i kind of slow down so you can get in here that's that's that's my story of at least going through the explosion itself you know wow that's that's an incredible incredible account, Greg.

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47:08off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Croc store today. So they literally were left behind at first. So that they were, because they thought they were dead, they said there's no way someone could have survived that. Well, Kennedy was blown up against about 75 feet away. Kennedy was six foot four, 250 pounds, great big boisterous guy and a good guy a family man but he was blown backwards up against the fence and he was probably the most experienced guy that was out there that day but he had a broken leg and even jim sandacre said when because he was suited up and he said he had a hole as big as your fist you could put a fist through his leg that's how big the hole was and concrete concrete had creamed creamed jeff Kennedy.

48:00He had a full helmet on at the time of the explosion. One rock went, a thousand rocks hit the side of him, but one of them went through the fiberglass shell right through his chin and came out the other side like a bullet, like a 22 bullet right through him. But the whole right side of Jeff was, they took, you know, those great big pickle jars or probably five gallon jars or whatever pickles. He had one of those that was about two thirds full of the concrete that they pulled out of the side of him, his legs, his butt, his sides, his arms, his, you know, everything. Livingston was blown. Livingston was five foot seven, 150 pounds.

48:39He was blown a lot farther. And Livingston, I have photos of his helmet, but Livingston's nose was blown off of his face. It was laying over to the side, had all kinds of concrete in him too. But what, what eventually killed Dave Livingston was one of the chunks of concrete went right through the front of the suit. and it went into his stomach like he ate it for lunch. That's where they found the concrete. And when you puncture that and then you blow all those fuels inside of you, get up in your lungs and stuff, basically he drowned. Your body, it's like pneumonia because the fuels cause that in your lungs.

49:18They fill up with fluid. And so in the end, that's what got Dave. But it was horrible, man. I mean, I couldn't go to his funeral. I was in the hospital. And when they, I, I, I was, I was honestly out. It was probably an induced coma, but I was out for about three days and they had transferred me from Conway's hospital to St. Vincent's infirmary in downtown Little Rock. And they are better burn center down there. And thank God they sent me there. They had a brand new process back then, brand new back in 1980. And they would come in with a Brillo pad and they would scrub the dead skin. and you can imagine the pain from a brillo pad scrubbing dead skin off your face, neck, back, and both hands.

49:57Extremely painful. But if you get the dead skin out of the way, new skin grows back and you don't have any scar tissue. So now I'm very thankful. They had me on morphine and the first day they were doing it, I'm looking at them like, man, I can't believe that doesn't hurt. Well, by two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 days down the road, by then they're not giving you any more morphine, same amount. Your body builds a tolerance against it and so you're in a lot more pain but so anyway yeah so that was uh livingston kennedy um they eventually kennedy drug himself across the compound um actually got to a pickup truck got on the radio and the battery went dead he tried to make a call he said help help can anybody hear me so he got that much out there so jim sandacre is one of the guys that went for him tech sergeant green so there's a crew of guys that actually went back for livingston and kennedy to get those guys so wow um well wow is an understatement incredible incredible story so how how long are you in hospital for 10 days that was it and most of us for the skin graft that skin graft on my left hand and then because they said well you got shattered ankle and severed achilles tendon you you'll recover from that and uh you know burns burns will deal with the burn stuff but you can do that at home.

51:18Now, I will tell you this. The whole time I was in the Air Force, the Air Force doctors were trying to get me back to the Air Force base hospital. And I pleaded, I begged my doctors there. I said, please do not let them get me back. I said, they have no clue what they're doing on burns, man. You know, this was a new technology they were doing on me at the time. If I wound up back at the base, there's a product called Silvadene and it's 99 % water, but it's like a cream and helps heal, helps your hands and whatever your burn heal. It's, it feels great going on and all that. So that's, that's fantastic.

51:52But if that's the only thing they have and they put silvadene all over your burn scars and they don't get the dead skin out of the way, you can imagine what my face would look like today. So I was like, please. And the doctor said, you don't leave here until I release you. I don't care what the air force says. So I begged for them. They can't help me that long. And, um, you know, uh, then I got out now I was on, you know, I was on light duty, honestly, till, till I got out of service in, you know, that event happened is the first shift guy and a rookie that had it happen to him. But after it did the way the air force treated us, our shop was like, like we were the, you know, plague of the world.

52:32Like, I'm just telling you, it was a horrible vibe after that. And they really, really were just like, you guys ruined our standing in the world. You know what I mean? It was kind of that. They didn't physically say that to us, but it was a bad atmosphere. And then, so from then on, if they were going to do a fueling operation or anything, the commanders of the silo actually had to get certified for the rep co certified. They would go down and watch every single job that the guys did. So they had me in temporary light duty. They put me in a little 10 foot by 10 foot room is inside the hangar. Really, it was used mostly for all the service guys or girls, mostly guys.

53:15They got in trouble for DUIs, you know, drunk driving or whatever, spousal abuse or whatever. If anything you were doing bad, they put you there. So they put me in that group. And by the way, the people that were there, these guys were good guys and they were good guys. But I was in that cubby hole for four months. And, you know, light duty, cast on my leg and, you know, the skin graft, this glove I had to wear and stuff. And I went to my first sergeant and said, hey, is there any chance they could give me any other job? You know, anything. Dorm guard monitor, I don't care. Anything else like duty, just get me out of this 10 by 10 walls I feel like I'm going crazy in.

53:57So I went to my commander. And like I say, they weren't happy with the whole shop. And the first sergeant comes back to me and says, no, Devlin, you're going to be there until you get out of service. because at the time I had four months left on my four-year enlistment. I said, man, it really pissed me off. I was like, what if I re-enlist? You're going to keep me in this cubbyhole for four more years? Like, what are you saying? You know, I'm never going to get out of this place. So I was really mad that day. They tell me that, right? So by the way, four of us, Livingston posthumously, his family was suing, Kennedy, Huckel, and myself had a lawsuit against Mark Marietta, the people that built the silo saying that, hey, there's no way an eight pound socket should ever be able to get past the platform, you know, puncture a tank and wipe out an entire missile program.

54:46So that day that we were, which was scheduled a week earlier that day, my, I get there and Rex and I are together and my attorney says, Hey Greg, channel four news, Bill Forbes, they want to know if you guys will just do an interview that's, you know, tells how the air force is treating you. And remember I'm pissed off. I'm leaving work that day going, you're to keep me in his cubbyhole forever. So I said, oh yeah, I'll tell him, I'll tell him how I'm feeling. And you know, if you think of timing of events, picture that, picture the first sergeant doesn't tell me that day, picture he waits one day.

55:18And I don't even, I'm not mad. Well, my interview, I'm sure would have been a little different, but anyway, I go in that and they, so now imagine we're in uniform. We just came from work. You can't be wearing an Air Force uniform and give an on air interview to anybody. You represent the Air Force. So I told us, the attorney i don't have any other clothes is what i'm wearing he said no just pull your shirt your shirt off fatigues and we'll give you a suit jacket and um you can do the interview there so you're not representing the air force you're just representing yourself you're off duty you're on your own time so rex and i agree to this and so we're giving bill forbes this interview and part of it's on the in the movie there but that you know how how they treat me i said man i don't know if i'm being railroaded out of here what you know honestly they're treating us like crap oh ian oh my god you can imagine when i got back to work the next day now i found out which honestly they probably told me this when i was in basic training but in basic training you know you sign all the forms are coming in this is the all the rules of the air force and one of them in that book trust me says you can't give an interview ever unless you get permission well they never give you permission that's why they put it in there because you asked what they're going to say no well i didn't know that so i give the interview and oh man they're they're gonna rip my head off they call me my colonel they come come in to see my colonel he said devlin you can't give an interview and i said what do you mean this is america we mean i can't give an interview i said i wasn't on duty i wasn't wearing a military uniform he said you got to get permission it's in the base operations manual i said oh my gosh so i did feel stupid i felt oh my gosh so i told him i said oh colonel graham i mean seriously i'm sorry i didn't know i had to get permission and by then though they're really mad and um so left ankles shattered two-thirds of the achilles tendon severed imagine you're wearing military boots and your greens your fatigues and you're trying to walk well left foot had no power to even lift up or push off because the achilles tendon and etc so i asked my first sergeant is there any chance i could get a permit to wear a gym shoe just for a few weeks so i could build my calf muscle up before i start wearing those boots again he said let me check with the colonel well you know remember the colonel's really mad at me so but the colonel's not going to tell me himself so what he does he said hey definitely you got to go to base hospital and you know you got to get their permission i said okay so i i you know we all know the military world and actually in in almost any business but You have the manager and they had the employees.

57:57And I'm sure he called the managers over there, the brass over there, said, hey, Devlin's coming your way. Don't give him shit. Don't give him crap. So I get there and this captain, he could have told me no. He could have said, no, Airman Devlin, we're not doing it. Oh, no. They didn't want to do it that way. They wanted me to see the full bird colonel of the hospital. They didn't need a full bird colonel to tell me I couldn't get that permit, but he wanted to tell me. so I go up to see the colonel walk in his office he looks at me he says Devlin I wouldn't authorize a effing thing for you now when we were doing the movie for command and control Robert Kenner said Greg did he say effing or did he say the word I said no you know he said the word but I don't gonna say that on camera and he said no tell me what he said so then i said he said friggin i'm not you know i wouldn't authorize a friggin thing for you he goes no tell me what he said like he pried it out of me so i said i said he you know i said he he looked me in the eye he's pissed off he said i wouldn't authorize a fucking thing for you devlin get out of my office and i went oh oh, Ian, no commander had ever cussed me, ever, ever, right?

59:18And I was like, whoa. I mean, not even in basic. And I'm like, so I salute him and leave. So I get out of duty. I go home. My dad's in Cincinnati, and he happens to call me that day. My dad was 5 '7 and had cojones the size of a gorilla. He feared no one. My family were all fighters. They're gold-glove champions. My grandfather was a pro fighter, had 93 pro fights. back in the 30s. We were Irish. We learned to fight. But anyway, so my dad finds out about this. Man, he's pissed. So I have no clue about this. So I tell him he's pissed off. I go back to work the next day. As soon as I get there, first sergeant calls me in his office.

59:57Dad, come here. You need to go see the colonel about your gym shoe permit. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I was there yesterday. They're not going to give it to me. He said, I don't know, man. Like something's changed. I said, what? So I go see my colonel. And I was like, he said, something's changed. I went, oh God. So the captain sends me to the colonel's office. I don't want to go see the colonel again. I walk in his office and he's, he won't even look at me. He's looking down at his desk and he's signing a piece of paper. He's still not looking at me. He slides a piece of paper across the desk while he's looking at the desk.

1:00:30And he says, dismissed. I picked his paper up, says you've been authorized to wear a gym shoe on your left foot or a temporary period of time, whatever it was, two or three weeks. And I was like stunned. What? This is a guy that just cussed me out yesterday. I get back home that day. My dad calls me, Hey, did them mother effers give you your gym shoe permit? And I said, yeah, how'd you know? He said, cause I called the highest son of a bitch in sack. He said, I called your base. And I said, I want to know who the highest son of a bitch in SAC Air Force is. And this staff sergeant says, Mr. Devlin, you don't need to use language like that.

1:01:08Hold on. We'll see if we can get him for you. And he said, I'm going to give an interview in Cincinnati, Ohio. You guys are not going to like. So now, you know, Ian, there's a lot of parents that are mad when their kids are hurt in the military. A lot, right? Calling them, cussing them out. Military commanders don't have to ever accept a phone call from them. They don't. General Lloyd Leavitt actually picks the phone up. He said, Mr. Devlin, what's going on? He said, let me see if I got this straight. You blow those guys' asses up over there. He said, you killed David Livingston. They shouldn't even have been there that night.

1:01:41Even Martin Marietta had told him, don't send anybody in. Wait, let this thing settle down and see what happens. But anyway, so he said, you know, then you, you know, screw my kid's leg up and stuff. He said, you won't even help him get well by wearing a gym shoe. And he said, oh, Mr. Dunn, there's no problem. I'll take care of it. No worries. Well, bing, bing, bing, down the line. You know how it goes in the military. And then they call me in for the thing, right? So, Ian, I'll tell you one last story. You don't have to put any of this in the podcast, by the way. I'd rather give you too much information than not enough.

1:02:13So they're still mad at me. They're mad as shit. Like, damn, Devlin beat us on the gym shoe. So about whatever, two weeks later, my colonel calls me and says, Devlin, we decided we're not going to give you your sergeant star. So, you know, you get your three stripes, your senior airman. then the pay grade's the same, pays the same amount of money, Sergeant, Senior Airmen, but they give you, it's just a, you know, official thing, they give you the star, and I said, based on what, and he said, well, you're always out of 3510, the military code for your haircut, and your, how you're, you look in uniform, and I said, Colonel, I said, you, no one's ever even mentioned 3510 to me, I said, that's a bunch of crap, and you know it, and he said, well, plus it's because you got a bad attitude, and I said, a bad attitude, dude, Colonel, since his missile exploded, you've treated the whole shop like crap, man.

1:03:06No wonder we got a bad attitude. And the last thing he said, well, and it's plus this. And he slides a letter across the table. And it's my direct supervisor, a tech sergeant, who's the nicest guy in the world. We're friends today. We have reunions every few years. So I said, Colonel, I said, I could care less. I'm getting out of service anyway. I don't give a crap. I said, but I am going to see my sergeant went to see him. I said, Sergeant, did you, you, you wrote this letter that says all these bad things about me? He, he wouldn't even look at me. He's kind of looking at his desk and he said, Devlin, I've been in for 17 years.

1:03:43He said, they told me if I don't write this letter, they're going to throw my ass out. And I said, I tapped him on the shoulder and say, Hey, Sarge, don't worry about it. I said, I'm getting out of service anyway. I said, no big deal. So I said, but I'm going to give an interview and tell the public. So part of the interview, that's what you saw in the movie. But this time I had to do it different. I had to call base operations to get permission. I called a staff sergeant, the same one that talked to my dad, answered the phone. I said, man, what do I got to do? What paperwork I got to fill out to give an interview at Channel 4 News?

1:04:12She said, you want to give another interview? I said, yeah. And I said, they're treating me like crap, taking my star away for it's not a justified reason. I just want to let the public know. So she said, hold on. I'm going to transfer you to a major. If we get disconnected, promise you'll call back. I said, I will, no worries. A major, a woman gets online. She said, Airman Devlin, I understand you want to give another interview. Can you tell me why? I said, yeah, the Air Force is screwing me out of my Sergeant Star. I just want to let the public know. Hey, Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast.

1:04:44So why wait to find your new Fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. try it style it make it yours because the right pair doesn't just show up it shows off first day fits handled walk out ready for whatever's next visit your nearest croc store today and she said you mean if you got your star you wouldn't give an interview i said i wouldn't have a reason to give it she said i'll make a deal with you if i don't fix this tonight she said you don't even need any paperwork. Just give the interview tomorrow. I said, wow, okay. That's pretty cool. Cause she knew she's going to fix the problem.

1:05:23So she calls in all the top brass from the hospital, base commanders, all my direct commanders. She gets them all together. She said, leave them alone. He, she said, they're getting out of this service. Leave them alone. Don't do anything to stir the pot you know just leave them alone so you know next picture a person this beat red on the day i came in but my colonel was he was seething he was seething he was so mad that he had to hand me this but he said devlin we decided we're going to give you your sergeant star but don't think it's because you threatened to give an interview i said colonel i didn't threaten to give an interview i was giving an interview i said you were screwing me out sergeant star i just wanted the public to know and he said well now you got your sergeant star so get out of my office so ian i knew the writing was on the wall i had no future career in the air force if all your top breaths want to hang you you know they're going to get you sooner or later wow greg that that's all going in that is all going in you didn't appear as though you uh even drew a breath with that uh torrent of of description there but that that that was brilliant i mean it sounds like you still stay in touch with some of your uh colleagues from that time yeah all those all those guys that are still alive they actually have a facebook page over here and you know we all stay connected there uh but we do reunions typically we try to do every two years but a couple of guys literally we're losing guys are dying we've we've lost a bunch of the guys four or five more guys just in the last year here.

1:07:00So, and I'll tell you, Ian, the fuel, hydrazine, is so horrible. Let me tell you how bad the fuel was. Picture this. You know the commanders at the 308 Strategic Missile Wing and the hospital commander there. You know for a fact they know the hazards of UDMH and nitrogen tetroxide. They know it because they're a Titan and two missile wing. Here's what they did on my medical records. When my medical records, let me, hold you a second. Oh man, I got a dog barking here. Let me, hold you a second. Yeah, don't worry. Don't worry. I thought it was closed there. No, no, get inside.

1:07:44Okay. I'm sorry. I'm back. But you, so you know that the commanders, everyone there knows because we've been trained on how bad this stuff is, especially hydrazine. You know, nitrogen, I mean, hydrazine, the UDMH is just God awful stuff. It's cancer causing, it causes lipoma, fatty tumors, it causes bone disease, it causes all kinds of stuff. And like I say, today's world, you get a whiff, they're sending you to get checked out. But when I went to the hospital, here's what the doctor said, injury to his ankle, burns, burns, and exposed to nitrogen tetroxide, they conveniently left out hydrazine.

1:08:27Because even in some of their correspondence, they're taught, don't ever mention hydrazine because it could lead to a lawsuit to us future down the road. And I have to tell you, when I was a kid, 21, and I'm in the hospital, I'm trying to recover, I'm married, and trying to get back together. When they give you a lot of your paperwork, I didn't even, you don't even care, man. I didn't even care. I never put two and two together on it until later in life. And I thought, man, you guys are evil. That's not an accidental mistake. It's not. The hospital commander wrote it and said, yep, exposure to oxidizer, it'll go away quickly.

1:09:08Because he knows UDMH is lifelong, lifelong effects. And Ian, I don't know if you know this, but I've had 51 surgeries in my life. I attribute 43 of them. I have had 20 spine surgeries. Tomorrow morning, I have my 21st spine surgery. They're going to put a morphine pump in the right, which I've already had one they had to take out because it became infected putting the second one back in tomorrow so can i prove they're all tied to hydrazine nope and i'm not even gonna try you know the veterans administration has me as a 100 disabled vet they've taken good care of me through the years but yes there we've lost so many guys tied to hydrazine over here they have the they call it the pact act congress just enacted and what it was is for all the afghanistan guys and girls coming back near those burn kits, you know, chemicals that were attached to it.

1:10:02We believe just recently they finally added hydrazine. Now that wasn't tied to the Afghanistan, but hydrazine, they don't even recognize it like as a hazard to all the people that are working with it. So that's the only bad side. I have even the, even my commander, the colonel, I made peace with him about three or four years ago. We had a reunion out there in Arkansas and he was a museum director there. I just went, I don't want to carry any animosity with anyone when I go to my grave. So I went up to him and said, Colonel, I said, I said, listen, man, I just want to let you know, I wish you really well.

1:10:35I hope things are going well. You know, I feel like I caused some of the aggravation because of the interview. And if it would have been different, it would have been a day where I hadn't got the bad news. Maybe the interview would have been a little bit better. But so so I kind of caused some of it. And if you're a lifelong military guy, you don't want anybody putting your military down. I get it. I'm an Air Force guy. I don't want anybody putting us down. So I'm trying to understand his his side of the picture there. But I have no animosity towards him. I made peace with him. And he was very friendly to me that day.

1:11:07He wasn't mad or anything. Although I think he really did. He really didn't like command and control coming out. And he he got a book from Eric Schlosser and he didn't accept it. he's like he didn't even open it said nope return to sender you know he didn't even want to see it but uh so whatever i know he doesn't like any part of that story being out there but you know so but i wish him well and all my guys and that we work with i love my time in the service you know i sure wouldn't have planned a titan 2 missile explosion and you know surviving it but i'm blessed man i mean you you can say blessed lucky or both but i'm still here you know and even not just me.

1:11:44It's not just about me. Picture all the other guys and girls around. I mean, there were no women out there at night, but I can picture all the guys were out there that night. Any one of them, they were blown in different directions and any one of them could have been smashed by the concrete and we could all been dead that night, you know? Oh, I didn't tell you though. So I want to tell you. So picture this. I slide and burn. I finally stop. I realize I'm still alive. I can't really run because I'm my leg shattered there. I'm laying there. Everything settles down and Colonel Morris runs me up the road about 50 yards and they all are coming to get us and all that stuff.

1:12:16Oh, okay. So where I wanted to go with that was this. So I'm laying, say on the, if you were looking at the silo from the access road, I'm laying on the left side of the massive concrete that landed there. I'm laying on the asphalt road next to the concrete that's on the asphalt road. I'm just, you know, five feet from it. And on the other side is a ditch. that ditch goes back and i've seen different estimates of how far back the thing was but uh anywhere from 120 to 100 200 feet i've seen so if you picture me going 60 feet backwards and this thing's maybe another 50 or 60 feet behind me what landed there was the most powerful nuclear warhead the america ever created is laying in the ditch about 50 feet and i tell i tell my friends I said I was only 50 feet away from being the first direct nuclear hit ever in history.

1:13:10So, you know. Wow. Wow. Well, Greg, that is just an incredible story. I'm so pleased you've shared that with me and with the listeners of Cold War Conversations. I know that they will find it riveting. I'm amazed that after the experiences you've had that you're still so positive and unforgiving as well. It's, you know, it's lovely to see. And it's great to hear that through the veterans organizations, you are, you know, being looked after medically and being cared for that way as well. well listen i i also want to say a great thanks and appreciation to you for telling this story on your podcast and here's why the cold war and i feel like a lot of the veterans in the cold war it's easy to forget them and their stories because in a sense it wasn't a war thank god because if that would have been a war that would have been a war to end all of them then a you know nuclear holocaust but you know everything's going everywhere so so yeah you know and even with us with a lot of medical stuff it's really easy for the government that's the missiles are gone all the titan 2 missiles have been disassembled and put away all the silos been blown up and caved in and a lot of the guys are dead and the next part of the equation is is is really the cold war with the titan 2 missile group everything from the maintenance teams to the fuel teams to the, you know, every aspect of that to the crews that run them is a really small group of people in the entire world.

1:14:47You know, Titan 2s were around 25 years. So small time frame, small group of people, they're all gone. So we really appreciate guys like you and people like you that are helping us keep the story alive out there with the world. Well, that's really kind of you to say, Greg I mean that that's one of the reasons why I started the podcast is to capture these stories like yours before they get lost through time and you're absolutely right whilst people look at the cold war and think no shots were fired and shots were fired you can talk about Korea and Vietnam but there were also thousands possibly hundreds of thousands killed in accidents exercises all sorts of things who are the forgotten victims of the cold war so that that's a it's a real honor for you to uh say that to me greg i really appreciate it yeah well i mean it now it's not just me i'm telling you all the guys and girls that work with the titan 2 missiles uh greatly appreciate anyone that continues to at least keep us out there so the world doesn't forget that group for people.

1:15:58The episode extras such as videos, photos and other content are available via a link in the episode information. The podcast wouldn't exist without the generous efforts of our financial supporters and I'd like to thank one and all of them for keeping the podcast on the road. The Cold War conversation continues in our Facebook discussion group. Just search for Cold War Conversations in Facebook. Thanks very much for listening and look forward to seeing you next week.

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