Wheels was the only Black member of the Skils’kin contract crew at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, which oversees 150 Minuteman nuclear missiles in underground silos in Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado.
The Wyoming governor didn't previously disclose details of the deployment of 60 Army National Guard and 13 Air National Guard members in the Cheyenne area because it was a “security operation,” a spokesman said.
The Air Force has put problems with misbehavior among nuclear launch officers behind it but won't lower its vigilance and will keep implementing cultural change within the ranks, the new commander of the nation's land-based nuclear missiles said Monday.
A few years from now, one of the nuclear launch centers where these workers, known as missileers, were stationed, will be open to visitors. The Air Force has been restoring the missile alert facility, called Quebec-01, as a state historic site. The facility, located on the lonesome southeast Wyoming prairie, was active as recently as a decade ago.