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Home My WebLink AboutDavid Villar TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: David Villar Interviewer: Jared Donnelly Date: October 8, 2014 Place: College Station, Texas Project: Veterans of Aggieland Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt Jared Donnelly (JD): Today is October 8. It’s three in the afternoon. We’re here at the Municipal Court, city of College Station. I’m Jared Donnelly. I’m sitting here with Dave Villar. We’re going to talk about his experience as a veteran. Although I guess since you’re still in the service, yeah, (whatever?) the term is. Um, let’s go ahead and start off with basically when and where you were born, some biographical detail. 00:00:27: David Villar (DV): Right. Uh. Was born in (Maine?), Florida, June 8th of ’81. JD: What, what got you into the service? Did it, like family background? 00:00:36: DV: No, no family background. No family history in combat. I went to my orientation when I went to college registration and the different ROTC sections gave discussions of their service—what they offer things like that. Army gave a big spiel about how you could jump out of airplanes, repel down the stadium at the university, things like that. Air Force gave a little more low-key spiel and (kinda?) gravitated to the Air Force talk. Guy gave a pretty good, interesting little presentation so I kind of looked at ROTC. Signed up and registered in my first semester of college and then kept up with ROTC and got to the point where I had to make a decision whether to sign a contract to commission or not, and I decided to commission at that point. JD: Right. This is University of Florida, right? 00:01:22: DV: University of Florida. JD: About when did you start school? 00:01:24: DV: ’99. JD: So, okay. So sometime during, while you’re at school 9/11 come, happens. And you’re already in the ROTC at that point. 00:01:33: DV: Right. JD: Do you think that influenced you staying in it? Did it change the character of your ROTC experience? 00:01:37: DV: It didn’t. It didn’t change me, my motivation for being in the (ROTC?) to consider going into the Air Force. It didn’t change my motivations in any way. One thing it did, I would say it did change. You, you could see a different presentation and idea in the Air Force. Or at least in ROTC. And again this is just limited focus that I saw in the Air Force and in training and in, what was called Air Training Command, ATC. And prior to that, there was a lot of emphasis on the Gulf War and Kosovo—Kosovo Air Campaign. Big thing being Kosovo happened and that’s the first time air power’s ever won a war, without having to have any sort of additional ground support, ground troops or anything like that. And so they, that was the big focus. And then it became a shift that I saw throughout my time (at?) ROTC and I still see in the Air Force to the (War on Terror?) and 9/11 and those campaigns. But even then the Air Force still pushes the importance of air, of air power and things like that. But there was definitely a, a subtle shift and you, you could say the, kind of the, patriotism in a sense, change. JD: Right. 00:02:53: DV: (And?) the idea of why, why defense is different and why defense is important. And there’s also a big push, especially talking with the faculty of how our recruitment goals are being met now and how we don’t have to worry about incentive and things like that. Because prior to, to when I joined, they were offering scholarships to anybody. You didn’t have to be a STEM major, you didn’t have to even be in ROTC all four years. They had a program that got started in 200-, right before 9/11, 2001, where you could do ROTC for a year. Go to a abbreviated training course and a commission in the Air Force as an officer. Prior to that you had to at least do two years in ROTC and still go, go through training course. So (there?), there was a lot of demand for bodies to be in the military. And that of course after 9/11 and I remember by the time I graduated, they stopped offering scholarships for a, a lot of majors. And it apparently got to the point where you actually had to meet a board after you finished ROTC and they would decided whether you’d commissioned or not. So. JD: Really, rather than being automatic. 00:03:58: DV: Right. So, so it became very, it, it went from famine to feast, where they had a lot of bodies and now they have little bodies so. Or they had very little bodies, so lots incentives. Now they have lots of bodies so less incentives just get people to stay in or (word?). JD: Right. Right. Just seeing what you said about the, the focus of the Air Force just sort of reinforces the old (maxim?) that the, you know, the military’s already preparing for the war they just fought, rather than (what, where?) they may fight. 00:04:28: DV: Right. JD: Alright so you graduated I guess what, around ’03? 00:04:30: DV: ’03, yeah. JD: Yeah. And then, just, just seemed like the career choices were best to, to go in, in commission? 00>04:35: DV: Yeah. At, at well that, at that point I don’t, I’d gotten a scholarship in, in my junior year, 2001. So by 2003, I, I could. I either had to commission as an officer or I would have had to pay back my scholarship (and enlist?). JD: Gotcha, gotcha. 00:04:53: DV: So by 2001 when I had gotten the scholarship, I was going to be in the, have to serve in the military one way or another. JD: Right. How did your family, I guess, take the idea of you going full-time career? 00:05:03: DV: They were kind of neutral towards it. They generally didn’t have a opinion one way or the other. JD: Really? Alright so you’re commissioned. I, as far as I understand, you do a lot of training towards your actual—what am I trying to say here—to, towards actually becoming part of the military. But you, you still have to go through boot of some sort right? 00:05:25: DV: Right. The, the way ROTC does it is, in theory if you do the four year training program, you have two classes each semester. One is focused on, it, it’s, well there’s different subjects. It’s kind of history of the Air Force, history of air power. Being in the Air Force and talking about things such as rank and saluting and the military, things like that. The fact that there’s officer enlisted (structure?) which sometimes people don’t understand or comprehend what that means. So you have that, classes like that and then you also have leadership classes, civil-military relation classes. Mana—I wouldn’t say management classes—that’s sort of what the leadership classes are. And you do that throughout your four years in ROTC. And then the summer of your sophomore year you go to a, field training session. Used to be, and the one I went through was at Lackland in San Antonia, which, that’s where the Air Force basic training is conducted. And they’ve moved it all now to Maxwell, which is where the officer training school’s set up. In ROTC it’s four weeks, in (OTS?) it’s twelve weeks, and in the Air Force Academy it’s kind of four years. But that’s all stay, stays at the Colorado. And then you’re also able the summer of your freshman and your junior year, you can sign up for programs to go, it’s essentially go to an air force base and see different careers. JD: Yeah. 00:06:57: DV: You can also take part in a job school, the Army airborne training. You could also go to the Academy for (SORE?) or for parachute training. JD: What’s SORE? 00:07:07: DV: It’s fighters. JD: Oh gotcha, gotcha. 00:07:08: DV: Pilot (little gliders?) in Colorado. JD: So did you, were you already on track towards what’s your MOS? Do they say that in the Air Force, MOS? 00:07:19: DV: Air Force (word?). Air Force Specialty Code. Uh, no. There’s not really, there’s not really a specific training for that. If you become a pilot or navigator, you can work on your private pilot’s license. It, it used to be like that. It’s changed now. But you could do that. But there’s very little specific training, other than just very broad leadership and Air Force training. So there’s nothing specific to if you’re going to be an intelligence officer, you start getting intelligence training. If you’re going to be a maintenance officer, you get maintenance training. And you don’t really find out your career field until the fall of your senior year. JD: Gotcha. 00:08:01: DV: So there’s a, there’s a bit of a gap. Or not a gap, but there’s a very short period before you find out where you, you know what career field you’re going to get. And of course you get your career field based on your ranking in the class that you don’t really know. But among your peers in ROTC and other, other branches. And of course your, your commander can kind of give a “yea” or “nay” on some career fields. And the competitive ones are piled at (NAV?). And those are announced in the spring of your junior year. JD: Gotch. So what did you want to do when you were going through the program? 00:08:27: DV: Uh. I kind of, I was gravitating towards pilot, but that didn’t work out. And so I ended up wanting to go into intelligence. JD: (word?) Did you get it? 00:08:36: DV: I did not. I got space and missiles. JD: Right. 00:08:39: DV: And it, it was nowhere on my list but needs of the Air Force sometimes does that. And that’s one of those tricky bureaucratic things (what?), determine the needs of the Air Force, the needs of the service which you sometimes think of it as a big, greater good. Sadly at the end of the day, at least my opinion is that it’s a bureaucratic clerk finding the easiest decision, to plug somebody in. JD: Hmm. Right. 00:09:00: DV: And so when I found out that I was gonna go to space and missiles, I, I found out that there was a class date that they had to fill with somebody in that career field. And they said, “Well we got this body that can plug into that. We’ll, we’ll stick him in that job.” So. JD: Right, right. So by the time you graduate, did they send you to OTS right away? 00:09:20: DV: Uh, I never went through OTS. JD: Oh no, okay. 00:09:22: DV: No, OTS is, is if you didn’t go through ROTC at all. JD: Okay so ROTC (word?). 00:09:26: DV: So (priced?) at four weeks in my sophomore weeks in San Antonio. JD: So you commissioned immediately after graduation. 00:09:32: DV: Right. JD: And then go to training for your specific. 00:09:36: DV: Emphases, yeah. You, depending on, and things change of course, but when I was going through there was a lot of casual status. The training pipeline for whatever reason wasn’t prepared to have a bunch of lieutenants work right away. So there was a lot of people in what they call “casual status.” And that would be, they would send people to different bases, they’d sit around and do jobs wherever they needed plugging in. Or wherever they just had a vacancy or just someplace to, essentially sit around and wait until you could find your class, your class line. JD: Alright, so you did that I guess? 00:10:11: DV: Uh, no, not really, no. I kind of went into training right away. JD: Really? Where was your training? 00:10:16: DV: It’s in Vandenberg Air Force base in California. And that’s where they do. JD: That’s all the space and missile stuff. 00:10:20: DV: That’s where they do all the space and missile training and also they do space launch and missile testing out there. JD: What was that like? 00:10:28: DV: The training, it was, it was a bit disappointing. I, I, I will confess that I had a very negative attitude about being a missileer and being in space and missiles. I didn’t want to go into that career field and the attitude was, “Well it’s either this or get out and go to Walmart.” Which I always thought was kind of disappointing that somebody that can qualify, commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force. The view of the training in (this?) school house was, “Well if you don’t do this, you’re going to go to Walmart.” Which kind of, I, I think reflects poorly on their viewpoint of second lieutenants and commissioned officers, but that goes without saying. I remember my first day with our commander during our in-processing. That’s the, o-5, the (word?) colonel in charge of the train squadron. And he gets a room of four lieutenants and he looks at us and says, the first words out of his mouth, “Were you drafted?” Um, you look at him and say, “No.” It’s like, “The judge tell you, you had to go to jail or join the Air Force?” And we’re like, “No.” “That’s right, you’re volunteers. And so the Air Force has decided you’re going to get this job and you’re a volunteer.” Which for me, that set a very negative perception of this community if the first words out of the commander’s mouth are, “You’re a, you’re not a draftee, you’re a volunteer so you got to suck it up and do this job.” And so that really kind of, kind of colored me negatively towards this, towards this community and this training. JD: Did everybody have this perception about missiles and space stuff? I mean did nobody want to be there? 00:12:05: DV: I would say probably fifty percent of people didn’t want to be there. I’d say there was a lot of, a lot of people that, that was their sixth choice on their. And, and again the way you get your career, your career sheet or your dream sheet is they tell you to write down six you know, I’m sorry pick your top five jobs. You know anything in the Air Force that’s not pilot or nav, that’s a different selection process. And people would write their five choices and they, you know, based on what you write, five choices you wrote down, what the Air Force has available, your rankings and all that in ROTC, they would give you those, one of those five jobs. And a lot of people who listed missiles as their fifth choice would get that as their, as their position. A lot of people were told that if you write missiles anywhere on your dream sheet, even if it’s number five, they’re going to give it to you. Yeah, like being, “Well you asked for it.” And a lot of pilots and navs who had failed out of pilot and nav training would then get picked up to go to missiles and get either, were either kicked out of the Air Force or sent to space and missiles. You had a lot of people that had that, that perception about the community. And then you also had a lot of people that, there was some people that were very passionate about being in missiles or were excited about being in space and missiles and the idea of working in space, the idea of working in space, and, and space being a more advanced, more glamorous career. Missiles of course having a negative connotation, a Cold War aspect to it. JD: Right. 00:13:27: DV: So it was very, the, the, the climate in missiles was very negative and the instructors recognized that and they kind of, I think, approached it in a wrong manner instead of emphasizing how important the job is, they emphasized the, the, the aspect of, “You’re in this job, suck it up. And you can’t make mistakes because missiles, those are important.” And so it, it focused on the negative I think. That was the one perception I always got out of the training, where they didn’t emphasize the importance of the mission, but rather the severity of you making mistakes and why you need to learn this job because if you make a mistake, it’s going to have great consequences. And again also recognizing that a lot of people didn’t want to be there, or in that community. JD: Right. It’s almost like propagating the same, yeah. So what were you trained to do? 00:14:21: DV: So the, the way it worked was I, I got a first class. It was called Space 100, which I always though was a silly term. It used to be called Undergraduate Space Qualifying Training. And they changed it for some reason, Space 100. Which no offense to community colleges, I thought it sounded like a community college course, It sounded a little too— JD: Right. Crash course on space. 00:14:38: DV: Basic. Right. And. So you did Space 100 for eight weeks and that was basically a discussion of U.S. space assets, space operations, the types, different types of space. So when you talk about space, there’s different missions, like space warning, space surveillance, space force enhancement, which that’s operating satellites, making sure the GPS—the Milstar—all the different satellites are operational and have no problem being in space. Space launch, which pretty self-explanatory, launching satellites. Space warning and missile warning. Again it’s having, we have these big early warning sights and they’re the ones looking at the horizon, making sure that there’s no inbound enemy missiles or anything like that. There’s not going to be a first strike against the United States. Then you had missiles, which is where eighty percent of the people in the, in, in, first assignments were going to. And. JD: ICBMs and stuff. 00:15:38: DV: ICBMs, yup. Just straight, it was just ICBMs. There’s, the United States doesn’t have any other nuclear missiles at this time. Besides. Or at least the United States Air Force doesn’t have any nuclear missiles besides ICBMs. They used to have ground-lock missiles stationed in Europe, but those were eliminated in the, in the late-eighties. So those don’t, were no longer a career option by the time I was going through. JD: Right, right. 00:16:01: DV: And, so you learn about that. And you learn about the (acquisition?) process. You also talk briefly about enemy space systems and enemy ICBMs. But it wasn’t too in-depth of, on that portion. And had a couple of field exercises where people used GPS and were explained how to, how space works and we got to do a couple of tours of different launch sites. And the NRO site, got to see a satellite about to be launched. JD: NRO? 00:16:28: DV: Oh I’m sorry, the National Reconnaissance Office. That’s, and this, this is one of the things about the satellites that’s kind of interesting. The Air Force will fly the bus, the satellite itself. But then the actual sensors are controlled by a different governmental agency. JD: Right. 00:16:41: DV: So the camera’s actually controlled by somebody else. That’s the NRO, which is the National Reconnaissance Office. And they did not, that name was actually classified, I want to say it’s until 2003. Like very recently, just the existence of the NRO was classified. And there was no acknowledgment that the NRO existed. JD: So all government and military, anything that the government controls I guess when it comes to satellite, they’re all launched by the Air Force? 00:17:03: DV: Uh, no. There are some private contractors and. JD: No. That are launching government stuff? 00:17:10 DV: Yeah. JD: Okay. 00:17:11: DV: There’s some. I’m not, I mean, I’m not a hundred percent on, on all the details of space launch, but there are some. There’s United, United Launch Alliance who was the primary contractor for a lot of these launches. But Space X I know recently has taken over that mission and there’s also a lot of other agencies, not agencies I’m sorry, private companies that are involved with that in some ways. And, you know, Boeing’s one, you, you know Boeing and Boeing, (Locly?), (Northern Cruman?). JD: Right. 00:17:42: DV: These are all involved in different areas of space and space launch and (like that?). So the Air Force has some control in that but there’s still all, a lot of private companies that have a part in that. And granted the Air Force is doing a lot of that lift, but there’s still other companies that get involved in that. Even Vandenberg itself, because launching one payload, there’s still a lot of other space that you can put on a rocket to launch other satellites, or you can do multiple payloads. There’s still a lot of civilian job, or civilian contracting that will go through and different companies will go to Vandenberg and try to get on a rocket launch. So that perhaps there’s one launch that’s putting up a, American satellite for the government, but then there’s still room on the payload to put a Ukrainian company site, which I actually saw that one time was a Ukraine, a Ukrainian company trying to put up a satellite. You also have room for microsatellites and (NANOsats?) which a lot of universities are doing. And I know Cal-Poly, San Luis Obispo has put a couple of microsatellites on these rockets when they have, essentially it’s either put the satellite on the payload for the first stage or put ballast. And if you could put some microsatellite to kind of test the principle or test something or do some experiment. It doesn’t really cost anything additional, you’re already going to putting stuff into space anyway. So, so that was with Space 100. And then after the training I, you got to, essentially based on instructor criteria, and, again another dream sheet where you would be able to list your five choices, which was always a little opaque because there was, at the time, there was something like thirty jobs that you could do as a second lieutenant in (that?) different space units. And they told you to write down your top five choices, with no idea if any of those jobs are going to be available or not. JD: [chuckle]. Right. Because it’s not necessarily on your wanted, it’s based on the need right? 00:19:34: DV: Right, but they wouldn’t tell you what the need was. And so you could write down five units that could very well not have an assignment and the big fear was to end up going missiles and then the, the bigger fear of that was to end up going missiles to Minot because Minot has a very negative perception because it’s in North Dakota. One of their sayings is you know, “Why not, (Minot?)?” because it’s cold. And compared to the other sites, there’s not a whole lot to do in Minot. I think that might have changed a little bit with the oil boom recently now in 2014. But at the time when I was doing my dream sheet in 2004-2005 time frame, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in Minot, North Dakota. And that was kind of the sight nobody really was too keen on going to. And so we, we all got to write our dream sheet and they, they made a big announcement of, “Congratulations, you’re going to X, Y, Z locations.” And like all things, some people were happy, some people were, were saddened by the choices they got. I was told I was (going?) to F. E. Warren Air Force base in Cheyenne, Wyoming for space and missiles, or for missiles, as a (missileer?). And then. JD: Right. Did you put down missiles as what you want to do? 00:20:42: DV: Yeah, I, I put that down as my first choice. I put F.E. Warren missiles just because I accepted that there was a strong likelihood, as, as most people were told. Historically eighty percent of you’re going to go missiles for your first assignment and so I figured I might as well try to pick the best missile base because F.E. Warren’s located in Cheyenne. Cheyenne’s not a bad city. And it’s an hour from Denver. Or well two hours from Denver. It’s near Fort Collins where a lot of people would live. And you know location-wise, as locations go, it’s not a bad place to (been?). I did put a couple of space jobs as my next choices just because I, I would have been interested in doing those. And then I, I finally put down Malmstrom as my final choice on, on missiles. JD: Where is this? 00:21:22: DV: It’s in North Dakota. Oh no, not, I’m sorry not North Dakota. It’s in Great Falls, Montana. JD: Oh gotcha. 00:21:29: DV: And so I, I did my dream sheet. Filled that out. And then once they, they made the announcement on assignments. I found out I would be going to F.E. Warren. And after that I went through Missile Initial Qualification Training or MIQT. And that was basically going to a, a missile simulator and simulating, operating the missile systems. That’s one of the things, with, with these weapon systems. That a lot of you know, you don’t fly the satellite yourself in the satellite, or you don’t launch the missile at the missile. It’s generally these computer terminals and because. And this is both a good, a good thing and a bad thing. Because it takes so long to develop these systems, the computer systems are very old. And so that these very old computer, you know, big, huge operating computer systems are somewhat more rugged and reliable. And they, they don’t have the same processing power like computers today. But then you can’t hack (REACT?) consul. JD: Yeah. 00:22:30: DV: Which is the Rapid—I can’t remember—Rapid Engagement and Targeting I believe? It’s something that can be targeted quickly. The previous consuls were old school printouts and flashing buttons and things like that, kind of like what you see in the movie War Games. And then REACT consul is a new consul which is all computer based. And so the training was a bunch of simulators and it goes from everything to how to send out maintenance commands for the missiles and how to unlock the different security systems on the missiles to actually training launches on the missiles. And going through all these different checklists. And that’s the one that was very emphasized on this. This is a legacy from strategic air command, SAC, was checklist discipline. And it was read a step, do a step. And part of the challenges that I saw at, during my time at missiles was read a step, do a step and have checklist discipline. Well you have checklist and then whenever there’d be an issue or problem, an additional checklist would be created. And it got, at various points, it got to the point where you had four checklists open to do one simple procedure. And part of that it just spiraled out of control because had to get a little big picture on this. If you’re a wing-commander, a missile wing. A second lieutenant makes a mistake, you’re an o-6 who has twenty-plus years in the Air Force, you could be fired. So you had twenty years of outstanding, stellar service. You’re an o-6, you could possibly be lieutenant. JD: Colonel. 00:24:05: DV: Yeah, colonel. Sorry, Air Force colonel. You might be on track to make general. But because a second lieutenant made a really big mistake on your watch, you now take the heat and you could potentially be fired. And it created a very micromanaged culture and so a lot of these, the additional checklists were created when somebody would make a mistake in their technical data checklist because technically you only had one. You, you’re supposed to have two checklists and they, they’re called technical orders. You’re supposed to have one technical order about how to operate the, the react consul and one checklist for the communication-side of the consul. And it expanded beyond that with multiple checklists and multiple security procedures and things like that. And again part of that was just the oversight. But anyway the training was focused on using the consul, using the checklist and how to command and send out commands to the missiles, both for maintenance and then for launching purposes. JD: Right. 00:25:08: DV: And launching was called the EWO portion. And that’s the Emergency War Orders. And the idea behind that was that if the president had to send out orders, he would send out these emergency war orders that would direct you to launch against our adversaries for whatever reason and whatever purpose. And so [clears throat]. Pardon me. So that was the, the breakdown, wherever, generally your trainer became two focuses. One was the day-to-day maintenance and security procedures and (comp) procedure, making sure your comps (were up?). And then the second half of the training was focused on processing emergency war orders. And essentially going through a simulation of, of war scenario. Where you, your, the phrase is the balloon goes up. And so the president decides that we’re going to war and thus, how to execute those orders and how to launch these missiles. JD: Right. So did you feel like the focus of the training was still very Cold War oriented? 00:26:03: Uh yeah. It definitely was Cold War oriented. There, there was a, a great attempt to link in the war on terror and emphasizing that the only reason (our armed?) forces are deployed overseas is because of ICBMs and missiles are important because we provide deterrents and emphasizing the nuclear mission. And this is one of those things you can get into debate but somehow it always seemed, it, it rang a little hollow in a sense. JD: Yeah. 00:26:32: DV: And there was also that kind of hallowed tone to it. Which I, going back to our, the statement that I said about that colonel. I, I think it was a lack of focus and emphasizing the importance of strategic mission and the deterrent mission that ICBMs provide and instead following the current, big trend in the United States military and the Air Force which was the war on terror. And if you’re a eight-ten wing commander, you can emphasize, “Hey look. My planes are doing this and we’re supporting troops on the ground.” Whereas if you’re an ICBM wing commander, you can’t show how you’re supporting the forces and you’re more in an abstract idea of deterrents. JD: Hmm. Yeah, kind of (that way?) I imagine. So how long was your training before you were actually out on mission sight. 00:27:16: DV: So the initial training it went, I began IQT in February. It went all the way. JD: February of? 00:27:24: DV: Of 2005. February 2005 began my training. I completed it. JD: So you had, you went from May of ’03 to February of ’05. 00:27:33: DV: I, I graduated in December of ’03. JD: December of ’03. Okay. 00:27:37: DV: Yeah. JD: So still though. You, you’re talking it, it was a whole in between your missile training and graduation. 00:27:44: DV: Right. I, I, I was on, was in Vandenberg on casual for a little bit. JD: Okay. 00:27:48: DV: And then I was in, I did Space 100 starting in November, I believe. JD: Okay. That’s a little while and then you’re in the, in the actual training. Ry ight. Okay. 00:27:58: DV: And so, ’05. JD: February ’05. Yeah. 00:28:02: February of ’05 to, pardon me, to May of ’05 is the actual IQT training. Completed that. Graduate in or around June of ’05. And then I, I stayed in Vandenberg because they, the orderly room didn’t have my proper work for PRP, the Professional Reliability Program. I didn’t know I was supposed to check that program so the fault was somewhat of mine end and somewhat of the orderly room’s end. So I did not get to leave right away. One of the other big things about missiles is the Professional Reliability Program, PRP. And that’s with anything with missile, nuclear weapons, is required to be associated with that program. The idea behind that is there’s a next, it’s not just enough of a, having a security clearance. This is a different program to ensure that you’re able and re-responsible enough to. JD: Push the button. 00:29:01: DV: To handle nuclear weapons. And the idea behind that is that you’re not taking any sort of medications that might cause any problems or they might not be approved by PRP. And in that case you might have to take a different substitute medication or not be allowed to take the medication at all. That you’re not taking any substances that haven’t been cleared by PRP. That you are not visiting your doctor without letting your commander know for PRP purposes. So. JD: Almost like a mental health thing. 00:29:26: DV: (yes?). That’s part of it but it’s also just any sort of medical health. One of things that was always funny when I first started missiles was that Redbull was not PRP cleared. So people were not allowed to drink Redbull, until I want to say, ’07 or something like that. Because they didn’t know it had been PRP cleared. And so even vitamins had to be PRP cleared and so it was a very stringent program, which. And this is one of those things I wish I had when I was a second lieutenant. I didn’t read the regulation and I do know that there’s a lot, there’s, one of the interesting stuff in the military is, there’s a rule that says X. Where’s the reference? And then you look at the reference and it doesn’t say X. And a lot of times people will say that there’s a rule that says this or that. Not because it does say that, but because that’s what they think. And it’s that institutional superstition (word?) if you will. And so that was one of those things when Redbull was, wasn’t PRP approved and I’m. My commander told me that so I’m, my squadron commander told me that, so I’m ninety percent sure that Redbull wasn’t PRP approved. But I wonder if the regulations weren’t as stringent as people made them out to be. For whatever reason. But. JD: Right. Error on the side of caution, yeah. 00:30:36: DV: Yeah. But anyway my PRP work was delayed. And also one of the issues was, for nuclear weapons you had a, a checklist for the PRP program. And one of the questions they asked was “Do you have negative feelings towards nuclear weapons.” And my commander came in, the squadron commander at the time in Vandenberg came in and asked me about that. And I explained to him you know, “I do have a problem, I do have a negative view of nuclear weapons. These are very powerful, dangerous weapons that would, if used in a war will possibly destroy humanity. I have a very negative viewpoint of this. And I’m sure the same way that an infantry soldier who has never been in combat might have, a, trouble or challenge killing a person. I sort of have these reservations about nuclear weapons.” And he kind of listened to me and, he, he, you could tell that, this is also the commander who, who asked me if I had been drafted. And told me that, you know, in no uncertain terms, “Well I need to reassess what I’m thinking.” Listened to what he said, he’ll forward it to my squadron commander at, who, my future squadron commander at F.E. Warren, see what he has to say about this. But that he recommends that I resign this form. And I said, “Alright, I’ll resign it. I’ll check yes.” And I put, there was a comment sections, so I wrote in the comment section, “I believe that nuclear weapons are a necessary evil and that if called upon, I will follow the (loft?) orders of the, leaders appointed above me. But that I still have negative views to these weapons because of their destructive capabilities and what they will have.” And the commander said, “Alright. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll accept that.” And he was, I did not really frankly care for this commander at the time, my squadron commander at Vandenberg. But after I graduated they sent me to my paperwork and the commander at F.E. Warren seemed to have had no problem with me at the time. And with my amendment. And so he said that, “Yes we’ll take me out to his, to his squadron. No reservations or anything like that.” And that, that (word?) I actually got to meet him a while ago, he’s a very interesting individual. But anyway, I’ll focus back on the idea of training. So once I graduated, my PRP paperwork got delayed. I then had to go to air and space basic course at the Maxwell, Alabama was a, a lieutenant’s course for officers entering the air force to kind of, the idea is (reblueing?), kind of get everybody on the same page as they join the Air Force. So Academy grads, OTS grads, and ROTC grads all come together. Learn how the Air Force operates and it’s, it was, had been at the time, a six week course that was meant to kind of build teamwork and learn about leadership and things like that. JD: Right. 00:33:22: DV: I finished that course, got back to California and then my paperwork had been cleared and I went to F.E. Warren. I got to Warren, I had to sit around for a month and a half, not doing anything. And then I started my UQT, the Undergraduate Qualifying Training. JD: Hmmm. Now at this point, or I guess the sooner (word?) you had pretty good security clearance I imagine. 00:33:50: DV: Right. You need to have a, a top secret SCI. So top secret Secure Compartmentalized Information clearance. And. JD: That’s pretty high for, for a security clearance right? 00:34:01: DV: It’s kind of, it’s actually pretty basic. JD: Oh, really. 00:34:02: DV: There, it, it, there. So the sec-, there’s three security classifications, confidential, or technically four—unclassified, for official use only, confidential which could cause damage, or cause some damage to the United States if it’s released; secret, which would cause, or potentially cause damage; top secret, which would cause grave damage to the United States if it’s released. But then you also have caveats to those. And so that’s when you enter things like you can have something secret, no foreign, so you can’t give that to any foreign nation, or any sort of cleared allied power. So United Kingdom is the perfect example of that. I can have a document that’s secret, no foreign. I can’t give it to a British officer. But I can have a document that’s secret, (REL?), U.K., which is top secret. But if I have a cleared British officer who has a top secret clearance and has a need to know for that document, I can give him a top secret document, but I can’t give him a secret document. And so there’s different little caveats. There’s also human control, there’s (tele-key hole?) based on whether you can look at communication intelligence, whether you can look at signals intelligence or imagery intelligence. And different classifications human-control system where you can look at human intelligence. But that’s a lot of reports from C.I.A. officers and all that. So the top secret clearance is one of the highest, but it’s not the highest that the military has or that the U.S. government has. But yeah, you did have to have top secret clearance. That’s one of the things that delayed a lot of people from pulling missile, (nuke?) duty right away, was the top secret clearance. Because you can have an interim-top secret, which meant you had a top secret clearance under investigation when you went through training. But you couldn’t have a top secret, an interim-top secret to pull missile alert duty. So I sat around for about six weeks. I then started my missile training. JD: In Cheyenne. 00:35:54: DV: In Cheyenne. Which involved. JD: (Did you live?) on base? 00:35:58: DV: Uh, no, I [coughs]. Base was only open to officer’s that were married or had families. And in, Cheyenne’s one of the more desirable base housing because the housing on base is some of the oldest in the U.S. military. It was from Fort Russell when it was a army post. And it’s old brick buildings that were built from, some of them from 1906. And some of the, most of the houses were these large historic homes. Several thousand square feet. Three, four stories with servant quarters and (things?) like that. So you’d have these really, really nice houses in F.E. Warren. And they were pretty desirable. A lot of people wanted to, to live in those houses and so there was a huge waiting list. And the, the other challenge was some of (their?) houses had lead paint and issues with that. So they kind of had to put a stop on children’s staying in the houses and different issues. But I lived off-base in Cheyenne. Although a lot of people lived in F.E., or in Fort Collins, just because of location. And I spent, I did live, at one point, I did live down in Fort Collins. JD: Yeah, Fort Collins is a great town for sure. So how long before you actually went regular on duty? 00:37:17: DV: So after the initial, the uh UQT which was a couple of week, or a couple of weeks of in-classroom training and also. And one of the things I, I haven’t mentioned is testing. Now testing was a huge, huge focus on missiles. JD: Testing the missiles? 00:37:31: DV: No, no. Taking a multiple choice test. You had to take a multiple choice test. You did two multiple choice test every week. And I, I’m sorry, every month, you had to take (two? Three?) multiple choice test. One on codes, the, the code components for the missiles to avoid unauthorized launch. One on the weapons systems itself. So using your technical data to figure out different maintenance problems or different issues. And then you had to take on the emergency war orders. So how to decode a message, how to process these messages. Then they’d give you these really long scenarios simulating a war and you had to, on pen and paper, figure out what the scenario was going through and keep track of what stage of the war you’re at, what are you, the status of your missiles, things like that. And so you did these three tests every year, or every month. JD: To stay sharp I guess. They wanted to make sure nobody was losing their edge. 00:38:22: DV: Right. And the standard was you had to have a ninety to pass. No, no, no lower than a ninety. But the reality was (that?) you had to get hundreds. And that was kind of the perception that if you weren’t getting hundreds, you were doing something wrong. JD: So they’d just like bump you down to go back into training if you screw something, screw up one of the exams. 00:38:38: DV: Right. You’d have, you’d, you have to go with additional training. You’d have to get additional classroom time. And you had those, plus you had a simulator ride every, every month, where you again, practice use-using your checklist and processing emergency messages. Making sure that you were able to process messages on time and meet the standards they had established for the missiles. And so I, I did a couple of weeks of UQT. Then I did a, an upgrade sequence which is basically a trainer ride every, a simulator ride, every day for about a week and a half. And then I had a final checkout where they said, “Yea” or “Nay”, whether I would pull missile duty. And then I had to give a (EWO?) briefing, so talk about each, each of the messages that I could put (in touch and receive?). What each message did to either my squadron commander or the operations, director of operations, who is essentially the second command of the squadron. And then I had to have a PRP meeting with the commander. So kind of a meet-and-greet, kind of talk about any sort of issues that come up on PRP. Which that’s when the squadron commander, this is a new squadron commander who did not, who was not the one that had approved me to come out to Vandenberg, to F.E. Warren. Had read my, my reference and my note about ICB-about missiles and nuclear weapons. And I said that they’re a necessary evil. He looked at me kind of confused by that statement. I said, “You’ve never heard the phrase, ‘necessary evil?’” And told me, “Evil? When I hear evil I think of Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers. I don’t think of nuclear weapons.” And I felt that he didn’t realize that I was using a common phrase. And I kind of explained myself a little bit. And he kind of accepted that and decided, “Okay. Alright, I’ll let that, I’ll let that slide.” JD: Interesting. Huh. 00:40:26: DV: But yeah. So he, he, I did that. And then I also had a code briefing. So kind of the same as the (EWO?) briefing. I had to talk about all the code components and how they functioned and how they work. And then once I did all that, then I was allowed to pull my first nuclear alert. And that was in November of 2005. JD: Right. 00:40:46: DV: So it was a pretty long, long process in that there was a lot of bureaucratic paper work that needed to be checked off on. And then once I started pulling alert it, a schedule of what they call (eight-note?). So you pull a eight twenty-four hour nuclear alerts. And in addition to the training that you had and the [cough] pardon me, and the simulator. And while I was there, their unit had failed an inspection. And because, as I mentioned earlier, the repercussions that can go all the way up the chain of command for failed inspections, they instituted a policy called P-5 which was essentially a study hall, which you had to come on your day off and sit in the briefing room, studying your T-Os to make sure that you’re doing work and studying. Which got very old fast because you’re very limited on your days off. And when I say you worked eight days a month, you think, “Oh that’s not too bad.” But the fact that you had to drive out on, for. On Monday you drove out to a site in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, Colorado, or Nebraska. Drive out to that site. JD: So from Cheyenne, you would go to Nebraska? 00:41:59: DV: Yeah. JD: Holy cow. 00:42:00: DV: So went to, there were sites. So the, there was three missile squadrons. The 3-19th, the 3-20th, and 3-21st at F.E. Warren. The 3, 3-19th sites were primarily in Wyoming and a couple in Colorado in the tri-border region. The 3-19th sites were primarily in Nebraska and a couple in Colorado. And the 3-21st, which was where I was assigned to, was primarily in Colorado and Nebraska. JD: Dang. 00:42:29: DV: And so there were sites all over. The, the ones I was familiar with were Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, and Oscar. Kilo was near Kearney, Nebraska. Lima was near Ster-not Sterling. Can’t remember where Lima was. JD: Hayes? 00:42:52: DV: Hays, yeah, Hayes. Mike was near Sterling, Colorado. Nove—Mike was the furthest site, that was a two-hour drive and for some, whatever reason, we always sent out new deputies and new crews out to Mike; it was a two-hour drive. Oscar was in (Nieramer?). And November was, I cannot remember [clears throat], pardon me, can’t remember where November was, but it was near a Nunn, Colorado. But point being. JD: (Did you take a?) commercial vehicle out there? 00:43:26: DV: You’d, what you’d do is. So actually I’ll, I’ll take a step back and talk about alert real quick. So what would happen is you would come in 0-600. You’d go to a vehicle barn where the transportation troops. JD: They’re in Cheyenne on base? 00:43:41: DV: They’re in Cheyenne at F.E. Warren where the transportation troops would check you out a Ford F-350 pickup truck. You’d take that pickup truck. JD: Crew cab? 00:43:49: DV: Crew cab yes. You’d inspect it. One of the big things was because, again war on terror, was inspect your vehicle, make sure that there were no bombs or explosive devices or anything like that attached to your vehicle. Check out the vehicle, make sure that everything was according to was, was as required. There was a first-aid kit in the back, make sure the first-aid kit was in place. Make sure everything in the car was operational. Get in the vehicle, drive to a, a designated parking spot. Go inside, go to a mission brief, a pre-mission briefing—pre-departure. Then go to the pre-departure briefing. There was two, there was one with a squadron commander and there was one with the group commander. The squadron commander briefing was to say what site you were going to, who you were going out there with, what maintenance you had at the site, what you saw was going to happen, and to just kind of get a standard situational awareness of what was going on in missile field that day. Then the briefing with the group commander was essentially everything you went over with the squadron commander except the weather officer, the maintenance officer, or actually not an officer, but a briefer from either the weather shop, for the maintenance shop, for the civil engineering shop, and potentially from the code shop, would come in and brief any sort of major issues that were going on at that time. If there was nothing else, you would then go pick up your vehicle. You could potentially have to pick up a chef, FM. The chef being the, the person would cook for you at the missile sight. The FM, the facility’s manager was the chief, the senior enlisted officer, or the senior enlisted member that would be in charge of the missile alert facility. JD: How many people are going out? Because, I, this is a whole crew shift. Or shift change I guess, more or less. 00:45:30: When you had a shift change with a chef and FM, it would be four people. When you had a shift change where it was just a crew and, the, the chef and FM would stay out there for about five days. The crews would be swapping out every twenty-four hours. And so generally the crews would be going out on their own, but sometimes would have to pick up a chef or FM. They would then drive out to the fac-the mission site unless they had to pick up any sort of food or supplies on base, such as linen. And they would drive out to the site, anywhere from one to two hours. Get to the site. You’d have to be processed onto the site. It’s a procedure where you had a call sign, had to say how many people were in your, in your party. They would verify that off a order that would come from the dispatch. JD: This is like at the gate to this facility? 00:46:20: DV: At the gate to the facility. If it was, if you were approved to come on site, they would open the gate for you. If they weren’t, if you weren’t, you’d have to wait on-site if there was any bureaucratic challenge to the paperwork. Once you got on site, you would park your vehicle, you would, and the missile alert facility, it’s essentially, looks like dorm room in the middle of nowhere, with a big, barbed-wire fence. There was a secure (SFC?) office, which is the Security Forces Officer, and he kind of had overall security control for your missile, the, the, for your missile site. And there were, there were. They were numbered one through eleven. One being the (MAF?), the Missile Alert Facility. Once you got on site, you had to show your military I.D. to the, to the (FC?), who was in his office, the, the (advanced?) security officer. He would look at that and decide if there was any discrepancy or not. A couple of times people were, had to be escorted off-base because of transposed letters or misspelled names things like that. Everything had to be perfect. If not, you would have to go off-site and either wait for them to send a new (maido?) or go, or return to base for whatever reason. Once that was done, then you’d potentially go, put in order in for food and go back into the (FC’s?) office. JD: So it’s about lunch, lunch time or something I guess. 00:47:38: DV: Right, for lunch or for dinner. For lunch, dinner, and breakfast. JD: Right. Go in to the (FC’s?) office, talk to the crew downstairs. If there’s any issues, if not, you would go downstairs. And the crew would have this big, elaborate checklist to process you down into the capsule. Once you got downstairs, you preferred checkouts in one of the, in the, essentially the, the emergency room—the LCEB, which is where they had a diesel engine and a air-regeneration unit to process in case there was a power outage or anything like that, the missile site would still have power. Because most missile sites were hooked up to the power grid. But if for whatever reason, power went out, which in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska in the winter, that sometimes happens. You had a diesel engine to power you during the winter. And then you checked out the engine room, everything looked kosher, you went into the capsule and you performed a change-over where you inventoried all the class (night?) information which something on the order, like a hundred pieces of classified documents and information. Key tapes, so communication, punch cards, things like that. Once you did, you processed all that, you then would change over the crew, get a quick briefing and the crew would be on, on their way. So it could take anywhere from, to get on, to get on-site and get downstairs would take anywhere from half an hour to three hours. And I changed over once with the lieutenant colonel and it took five hours. JD: From when you came to the gate to when you actually got down into. 00:49:03: DV: Right, right. JD: Gee-whiz. 00:49:07: DV: And so after that was done, you would then inspect the capsule, inspect all the systems. Calibrate the radios, make sure everything downstairs was in order. And once that was done, you would then just main-monitor the sights. And on alert, you could have retargeting. So if Offutt decided that they needed to have you retarget any of your missiles, they would send you. JD: Who? 00:49:29: DV: Offutt. Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska. That’s where (word?) command’s located. And they would send you targeting data to your missiles and you would go and perform targeting and up, upload the targets from your computer system. You’d also potentially have maintenance on-going on-site. And when’s there maintenance, you’d have to do security procedures, authentication, every half hour, hour, or in some cases fifteen minutes. You also had to monitor for any intruder alarms. So there was two zones, the inner zone, the outer zone. If something were to come across the, this motion detector on sight, it would set off an alarm and you would get it downstairs. And if that happened, you had to call the (FSC?) and say that we just had a certain security situation. There was a, a coded ma-matrix of what security situations were. And once you made those calls, you then would perform certain action, checklist steps, on your, on your alert status. But (for?) the most part, not a whole lot was going on so a lot of times you would watch, a lot of people watched t.v. A lot of people would do school work, get Master’s degrees, things like that. And alert was one of those things it could be very, very chaotic and busy or it could be very, very boring. JD: So this is a twenty-four hour shift. 00:50:56: DV: It’s a twenty-four hour shift. JD: How many people? 00:50:57: DV: It’s two people, a crew commander and a deputy. The, the idea of being the, the commander would have a year or more experience. The deputy would have, would just have just, just gotten to (point) system alert from Vandenberg. The challenge though with this was that there was a situation where we didn’t have a lot of deputies, or a lot of commanders. And because the pipeline, the training pipeline was broken by, one of the group commanders had a problem with inspection coming up and so he froze the pipeline to prevent any sort of mistakes from occurring during his tenure. It ensured that the wing, the group was operating at a very-high proficiency that prevented the commander from looking bad. But it broke the pipeline down for when he left. So we had a lot of deputies and very few commanders. And so commanders actually ended up going at some points 9 and 0 and 10 and 0 alerts at month. Ten alerts a month because there was so few of them and they couldn’t train deputies up because you needed a commander to train a deputy. JD: Right. 00:51:58: DV: And the idea was that the commander, you, you’d be paired with a commander. They would train you for a, six months to a year. And when you get to a certain point then you would train to become a commander. And because this pipeline broke down, I unofficially didn’t get a steady commander for my first year on alert. And so I kind of floated around between a bunch of different commanders, which can be both positive and negative. It just doesn’t have that continuity. And that happened to a lot of the crew members that were pulling alert when I was starting out. And so that was, that, that’s what a, a crew would be composed of. JD: Right. 00:52:32: DV: And then they had a, a very bright idea of doing three day alerts. And so instead of being out there for twenty-four hours, you would be out there for three days. And. JD: With just two people? 00:52:42: DV: Three people, it would be three people. And. JD: So did you guys take like twelve hour shifts or something? Or? 00:52:47: DV: It depended on what was going on. And it depended on what was going on and the commander. Some commanders would do, and especially if you were paired off with this person for a, for a significant portion of time. You’d take the night shift one, one go-around. I’ll take the day shift. This, this alert. Then we’ll switch back and forth so that way you, you—during the day you see a lot more activity because that’s when maintenance is actually at the site, things like that. At night, not as much is going on. And some commanders would not trust their deputies and would let them only at the night shift because they didn’t want to take that risk. And that, that was one of the things missiles created, in my opinion, a, a very—and I’ve heard this from other officers in the Air Force. It creates a very risk-inverse community. It creates a very hierarchal, rule-bound community where if they’re not given permission or if they’re not allowed, you know, explicitly told that they can do something, they won’t deviate from the rules or use initiative. And so it, it really depended on, on the commanders. And some commanders really cared about training their deputies and making sure that they learn. And other commanders could have cared less and didn’t really put an effort or emphasis on that. JD: Hmm. 00:53:55: And so it, it’s, it’s very, it’s very dependent upon what the commander was, on what commander you had and their personality and their style. JD: So what was the craziest thing that happened while you were on watch. 00:54:04: DV: [sighs] JD: Would you ever get the random, like, unexpected training alert that maybe you wouldn’t know until partway through that this is just a drill or? 00:54:11: DV: No, that’s one thing I actually get asked that a, a fair bit. There, there’s not a War Game scenario. I know the movie War Game there’s that scene in the beginning of the movie where they get the launch order, “Oh my god.” And, “Sir, twenty percent of our (crews?) wouldn’t launch” and that’s why they use (whopper?). That never happens. And I’ve never heard of it having happened. There’s been a lot of, I mean there, there’s been a lot of crazy stories. There’s been a lot of you know the, the (word?) of the different missile stories. I know this one colonel where, I respect highly, he went on (to be a?) wing commander, told me the story about why missileers were no longer allowed guns. JD: Right, yeah. 00:54:50: DV: There’s three stories. First, when, when they’re driving out to the missile field in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska and Wyoming, they notice that signs and things were all shot-up so they started playing target practice in the pick-up trucks. So they said, “No. You can’t do that anymore, you need to keep inventory of your bullets.” And so that, that was the first time they took away, the, the first rule that they put on missiles for gun. The other time we had a guy that was playing quick-draw down the capsule. And this was again before my time. But I was told about these stories. He was pulling quick-draw in the capsule. Pulls the gun, shoots it off, bullet ricochets all over the capsule. They freak out, try looking for a, for the shell, can’t, for the slug, can’t find it. Call their buddy in, say, “Bring us another bullet to put in the inventory. We’ll ignore it and pretends it never happened.” During a nuclear (security?) inspection when the D.O.E., it’s the five inspection that happens every year. They had an inst-an inspector who was 6’7” so he was most taller than most people in the capsule. And he looked up over the, one of the carpets on the capsule and said, “What’s this?” and pulls a slug out. And that had a huge repercussions. But then the, the final story of why missileers where no longer allowed to carry pistols was during a change-over, you had these massive blast doors. They’re doors, they’re meant to survive a nuclear explosion. They’re something like four feet thick and they’re very hard to open and close. So. JD: Does it take two people to do it? 00:56:19: DV: You could, one person could do it. One person could do it but they’re still very large, heavy doors. And so one crews coming down the elevator from upstairs, the (FEC’s?) office. And the (FEC?) to be a joker, dropped some fireworks. And fireworks go off. One crew member, the, the crew that’s currently on-duty, the deputy is opening the door, hears the fireworks. He hears the fireworks, is spooked, and hits his head on this blast door, cuts it open, blood starts gushing out of his head. At the same time that the fireworks are going off. So the on-coming crew is, is descending down the stairwell. They see a deputy with blood gushing out of his head, falling down. And the crew commander looks and sees the on-coming crew coming in. And his initial thought is, “They just shot my deputy.” And so he pulls his gun and starts shooting at the on-coming crew. The on-coming crew sees the deputy falling with blood gushing out of his head, hears the fireworks, and then sees the crew commander pull his side-arm and starts shooting at them. And they freak out and start running upstairs. And so I’ve been told by this colonel that that’s why missileers were no longer allowed to carry guns downstairs. And part of it of course, the idea behind it is that the Russians would have overwhelmed the capsule and all you have left is this pistol to fight off the, the invaders. But and again, these are the, the stories you hear on, on point alert. As far as craziest thing I saw going on alert, I did take part in a couple fires, downstairs in the capsule. JD: In the capsule, the fire (word?). 00:57:59: DV: There were, I, I dealt with three fires. Two in the capsule and one in the LCB, the engine where the, the diesel engine is. So I was sitting downstairs, me and my commander. There was, they were performing maintenance on our capsule. And there was a, it’s an (air regeneration unit?), EACU inside the capsule to keep all the computer systems cool because these are really old, large 1980s computer systems. (The?), this system was designed in the seventies and eighties so they require a lot of cooling because they generate a lot of heat. And so it’s, this cooling system. And we’re sitting there waiting because the maintenance team is outside of our capsule. And all the sudden we start smelling a burning smell kind of. And I’ve smelled burning electronics before. I said, “That’s an electrical fire.” And she was a little hesitant on that. It’s like, “I don’t think so, I think we’re fine.” And we started smelling it, and it starts getting worse, and we start seeing a little bit of smoke coming out. I was like, “Yeah, that’s a fire.” And the problem was that we did not have our primary cooling system. We were on the emergency cooling, it’s, the EACU is the Emergency Air Cooling Unit. And so we were on the emergency air cooling unit. The primary air cooling unit wasn’t available. So if we shut down this, this emergency unit, we wouldn’t, we’d had to have shut down the capsule. JD: Wow. 00:59:13: And so she was very hesitant to do that. And so eventually she said, “No, no we’ll, we got to shut it down.” I, I told her we have to shut it down, so we shut it down. The second fire I took part in, I was downstairs. It was like two in the morning. JD: So, like when you shut down that cooling, the system then that meant that all of those missiles maintained by that system, by, by your group, they were completely offline. 00:59:33: DV: Right. So we had to transfer our control to another capsule. JD: Oh so they, they could still control the missiles. 00:59:38: DV: Right, and. And this is one of the challenges. I mean, it’s one of those things, I could show you a picture on a diagram and it would totally make sense. I could try to explain it, it’s very hard to capture this but. Those five sites would each be in charge of ten missiles. And if one of those sites went down, they could transfer their missiles to one of the other five sites. JD: Right. Even at a very remote distance. 00:59:58: DV: Right. Well they’re, they’re all interconnected. And all of the computer systems were interconnected. So that they had that redundancy. And the idea behind. JD: So theoretically one could do all of them. 01:00:05: DV: Right. Except you need to have two launch (boat?) to actually launch a missile. JD: So you have to have two separate. 01:00:11: DV: (word?). Two separate sites. Or you could have a situation where the (abincab?) plane, which is a actual plane out of Tinker Air Force base, would fly up and send out a launch (boat?) over radio. JD: Oh. Like if the president had to do it or something. 01:00:25: DV: If the president had to, or if, if for whatever reason, you, you’re the only capsule remaining, you could try to radio this plane and say, “Hey, this is Lima-1. We’re the only site left. We need (abincab?) support. But. JD: A lot of really dire-end of the world situation training you guys do (out there?). 01:00:44: DV: Right, right. So we, we transferred our, our timeslots of the missiles to a different, to a different capsule. So the, the missiles were still under control, but we had to shut down our capsule. JD: Gotcha. 01:00:55: DV: The other one, other fire I was involved in was in, in LCB. It caught on fire, I got a fire alarm indicator, had the FM up and say, “Hey we got a fire alarm down here.” And he had to run down. One of the things about the LCB was that the diesel was on fire. They were told, “You’re not going to be able to fight, fight that. Get upstairs. The capsule crew will button-up, hope for the best. And firefighters will come in and fight it.” JD: From two hours away. 01:01:24: DV: Right. I mean. JD: Because they only send Air Force firefighters I’m sure. 01:01:27: DV: There, no. There were, there were procedures in place to have the local firefighters from the different towns come in and there were different procedures based on emergency conditions. But those never really got put to the test while I was out there. I don’t know how, how well they would have worked. But that was the first fire. Luckily it wasn’t as, the diesel wasn’t on fire, so. I don’t know, I can’t really remember what was on fire, but it just required a fire extinguisher and he was able to get it put out pretty, relatively unscathed. And the other time, we had these battery packs under the capsule in case we ever had to go onto emergency power where they destroyed, the diesel wasn’t working. You still had some battery power to power the computer systems. And one of those caught on fire. JD: Huh. That’s a lot of fires. 01:02:08: DV: That was a lot of fires. I, I, I had. I, I, I definitely had more fires than most of the other crews. And it was one of those things, it was luck of the draw. It was really luck of the draw. I remember there was one commander who she, and how, however many alerts she pulled was very dependent upon a different number of scenarios. She only pulled a hundred alerts, she saw no contingency situations. She didn’t do anything essentially. Her alert schedule was just boredom and reading. And I saw other people who’s alerts, who pulled three hundred alerts, if not more, and they had fires and they had sorts of issues and had all sorts of problems. And it was just one of those things, that it seemed like people, some people would curse, some people would (charge?). JD: [chuckle] Geez. 01:02:49: DV: Based on the prob, on, on the probabilities and all that. But. JD: How long were you a missileer? 01:02:53: DV: I did. I got, I started pulling alert on November of 2005 and I got out May of ’09. JD: May of ’09, right. 01:03:01: DV: Right. So just. JD: Got out of the Air Force or got out of missileers? 01:03:03: DV: Got out of missiles and got out of the Air Force. JD: Gotcha. Okay. 01:03:06: DV: (Got back to?) duty. Air Force duty. And I, I, yes I (separated?) from the Air Force in May of 2009. JD: What was your reason for that? 01:03:13: DV: I decided. JD: If you had one in particular. 01:03:15: DV: One of them was, I mean the big one was I did not like the career field. And I tried talking to my commander, finding out if there was a way to change missiles, or go into a different career field. And he told me, “Nope.” That “you’re stuck in missiles and there, there’s no way to get out of space or missiles.” JD: So you did it almost four years. 01:03:28: DV: Almost four years, right. And I had a service commitment of four years. So. JD: Right, right. That counts training time right? 01:03:35: DV: That does count training time. Well, yes, but you, you incur a two year commitment for training time. And then I also, I got a Master’s degree while I was on-duty and so that incurred, that added an additional year to my service commitment. So my, my service commitment ran out in 2008 and I stuck around slightly longer based just on timing, so that. And my motivation was to get out of active duty because I didn’t particularly care for the career field I was in. And I was. I saw very limited growth opportunity (to?) places to go. And I wanted to go in to academia and get my Ph.D. in History. And I did research into the reserves and discovered that I could cross-train as intelligence if I joined the reserves. And so that’s why I went down that route and got out of missiles. And. That, that was the motivation for (being?) out of active duty. And. JD: Did you get promoted in the, in, what, from second? 01:04:28: DV: Yeah, I got promoted to first lieutenant after two years into the service. So in January of ’06. And then I got promoted to captain in January of ’08. And so getting promoted to lieutenant captain, first lieutenant captain weren’t a hundred percent automatic but it’s something like a ninety-plus percent promotion right, so it’s a very, very abnormal to not be promoted at that, that point. JD: Right. 01:04:53: DV: And again at that time when I was going through, there was a high promotion rate. There was also however a (foreshaping?) board when I was going through where they, and, and the Air Force—and this is a militarism—where they have things called like foreshaping, RIF—reduction in force—and other terms. And essentially they’re lay-offs. They’re cutting down the force and they’re laying people off. And when I was going through, there was, my year group went through three of those layoffs. Luckily I never got, I never got tagged with being laid off. But that was something that existed. That was something that was out there. JD: So you got out after how many years total? 01:05:32: DV: Total service was five. JD: Five years. Are you in any sort of retirement for five years? Or is it not enough to (word?)? 01:05:39: DV: You don’t get, you only require for retirement after twenty. Unless you’re medically retired for any reason. JD: Right, right. And then immediately went over to the reserves? 01:05:48: DV: Yeah, yeah. My, I got out May 25, I joined the reserves in May 26. JD: Right, okay. So sometime in March you found (you’d?) been accepted to A&M. 01:05:56: Right. JD: And. Had you already, I’m assuming by that point you already planned to get out. 01:06:02: DV: Yeah. JD: And I, I guess paperwork takes a little while anyway so. 01:06:05: DV: You have to give six months’ notice. JD: Oh geez. [chuckle] 10:06:08: DV: So I gave my notice in November of ’08 and they approved it, and it, they, they authorized me for separation in May of ’08. JD: Right. And you moved to Aggieland. 01:06:19: DV: In summer of ’09, July of ’09. JD: Right. 01:06:23: DV: I, actually I’m sorry, August ’09. I came out July of ’09, did house hunting, looked around, and then I came out in August ’09. JD: And you and Jen were married by that point right? 01:06:32: DV: Right. JD: Yeah, right. And so you (spent?) a lot of time in Lockland, San Antonio for, for the intelligence stuff for the reserves. 01:06:40: DV: Actually the, the intelligence training I went through in 2010 and it was actually in San Angelo at Goodfellow Air Force base. That’s where the air force has their primary intelligence training, both for officer and enlisted. JD: So you went straight over as a captain into the reserves. 01:06:58: Yes. JD: I guess there’s no, (FC?) come, come over as, and you were able to say, “Look active duty this, but I want to do this,” you know, “I want to go intelligence instead.” 0107:07: DV: Right and my supervisor. He, it’s with the space unit ironically enough, he saw my background in space and missiles and decided to pick me up as a intelligence officer just because it’s easier to, be-because the, the way space operates and the idea of space operations. It’s harder to get somebody that’s been aircraft operations (to?) understand how space operates than somebody who’s been a space operator to understand how intelligence works and support intelligence. And so that’s why I made that transition into intelligence, working for (JFC Space?), the Joint Functional Component Command Space which is a, a command of U.S. (Draft com?) and it’s actually headquartered also on Vandenberg Air Force base in California. JD: Gotcha, okay. So you spent a lot of time in California, not, not San Antonio. 01:07:51: DV: Right. I, I did. I was in San Antonio, or not San Antonio, I was in San Angelo for six months for Intel training—intelligence officer, intelligence officer’s training course. And then I went to Vandenberg for my, my primary job and work there. JD: Right. And now you do the two weeks of summer. How does it go? Two weeks in? 01:08:11: DV: Right, well, okay so in the reserves there’s traditional reservists who are, what, what you normally hear about, which is one weekend a month, two weeks a year. You also have IMAs, Individual Mobilization Augmentees. And instead of doing two weeks a, one weekend in a month, two weeks a year, they do that time thirty-six days a year, based on their units’ needs. And it’s more, it’s meant to fill active duty units and support them at certain times of increased operation tempo. So if there’s an exercise a lot of times IMAs will come in and support exercises or if there’s a point when there’s going to be officers on leave, such as the chief of staff’s going on leave or the flight commander’s going on leave. You bring an IMA in to kind of cover that time period and offer a bit of a stop-gap. JD: Okay, so you’re with an active-duty unit. 01:09:01: DV: Right. JD: And you just come fill in when they need, when they (could?) use your help or something like that. 01:09:03: Right. JD: That’s got to be an interesting dynamic because the people you’re, you’re, they’re doing things full time. And then you come in sporadically. But I imagine that adds a little bit of con-continuity though. 01:09:13: JD: It, it does have, there, there’s some continuity challenges. One of the other things is, so on the downside there’s the continuity, you’re not on the job as much. You only have, compared to an active duty guy who’s doing (his?) hundred percent, you only have thirty-six days so you’re only essentially doing ten percent of the time. But there’s a continuity in that because you’re in the same unit, you’re not moving every two years, you can develop a more-depth of knowledge with that unit. And you can support their mission and work there and develop a, a more structured and focused mission. And that’s one of the advantages of that. And also one of the downsides, and this is a militarism, is additional duties. And you, I’m sure if you talk to any military officer, any member of the military and ask them about additional duties. It’s these (insularly?) programs such as the voting officer or the information assurance officer or the intelligence oversight or there’s a plethora of different (little?) additional duties. Which. JD: Sure. It’s bureaucratic service type stuff. 01:10:09: Right. And they’re not part of your actual mission, but they’re part of the unit’s requirement and the need. JD: Somebody’s got to do it. 01:10:15: DV: And somebody has to do it. And they eat up a lot of time. Being a reservist, you don’t have those additional duties and so it’s an advantage that you can focus just on the mission and you can just have that laser beam focus, jump in right away and get working right away and there’s no lag time or training period, or anything like that. So that’s some of the advantages with the reservists that they have, especially when they come on, they come on active duty orders, they can just focus on their one job and task. And that’s also, also full-time reservists who their main mission is to develop training programs and have a continuity for the reservists that come in one weekend a month, two weeks a year. JD: Gotcha, gotcha. 01:10:57: DV: So that’s kind of the structure there. JD: So you’ve been with your unit four years now? 01:11:00: DV: It’ll actually be, it’s been five years. I joined (in?) ’09 so I’ve been with them five years. And it’s been an interesting transition from intelligence to, or from space and missiles operations to intelligence. It’s very, I, I find that more of a rewarding career field in the intelligence (community?). JD: Yeah. And recently you’ve made major. 01:11:22: DV: That’s correct. JD: Yeah. Congratulations. How does going to grad school, you know working on a Ph.D. at A&M in History, correlate with being in the intelligence (word?). I, I imagine they’re pretty thrilled with you doing that. 01:11:35: DV: There’s a lot of overlap. I mean, have, one of the things, effective, have effective written and communication and oral skills for intelligence jobs is kind of a prerequisite for being a History Ph.D. and working as a graduate student. So there’s a lot of overlap. Being able to do large amounts of co-, tedious research and being able to process massive amounts of information and documents and present that into a coherent picture, is very helpful and very applicable to both jobs. Also doing military and diplomatic history helps a great deal in the intelligence community and (steps?) to do. JD: Yeah, I imagine (you sort of?) plug into the, the grand sweep of things. It’s yeah, gives you a better perspective. Why did you choose A&M? 01:12:23: DV: Couple of different reasons. One is the strong reputation for (a?) military history program. JD: Right. 01:12:30: DV: Two was also the financial aid assistance they offered compared to other schools. And I, I mean, honestly, I think the big picture was just the military background, the military history focus that A&M has and, and the fact that they’ve got a strong reputation in that. JD: Right, right. Have you, don’t ask a leading question. How have you found the veteran community at A&M and I guess College Station in general. 01:12:56: DV: I haven’t had a great deal of interaction, I haven’t had too much interaction with the veteran community. One of the challenges of course is that I have, during my time in military, I’ve never gone overseas. I have supported, especially in, in my work as an intelligence officer, I have supported overseas mission things like that. And I, I can see areas where I’ve had direct role in that, but I haven’t actually deployed overseas or anything like that and so I haven’t connected in that aspect as much with the veteran community. I have talked with a couple of, the, the veteran resource center, I’ve, I’ve spoken with them and I’ve helped them out a bit. And they’ve been very welcoming and very open and so I have seen a pretty positive veteran outreach among A&M, especially I think within (like?) the past two years or so, there’s been a, a definite increase in veteran. And it might be just be that I’ve noticed that at the time and not really anything’s changed, I’m not sure. One thing I will say, A&M’s been very supportive when I’ve had a couple of reserves call-ups and very helpful. The, the faculty and the administration at A&M has been very open to that. The veteran coordinate they have at the registrar’s office has been very helpful and the process of having to withdraw from classes because of military service is almost completely transparent. So they’ve been very, very strong in that, in that regard. JD: Hmmm. That’s interesting. Although I imagine with this big university as this is and the, the emphasis on veteran education in general, there’s probably a lot of, that probably happens quite a bit so they probably deal with it quite often. Yeah. 01:14:31: DV: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely imagine (it?). But I, I would say, you know, it’s the support the. And I have no complaints about the veteran’s resource center or the veteran’s affair’s office in the registrar’s office or anything like that, so I’m across the board happy with how A&M functions and its support of veteran. JD: Yeah. Cool. So what’s the plan for the future, how long do you’d stay in the reserves? Or do you think you’d ever go active again? 01:14:56: DV: Well I, it, it, really it depends. With, with the reserves it depends on whether there’s any jobs available and that’s one of the things compared to active duty. With active duty, you sort of apply for your jobs, but it’s very, it’s not very transparent and you don’t really get to have a say where you’re going. With the reserves, there’s more, we have a position open at a base somewhere, you can apply for that position. And sometimes they’re full-time, sometimes they’re part-time. So I would be happy to apply to a full-time reserve position if I can find that, depending on if it’s the right fit for me and for the unit. And I definitely intend to stay in the reserves until I, I make my twenty years (for?) retirement and after that. JD: The contracted (to do that?) too right? 01:15:42: DV: They count (the actual time?) for that. JD: So how, what do you got in now? What, nine, ten years? 01:15:45: DV: Ten years. (Yeah?), I, I’ll have eleven years in January. JD: Wow. 01:15:50: DV: And the one thing about the reserves though, you do not qualify for retirement until age sixty. JD: Wow. 01:15:56: DV: However, based on your ac-, how much time you spend on active duty or if you get called up on orders, they reduce your reserve time from sixty, by thirty, ninety day increments depending on, on if you’re on orders for ninety-day periods. And so mine’s been reduced. JD: So you’re active time counts a lot against that. 01:16:15: DV: The active time does not, but your active time when you’re a reservist does. JD: Oh, oh, okay. 01:16:20: DV: So if you’re on the reserves and you’ve been on orders for ninety days, they’ll move your retirement age by ninety days. And so right now my retirement age has been moved by, I want to say a year and a half. A year and a half earlier which still fifty-eight, but that’s still better than having to wait too much longer. JD: Right, right. But you’d probably retire be, or get out of the reserves prior to your technical retirement (date?) right? 01:16: 45: DV: Uh. I, honestly I haven’t really given it that much thought. One of the nice things, another nice thing about the reserves is you can stay in until you hit the sixty year maximum. JD: Oh really? 01:16:54: DV: So, yeah. So the-, there’s. A-, as long as you’re, you’re not, not having problems with making rank, you can stay in until you, until a certain age. So they’re, they’re, they’re very open, not open, but they’re very committed to letting people stay in. If they can still meet the standards and they’re still providing (a?) service. JD: What, how much left (have?) you got for promotion? I mean. It, it, it being a reservist. 01:17:27: DV: Well I just promoted to major, so I still have a ways, a couple of years till I meet my (word?) colonel four. JD: Of course. But, so as a reservist though, there, where, where’s the ceiling of that I guess? 01:17:28: DV: It depends. I, I think right now my ceiling probably be 0-5. Lieutenant colonel. JD: Gotcha. So one more step. 01:17:34: DV: One more step. The, a colonel’s also, always a possibility. But get, getting (in?)to higher rank, especially in the reserves, it’s a lot more limited. And one of the challenges with the reserves, about making rank, is having to be with a reserve unit will make it a slightly easier process than if you’re a full-time, than if you’re an IMA. That’s one of the challenges (with?) IMA program. And one of the things they say about the IMA program, it stands for “I’m alone.” Because you, you’re somewhat limited on the support you get from different units compared to an (active?). JD: But if you’re able to pick up something full-time with intelligence, or I guess with history since you’re going (with?) Ph.D., it’d be a lot more consistency. 01:18:12: DV: Yeah. JD: (Alright?). You’d be, you’d be permanently there and it would be full-time. Yeah, so. So would that count for, would that make you move up faster then? With the retirement age? 01:18:23: DV: Uh, yes. It, if if you. And again this is one of the challenges because there’s full-time, there’s AGR, and ART, air-reserve technician and active guard reservists. And the idea with AGR is that you’re essentially no different from a full-time active duty body. You’re just in a reserve unit. And ART, you’re a civilian during the week, and then when you drill with your reserve unit, then you’re on orders and then you’re in (the?) military status. JD: Gotcha. 01:18:50: DV: But you’re still wearing the military uniform during the week when you’re in a civilian capacity as an ART. So it’s, it’s very, one of those complex structures and systems so. JD: Cool. So I guess now that, wow, in some respects war’s winding downward, quasi-done with Iraq, but maybe not. Do you feel that, you, you really, you, having seen the scope of the war in the Air Force and then also in the Reserves. Do you feel that you went the, the path that fit best for you? 01:19:25: DV: Yeah, I definitely think so. And one of the things, especially the Air Force is very big on is the idea of total force (word?). And the idea behind total force is that the active duty, air reserve, and air guard components, all have a part to play in Air Force efforts. And because the Air Force is cutting bodies again and going through layoffs and, and separating active duty members, the reserves have tried to step up and support these individuals and find a role for them and find a mission for them. JD: Really. 01:19:57: DV: And one of the, one of the areas is cyber. JD: Sure. 01:20:02: DV: Air Force cyber officers are and, and cyber-enlisted troops have a very big role to play, especially in the reserves and there, there was a couple of exercises this past summer, 2014, where they a active duty, a reserve team, and a civilian team. All competing in these kinds of military exercise scenarios of cyberwar. And the reservists were the ones that did the best job. JD: Really. 01:20:29: DV: And then came the civilians and then the Air Force active duty team was just completely lost. And the idea behind it was because the reservists are a full-time Silicone Valley employee, Monday through Friday, and then they’d learn the military piece over the weekend. They understand cyberwar and cyber domain in a much larger scope than the active duty side understands that. And that’s one of the things that the Air Force is trying to get a hold on is as, as the wars are drawing down, as they’re, as the military’s shrinking, the active duty military’s shrinking. The reserves are kind of trying to build up and prepare to kind of cover a lot of gaps that are being noticed because of this drawdown. And then also just because of the change in nature of conflict and warfare. The reserves have a part to play in that. And that’s kind of the, what, what I’m, I’m noticing is that big trend. And I can’t remember who said that, but a reserve general said that, “We have no problem recruiting top active duty talent that’s being separated.” JD: Right. Because (they’re?) so much cheaper to, to hang on to them. 01:21:32: DV: Yeah. I, I want to say it’s, General, Lieutenant General Welsh, but I’m not a hundred percent sure on that. But. So that’s one of the things I, I definitely see with that, that drawdown is that reserves have a part to play still. JD: Sure. Oh, of course. Right. Was there anything else you think you want to say? 01:21:50: DV: Not, not that I can think of I. JD: Cool. Well this is great. Thanks for coming in. 01:21:53: DV: Oh yeah, (no problem?). JD: So definitely, we’ll stop this here. JD: Okay we’re back with Dave Villar. He remembered a story. 01:22:00: Okay. I actually, I did, I did think of a story since you asked me that. For my closing remarks here. So I was pulling alert with this commander, he was a couple more, couple of months senior to me. And he was known as a bit of a, a joker. And. So we’re pulling alert and the, the on-coming crew is downstairs getting ready to come on down. And so. JD: No fireworks I hope? [chuckles] 01:22:23: DV: No fireworks. So I, I’m getting ready. I’m getting my clothes on because one of the things, you’d change into comfortable clothes. I used to wear jeans and a t-shirt, instead of the (Nomex?) flight suit because after twelve hours, or after twenty-four hours in a (Nomex?) flight suit you’d start to sweat and also you, (you know?) put pajamas on for when you slept because you did sleep downstairs in the capsule. So I, I’m getting my uniform on, I’m kind of combing my hair, getting dressed, getting my clothing together, getting my food, lunch, and all my stuff together, and my TOs and backpack and things like that. And I turn around and see the commander and I see a man in a pair of underwear, little bikini brief underwear, and a Mexican wrestler mask, running out of the capsule. JD: [Laughs] 01:23:16: DV: And he’s waiting for the oncoming crew and the oncoming crew starts coming down. And I, I. All of a sudden I, I look over, I see and I hear a [yell] as the commander jumped out in the Mexican wrestler mask in his underwear, tackles the oncoming crew, then runs back into the capsule, closes the door, changes into uniform, and opens the door back up and the oncoming crew and he’s like, “So what happened? You guys, you guys see a Mexican wrestler in there? We don’t know what happened!” The same commander, by the way, also did a similar. JD: How’s old this guy? 01:23:51: DV: He was forty-something. JD: Oh, geez. [chuckle] 01:23:53: DV: He, he had been prior service so he had, he had been in the Air Force for something like fifteen years and then commissioned as an officer. And then became a missileer. Did that for a while and then went on, I actually saw him this past summer. But he also, during Easter, did the same stunt, except it was in this big, pink Easter bunny outfit. JD: Oh my gosh. 01:24:15: DV: And at one point, they questioned his PRP status. JD: [chuckle] I imagine so. 01:24:20: DV: And he again decided to kind of pull a clinger and he put the Easter bunny costume and sat in the front of the squadron at, at the secretary’s spot for anybody that would walk in would see a big, giant, pink bunny. JD: Oh my gosh. 01:24:32: DV: But he was a bit of a joker. That’s one of things that missiles, you tried to do is, you know, the, the, job itself was very taxing. The leadership seemed very disconnected and kind of aloof at times. And so you had your, your crew partners and your crew commanders and you tried to make the best of it. JD: Right, yeah. 01:24:53: DV: So that’s one of the things that, you know, there was definitely a lot of, a lot of hijinks and a lot of jokes, but that was one of the, the more comical, interesting stories was the Mexican wrestling mask and the pink bunny. JD: So you had no idea this was happening? That this was gonna? 01:25:08: I did not realize that this was going to happen until I saw him run out into the, into the elevator shaft with a Mexican wrestler mask and a pair of bikini briefs and nothing. JD: [chuckles] That’s hilarious, I’m glad we got that.