November 14, 2007

About 30 business, political and media people from the Rome and Utica area went to Colorado Springs to tour the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) facility inside Cheyenne Mountain and the nearby Air Force Academy. The three day trip was organized by the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), based at Griffiss.

I kept a log during the trip. Excerpts:

WEDNESDAY
9 A.M. - People I’ll be traveling with are arriving at NEADS headquarters. I recognize several, including Jim Brown, Rome’s mayor; Ed Arcuri, who is building a hotel at Griffiss; Nick Matt, president of the Matt Brewing Company; Roger Sabia, Rome’s fire chief; Stephen Waters, publisher of the Rome Sentinel.

10:30 - Col. Clark Speicher, commander of NEADS, is giving us a briefing. NEADS, an Air National Guard unit that partners works with the regular Air Force, uses its radar to defend 1 million square miles of airspace in the northeast and cities including cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Col. Speicher says NEADS, which employs more than 400 full and part time people at Griffiss, has an economic impact on the local economy of $37 million.

1 p.m. - We are headed west on a C-130 cargo aircraft, tail number 0486, being flown by a crew from the 109th Airlift Wing based in Scotia. This is no airliner. The flight to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs will take us five hours. My traveling companions are either reading or napping. The high noise level makes normal conversation difficult.

4:30 p.m. - We are at Peterson AFB. Capt. Eric Wood was at the controls when we landed. A smoother landing I have never experienced. We will be hosted at dinner tonight by the Colorado Springs Military Affairs Group and the Chamber of Commerce.


THURSDAY
1 P.M. - We are in a bus on the way up a curving road to Cheyenne Mountain. In the distance I can see Pike’s Peak. This morning we were given a briefing by Paul Sullivan, a two star general, and other officers at NORAD’s headquarters at Peterson AFB. One officer said, “We would like to fight terrorism where they live instead of our homeland.” There’s an area inside the headquarters building where the walls are lined with pictures and newspaper front pages pertaining to September 11th. A sign states: “The photographs on this wall show both the terror and the valor of September 11th and its aftermath.” We ate lunch at the base’s Aragon Dining Facility with enlisted men and woman. I sat next to Randy Lund, a master sergeant. Like everybody else I’ve come in contact with, he is professional, personable and proud to be in the Air Force.

3 p.m. - We are deep inside Cheyenne Mountain. We had a group photo taken in front of the tunnel that leads into the mountain. A sign above the tunnel states: “Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station.” Construction began in 1956, at the height of the Cold War, and the mountain opened in 1966 as a defense against Soviet bombers and missiles. As instructed, we left our cameras and phones on the bus that brought us up the mountain. We went through two security checkpoints and a metal detector before getting on another bus that took us about a half mile into the mountain and dropped us off at the massive blast doors. We are told that the blast doors have been closed only once since the end of the Cold War. The doors were closed for four hours on September 11th. Outside the blast doors are guards armed with pistols and rifles. We have walked through a maze of tunnels and buildings constructed inside the tunnels. Everything is clean. We don’t pass many people in the halls. When you are in one of the buildings it’s like being inside any other military complex except for the fact there are no windows and the buildings are on huge springs designed to absorb a bomb blast. I could probably find my way out of this nearly five acre complex s inside the mountain but it would take I don’t know how long. We are told that no heating system is needed inside Cheyenne Mountain because the temperature is moderate and computers and other electrical equipment generate enough heat to keep the things comfortable. Thirty days worth of food and supplies are kept available. We get a briefing from an officer in a room called the Air Warning Center. Men and woman sit in front of equipment in the center 24/7, equipment from which they monitor what’s going on around the world. Cheyenne Mountain, like NEADS at Griffiss, is a partnership of the U.S. and Canadian air forces.


FRIDAY
1 p.m. - We are headed east and with a tail wind. Navigator Blair Herdrick says we should land at Griffiss about 5:30. This morning we had a tour of the sprawling Air Force Academy, consisting of 18,500 acres. The Academy is at an elevation of 7,300 feet. We talked to two cadets, one who has learned how to fly gliders and one who is on the parachute team. The Academy, we are told has a $350 million annual budget. What with Peterson AFB, Cheyenne Mountain and the Academy, no wonder Colorado Springs is booming.

6 p.m. - On the ground at Griffiss. The NEADS people thank us again for going on the tour. In fact, everywhere we went during the past three days Air Force people from enlisted to a two star general thanked us for being interested enough to listen to them and learn more about the Air Force in general and NORAD and NEADS in particular. And people on the tour made sure to thank them.

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Joe Kelly is the editor and publisher of The Boonville Herald & Adirondack Tourist and THE GRIFF.