Last updated: September 8, 2021
Person
Gary Overby
NPS MIMI 2676
Quick Facts
Significance:
Served as a U.S. Marshal missile escort working with the 44th Missile Wing in 1983.
Place of Birth:
Clear Lake, South Dakota
Date of Birth:
November 6, 1952
Gary Overby was born November 6, 1952 in Clear Lake, South Dakota, moving to Rapid City in 1959. Overby began his law enforcement career in the U. S. Army, serving in Vietnam then later working for Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, and eventually the U. S. Marshal Service. Beginning his career in the U. S. Marshal Service in the Sioux City, Iowa office in 1980, eventually moving to the Rapid City office in 1983 to begin missile escort duty. He recounts the basic duties and experiences he had over the year that he assisted the U. S. Air Force in transporting missiles through South Dakota. He later moved up through the ranks of the U. S. Marshal Service retiring as the agent in charge of the San Francisco Field Office in 1998.
Mr. Overby was interviewed for the park's oral history program in January 2007. Below are several excerpts from his interview.
When did you get involved with law enforcement, and then eventually the U.S.
Marshals Service?
In 1971, right after graduating from high school, I went into the United States Army. I volunteered for a two-year enlistment that included volunteering for Vietnam. I went to Fort Ord, California, where I was trained as an infantryman and sent to Vietnam in November of 1971. While there, I was eventually transferred from the infantry to the military police, which is where I obtained my interest in law enforcement. I came back to the United States in August of 1972, went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and was there until March 1973 as a military policeman.
Then I obtained a position as a park technician at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, with the National Park Service. I served at Mt. Rushmore as a law enforcement firefighter park ranger from 1973 to 1976. I then wanted to get more experience in law enforcement, so I obtained an appointment as a Pennington County Deputy Sheriff in Rapid City, South Dakota, and I worked for Sheriff Mel Larson in patrol for two years, and then school liaison, you know, juvenile delinquency type investigations for two years.
Then February 1980 I received my appointment as a Deputy United States Marshal. That was, of course, after spending almost a year and a half of a process of taking an examination and going through interviews, and so forth. When I became a Deputy United States Marshal, I went to Glencoe, Georgia, which is the home of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy, and I attended the eight-week basic criminal investigators course, and then I attended the basic Deputy United States Marshals course there. I graduated from both of
them and I was assigned to Sioux City, Iowa, to the U.S. Marshal's office for the northern district of Iowa in June 1980. I worked that assignment until May 1981, at which time I obtained a lateral transfer as a Deputy U.S. Marshal to the Pierre U.S. Marshal's office, and I served under Deputy U.S. Marshal in charge, Steve Turchek.
So in 1983, when an opening came up in the Deputy U.S. Marshal Missile Escort Program in Rapid City, I went ahead and applied for that opening. That would have been in the summer of 1983. I was able to obtain the appointment, and I transferred out from Pierre, South Dakota, to Rapid City, South Dakota, and I was assigned to the U.S. Marshal's office in Rapid City. I was one of two Deputy U.S. Marshals that were assigned to the Missile Escort Program for Ellsworth Air Force Base in their Missile Wing out there.
What was the history of the missile convoy escort program?
If I understand the history on this, in the early seventies the Air Force contracted with the U.S. Marshal Service to provide civilian law enforcement escorts for their convoys, to handle, for instance, reckless drivers, drunk drivers, or someone disturbing the peace or impeding the convoy, so that there would be a civilian authority that could take care of that. Well, the U.S. Marshal Service really fits the bill because they had a very broad authority in their jurisdiction, but it wasn't a large program as far as manpower. I believe at the time there was Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, then there was I think Minot and Grand Forks up in North Dakota, then Cheyenne [WY] and Montana and Missouri. But, in other words, if you start adding up the actual numbers of Missile Escort Deputies, it probably only came to around twelve maybe, or something like that.
How many times would you end up going out with convoys?
That would have been probably a couple times a week. It could be a little bit more depending on their work schedule. The reason for that is, that was dictated by the maintenance schedule. I always kind of thought it was a misnomer to call it the Missile Escort Program when in actuality we weren't escorting any missiles, they were already out there. What we were doing was actually escorting the nuclear warhead, and the weapons carrier—I imagine you've seen pictures of them, or maybe even have one there—was a big semitruck—trailer looking affair. So whenever the maintenance individuals, or the wing that was responsible for updating the warheads, whatever their schedule was, that was our schedule.
This was something else that people don't understand, I think civilians don't understand. When those missile fields were opened up, created and established in the 1960s, many civilians felt that all the Air Force did was pretty much insert their missiles and warheads and leave them there and go off to a launch facility and then conduct their operation. The reality is that those were highly technical pieces of equipment that needed to be tested, needed to be updated. In some cases they would rotate a fresh warhead and bring in the old one. The old one, of course, they would just, like an engine, overhaul it, do all your testing at the facility at Ellsworth Air Force Base, bring it up to all the specs, all the codes, make sure everything is working, and then put it in the inventory so that, let's say, H1 or H3 or B1, whatever silo is in next for an update in their maintenance schedule, they go out and put a fresh warhead on the missile. That's really the gist of what we were doing, making sure that those warheads got out there in a safe timely fashion, and that they were brought back in a safe timely fashion.
The people that did the actual work themselves would meet us out there. They weren't part of our convoy. They would travel their own route, so to speak. Either they'd meet us out there or they'd be out there right after we got there. We always called them the Red Hats because they always wore red ball caps. Of course, our convoy commander knew the people, and all the security protocol there was done between our convoy commander and the Red Hats when they would get together. My responsibility was mostly with the conveyance of the
convoy there and back, and then also the liaison with the law enforcement authorities as we were doing this work.
What was the procedure for a missile convoy esccort?
The Air Force would call our office in Rapid City and notify them that they had a convoy the next morning. So when I would get in, I would call and confirm. Usually, we would take the warhead out there, and sometimes we would wait and then we would bring the other one back. But there were times when we would maybe go straight out there because they were having an extended maintenance issue with the missile but they still needed to bring the warhead in.
So you didn't always know if you were going to do a one-tripper, if it was going to be a one-way going out or one-way coming back. But they would tell us the day before. We would normally know by about three in the afternoon the day before. Then what would happen was, our vehicle was kept out at the Air Force base, and I would take my private vehicle. I'd get up and I'd be out there by about five-forty, five-forty-five in the morning, and I would go to the motor pool. They were the ones that were responsible for storing and securing the U.S. Marshal's escort vehicle. Now, mind you, this is not a U.S. Air Force vehicle. It was a General Service Administration, their motor pool. I'd check it out, make sure that everything looked good. Then I'd leave my civilian vehicle there and I'd drive the U.S. Marshal's vehicle over to the Air Police, they had like a meeting room near their barracks. Everyone that was going on the convoy that morning would meet there by six. At that time, we would all go in, and there was always a captain or a lieutenant that was in charge of the convoy. He or she would
check and make sure that all the Air Force personnel were present and accounted for and check with the NCOs to make sure that all the equipment is functional and road ready, that they're all ready to go.
They would finally, then, tell us where we're going. Of course, as you probably know, they was Hotel Flight, Bravo Flight, Charlie . . . and they would go like C1, C2, C3, or B1, B2, B3. They would say, for instance, okay, H1 today, we're going to H1, and confirm it's going to be a round-tripper. I had a map of all the missile sites, and I would confirm the location of that site while I was sitting there listening to her briefing. Because usually it was female officers that were the convoy commanders. I think there was only one male officer that I'd seen. Most of them were female officers. I was listening to them, and I'd look up the missile site location. Then I could figure the route.
For instance, if you're going up to the missile fields north of Belle Fourche and Newell, I knew then what cities I'd have to go through, what route I'd have to take. For instance, going up to north of Newell and Nisland, I knew I'd have to go through Sturgis, because we'd take Highway North 79 out of Sturgis, near Bear Butte. I knew what enforcement actions I would have to take because we always made sure the convoy never stopped, so I'd know ahead of time what intersections I'd have to block to make sure that the convoy would not have to
stop and could go through expeditiously.
The same thing if it was one of the missile sites north of Philip, or south of there. I knew pretty much where I'd have to go. In my mind I had thought out where I was going, because I was the head of the convoy. I never made a wrong turn, but I always kind of wondered in the back of my mind if I ever made a wrong turn, would they all keep following me.
What would you do after a convoy reached the silo with the warhead?
Either we may be so far out on the prairie that you can't go anywhere really for dinner or lunch, so you have something with you to
snack on. Or you go to a launch control facility, which then does, of course, as you know, have a mess and dining facilities, and we would go there. Or sometimes if we were close enough we would go into Wall, Philip, or Belle Fourche and we would meet the sheriff or the chief of police. What we would do then, we would have lunch with them. We would go to whatever local diner is the most popular one. We'd just sit there and visit. It was a great way for the convoy commanders to get to know the local authorities.
It was also a goodwill action because South Dakotans . . . I've always found them—maybe because I'm from there originally—they're pretty easy going. They're pretty good people. This way, we could sit down with them. Because we've made a lot of noise going through their community. We have these stupid warheads going through their town. (chuckles) Well, this made them feel pretty good when they could talk to us. None of them ever expressed any problems or issues with that. They were always very supportive. But there were a lot of times that it was just regular chit chat, the day's events, and things like that in the world.