Last updated: September 8, 2021
Person
Wendy McNiel
Wendy McNiel grew up in Wyoming and attended the University of Wyoming where she joined the ROTC program. After completing college, she joined the Air Force. She was assigned to the 44th Strategic Missile Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base from February 1991 to December 1992. She worked in the 67th Strategic Missile Squadron as a missileer. She eventually became an instructor training missileers. In late 1992 she was reassigned to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Ms. McNiel was interviewed for the park's oral history program in February 2003. Below are several excerpts from her interview:
Could you describe your first time entering one of these launch control centers?
Describe the training missile officers received
Anything else you'd like to share about your experience?
Let me think a minute. I guess I just want to make a general comment that people who are on alert at the launch missile control centers it's very much an invisible thankless job. There are people who don't get seen, you know, nobody sees what they do, nobody cares about it. I see them as almost invisible warriors, the security police that are there, the facility managers, the chefs that are there, they're just out there in the middle of nowhere 24 hours a day and I think it's good that people know that they're out there, you know, doing a job that not everybody can do and not everybody wants to do.