![]() ![]() The original Minuteman missiles, called Minuteman I, were 56 feet tall and weighed 65,000 pounds when loaded with fuel. There were hundreds more silos in place or soon to be constructed in North Dakota, Missouri, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska, eventually bringing the nation’s Minuteman fleet to a peak of 1,000. Lima-02 was one of 150 steel-and-concrete silos that had been planted underground and filled with Minuteman missiles during the previous several years in western South Dakota, where the missiles were scattered across 13,500 square miles. It was 60 miles northwest of Ellsworth Air Force Base and 3 miles southeast of the tiny community of Vale, on the plains outside the Black Hills. Last year President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, which greatly expanded the the types of illnesses and toxic exposures that would be considered presumptive - meaning a service member or veterans would not face an uphill battle to convince the government that the injury was tied to their military service in order to received covered care.The trouble began earlier that day when two other airmen were sent to a silo named Lima-02. “All missileers should be screened and tracked for the rest of their lives.” “Missileers have always been concerned about known hazards, such as exposure to chemicals, asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, lead and other hazardous material in the work environment,” Sebeck said in the January slides. It’s also not known if there were similar reports of cancers at other nuclear silo bases or whether that is being investigated by the Air Force. It was not clear whether some of the nine officers identified in the January briefing slides, whose diagnoses occurred between 19, overlap some of the cases identified in the Air Force’s 2001 investigation. In her statement to the AP, Air Force spokeswoman Stefanek said, “We are heartbroken for all who have lost loved ones or are currently facing cancer of any kind.” government has shown more openness to acknowledging the environmental hazards, or toxic exposures, troops may face while serving. The discovery of new cases comes as the U.S. In 2001 the Air Force Institute for Operational Health investigated the base after 14 cancers of various types were reported among missileers who had served there, including two cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.īut the review found the base was environmentally safe and that “sometimes illnesses tend to occur by chance alone.” The report lamented that the list of those diagnosed had been collected because it “perpetuates the level of concern.” ![]() It’s not the first time the military has been alerted to multiple cancer cases at Malmstrom. Two of the others are in the same Space Force unit with the rank of lieutenant colonel, which is typically reached in a service member’s early 40s. Officers are often in their 20s when they are assigned duty watch the officer who died, who was not identified, was a Space Force officer assigned to Schreiver Space Force Base in Colorado with the rank of major, a rank typically achieved in a service member’s 30s. The former missileers affected are far younger. The median age for adult non-Hodgkin lymphoma is 67, according to the National Institutes of Health. that operate a total of 400 siloed Minutemen III ICBMs, including fields at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and F.E. For comparison, only about 3,300 troops are based at Malmstrom at a time, and only about 400 of those are assigned either as missileers or as support for those operators. ![]()
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