Wing Job Control/Scheduling: These guys spend the day monitoring the constant barrage of calls from field personnel, making split second decisions on shuffling people, vehicles, and equipment over hundreds of square miles to repair problems in minimal time. Many times they are faced with situations that involve putting technicians they've known for years in harm's way, or pushing resources to the limits, in order to prevent damage to the multi-million dollar facilities and/or the surrounding communities. Caught between pressure to keep maximum "Green Time", the time a Missile Wing's silos are fully operational, and trying to maintain a missile system which was designed 40 years ago to be replaced 20 years ago (with an ever shrinking budget and workforce), Job Controllers spend thier 12 hour shifts with lots of caffeine, stress, and ulcers.

Electro-Mechanical Teams(EMT): The "EMT" designation is affectionately known among the group as standing for "Every Mutherf*ck*ng Thing", as this almost literally describes the scope of their job in the field. Because EMT has one of the largest task lists of any missile maintenance section, they are also required to know basic operational and troubleshooting information about virtually every system on a Missile Launch Facility (silo) and the Missile Alert Facility's Launch Control Center. Because of this, EMT technician training, including technical school and Specialized system training, can take over a year. They maintain the on-site security systems and locking mechanisms, the Command and Control communications, the Missile's support electronic racks, main and backup power supplies, computer guidance programming and cooling systems, and a host of minor ancillary equipment. They are also tasked with "alternate entry", or breaking into, a missile site that becomes "locked out" from normal entry methods. By volume, EMT responds to about 72% of maintenance tasks in the field. At one time, EMT was broken into 2 sections: the main EMT shop, and Site Security Maintenance Teams (SSMT), or "SMUT" teams for short. SSMT repaired the intrusion alarm systems, the topside area radar detection systems, and at some bases did missile targeting after that task was downgraded in classification (used to require 1 officer on the team). Eventually EMT,SSMT, and Targeting teams were all combined into one EMT shop. An EMT team usually consists of 2 technicians, a Team Chief and Team Member, but large scale operations can combine several teams into one group. Additionally, the EMT Team Chief will usually be on-site coordinator when maintenance involves several agencies.

Missile Maintenance Teams(MMT): have the most physically demanding job - working in the launch tube with the missile umbilicals, guidance computer, and warheads. While all on site maintenance tasks have some exerting aspects, MMT is by far the most strenuous. Aside from hauling 250lb work cages and hoist motors up and down the 20ft Personnel Access tube or working with this heavy gear on ladders propped against the launch tube, they also have to lean at precarious angles from the workcage to work on the missile or heavy umbilical cables, all while hanging as much as 80 feet from the bottom of a very dark launch tube. They test and service all the ignition cabling and explosive ordinance for the missile, as well as the missile suspension system, both very hazardous operations. One of the few maintenance-related fatalities to occur happened to an MMT technician who was crushed against the launchtube wall by a suspension system arm. The incident was made doubly bad by the fact that his wife was present, being on the same MMT team. When recruits go through technical training, one of the first safety briefings receive includes pictures of an accident in the bottom of a silo, caused by a stray spark, which ignited the missile and turned several technicians performing MMT tasks in the tube into very black corpses. MMT also maintains the equipment that operates the launcher closure door over the top of the silo. This includes the 4 Ballistic Gas Generators(BGG's) that literally slingshot the Launcher Closure off the silo, and are the explosive equivalent of 5 sticks of dynamite, each. MMT teams normally have 5 members, including the Team Chief. Since they are reponsible for removing and replacing the Missile Guidance Computer (MGS), the Propulsion Section Rocket Engine (PSRE), and the Warhead, they also transport and guard these items from the main base to the silo, along with a pack of security guards and a Federal Marshal, in the case of a warhead. While there's not much variety to MMT's work, it is by far the toughest job in missiles.

Missile Handling Teams(MHT): probably do as much work on the main base, as in the field on a missile silo. They are responsible for shipping and recieving missiles by rail and aircraft to and from other locations, as well as transporting them to and from the silo. On the Launch Facility itself, they do the actual installation or removal of the missile's first 3 stages. The job of transporting a highly explosive 60 foot long missile to be installed can be nerve racking and dangerous. Weather can range from blizzards to gale-force thunderstorms; roads can be ice covered or virtually "cow-path" dirt tracks. Not only does the missile have to be kept from catastrophic damage, which could start from even a small spark; it also has to be kept in a very precise, temperature stable environment, and not shaken in any way that could stress-crack the solid fuel in the missile. Any deterioration could cause the missile to fail during a launch, and if anything starts a missile stage on fire, there is no known agent which will extinguish the fire. The solid fuel provides its own oxidant, and will burn at several thousand degrees under water, in vacuum, whereever, until gone. Under these restrictions, they move transport, park, and install the monsters in their care, to within a fraction of an inch tolerance. MHT teams are usually manned by 4-5 technicians.

Facilities Maintenance Teams(FMT): has the unenviable job of keeping the Launch Facilities and Launch Control Centers at a very precise level of temperature and humidity control. They also ensure that all of the sites are supplied with primary electrical power from the commercial grid, or standby power from a backup generator. This sounds a bit simple - until you factor in the aging equipment, constantly varying weather pressures and humidities, plus frequent storms that knock out power grids and flood sites with a deluge of snow,ice, or rain. These small details ultimately ensure a never ending precession of environmental and power systems that need difficult repairs in all sorts of weather, which is why FMT often calls themselves, "Forever Maintenance Teams". While these systems were once thier only headache, they recently inherited some of EMT's heavier workload where they had the skills to do so, such as fixing the sump pumps that keep the sites drained of ground and rainwater accumulations, or fixing site lighting systems. FMT techs are often farmed out to supporting agencies that supply upkeep maintenance on the missile sites, like Corrosion Control Teams (CCT),Pneudraulics (PNEU), or Periodic Maintenance Teams (PMT). FMT teams usually consist of 2-3 technicians.

Missile Combat Crew Commander (MCCC)/Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander (DMCCC): Unofficially known as the "Capsule" crew, named so after the shape of the buried Launch Control Center they man around the clock. During a normal day, they spend a large portion of their time playing operator, answering the myriad of messages from main base, security controllers, maintenance teams, alert networks, and so on. The job can get incredibly boring, monotonous, and tedious; many crew members spend thier time in the "hole" advancing their college degrees by studying on the job. Since they operate in a classified area that demands observation by 2 people at the same time, you'd think it would be difficult or impossible to maintain the 24 - 72 hour vigils they do, but not so. They can have one crew member asleep at a time, provided the "capsule" blast door is secured, and special glass impregnated seals have been installed on all the accesses to classifed equipment or information storages. Before each crew member goes to sleep, he inspects every one of dozens of seals, using a special viewer, for tampering. He inspects again when he awakens; if any are damaged, a possible security compromise is declared. If damage occurs while both of the crew are awake, it is much less serious, but can be a real headache: until the damaged seals are replaced, nobody can sleep! If the stock of spare seals on site has been depleted, this can be a real problem. Crew members can get quite touchy and nervous when maintenance is going on in the Launch Control Center, because of this, since merely rubbing a seal, as you walk by carrying equipment, can damage it. But all this is really the tip of the iceberg of what the Missile Crew is really there for. Though most of the job is routine and dull by volume, what they train for until they can do it asleep, is to handle the job nobody in the world wants. These men and women maintain peak proficiency at one task they hope to never use: launching a nuclear attack. Meanwhile, as they wait for the order they hope never comes, they sit, buried deep in the earth, watching the status printouts and alarms for the 10 missiles they directly control, plus 40 others that they have backup control on, making sure each is ready to defend the nation at a moment's notice.

The "Bomb Squad": the technicians in Munitions Maintenance have the touchiest job of all: making sure the various explosive charge "squibs" used on the missile, as well as the nearly 1/2 Megaton warheads don't go off - except when they are supposed to. Probably no other function in the military has stricter safety and security requirements, for even a slight lag in either could jeopardize national security, the surrounding base and communities, or both. A tribute to the care they use is the fact that there has never been a civilian casualty or injury caused by a US ICBM; even when a Titan missile exploded after an accident near Damascus, Arkansas, the warhead was propelled through a concrete launcher closure door and thrown dozens of yards away - without ANY release of nuclear material.

Communications Squadron: While not included in the organizational maintenance group of a Missile Wing, they nonetheless provide a vital function in the missile field keeping the Launch Control Centers linked with each other, the base, and higher authorities with regular landline, radio, and satellite communications. While a Missile Crew can still function for the 50 missiles in it's squadron without outside communication, it is also virtually useless without instructions. The COMM group ensures this doesn't happen.

Security Police: You can't go anywhere in Missiles without tripping over them. They are an integral part of every maintenance operation in the field. They protect the secured areas of the main base, the Launch Control Facilities, any Launch Facilities being worked on, as well as escorting national security assets and responding to security situations. They are a very close-nit bunch, and they carry this over to the maintenance teams they provide escort for. In many instances, the Security Escort Team (SET) guards that ride with every team to a missile Launch Facility are thought of as part of the maintenance team, instead of a separate entity, by the technicians. They help move equipment, assist with the long driving duties, set up safety gear - all tasks not in the job description, but done voluntarily to make the dispatch go smoother and quicker. The SET guards' primary job is to protect the Launch Facility while it has technicians inside, since all of it's anti-intrusion gear has been bypassed. There are usually 2 SET guards armed with M-16's on a dispatching team. In the case of escorting and installing nuclear warheads, this increases dramatically, as these groups are escorted by FIRE and TIGER teams, 5 man groups that travel by helicopter and armored "Peacekeeper" vehicles nicknamed "Toy Tanks". These teams have lots more firepower, including M-60 machine guns. There are also roving Armed Response Teams (ART and SART) that investigate intrusion alarms on the sites, as well as CAMPER teams that guard sites with broken alarm systems, and roving security commanders as well. All these are under the guidance of the Field Security Controller at each Launch Control Facility, and his watchful eye keeps response times to each missile Launch Facility measured in minutes and seconds - far shorter than the time it takes to enter a silo by normal methods, let alone break in.