Oddity Of The Week: Missile Silo Graffiti
Created | Updated May 12, 2013
Good weather finds us with mixed emotions. There are sad reminders in the countryside.
Missile Silo Graffiti
Does this picture puzzle you? It should.
Here's the Library of Congress title for the item above:
55. VIEW SHOWING GRAFFITI IN STAIRWELL INSIDE 'CATFISH' SILO Everett Weinreb, photographer, March 1988 – Mount Gleason Nike Missile Site, Angeles National Forest, South of Soledad Canyon, Sylmar, Los Angeles County, CA.
Before we explain, think about this: If the word 'Nike' causes you to form an image in your mind of a running shoe, you're normal – and probably young. If it makes you think of a Greek statue, you're just weird. If, on the other hand, you suddenly flash on a large projectile screaming through the sky, leaving an ominous vapour trail, off to deal death to the Commies, you are old enough to have an inkling of what a Nike Missile Site was about.
They were all over the country. They were 'protecting' us. This Researcher remembers passing a gate that said 'Nike site' while riding in the back of his parents' car. There was one only a few miles from the house.
Somebody had to sit in there and wait for the call that – thank all deities – didn't come. They must have oscillated between boredom and terror. Have you ever read William Prochnau's brilliant novel Trinity's Child? Like that. What did they do to pass the time? One soldier, at least, drew on the stairwell. The pictures are still there. This is one of them. You can't go and visit it now – not because it's being heavily guarded, but because the site has been planted over with pine trees.
Like hundreds of others, Mt Gleason was decommissioned. Many have been repurposed: as parks, public facilities, museums. Somehow, that makes us feel better.
To see the Nike-Zeus Test Site named for Ronald Reagan, though, you'll have to go to Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. It's always tomorrow there, unless it's already tomorrow where you live.
Go back to your running shoes now. Nothing to see here.
