Several
times a week, airmen driving to and from a missile alert facility pass Lewistown,
a small town in central Montana. In the center of the town is a museum with a
Minuteman I missile on display.
Nobody
really knows how it got there or why. Some people in the city call it the
lonely missile, while others say it was placed there for deterrence. Until
recently, the only sure thing about the missile was that it was decaying.
Air Force 2nd
Lt. Angie Phillips, 490th Missile Squadron deputy missile combat crew commander,
is one of the airmen who drive the route several days a week. She grew up in
the Air Force -- her father and his father served in the Air Force. "It's
kind of just a family thing," she said.
Seeing the
missile several times a week, Phillips said, she was disappointed in its
appearance and decided to do something about it.
"On my
third alert, I was on my way to the launch control center and saw this missile
on the side of the road," she said. "I would have never thought a
Minuteman I missile would be on display."
New to the
squadron, she contacted her flight commander and asked if anyone had been
working to restore it.
"Nobody
was doing anything to fix it up, which surprised me," she said. "I
felt like it really needed to get fixed."
First Step: Research
Phillips went
online to find out more about the missile in Lewistown, but nothing popped up.
"I then
went out to the base museum and found only one small article from 1969,"
she said. "They really had no great information about it, so I took time
from one of my off days and asked around at the Lewistown museum, and they
didn't really know anything about it, either."
Phillips
then called officials at the National Museum of the Air Force at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, who started digging and found out it was
part of several test pieces used for the Minuteman I missile.
"I went
to the town trying to see if anybody knew someone who was there when the
missile was put in the ground around 1969, but once again, I got limited
information," the lieutenant said. "I then asked if I could take on
the project to restore the missile."
In the
middle of the project, Phillips said, she was notified that she had been picked
to compete in the Air Force Global Strike Challenge, the world's premier
bomber, intercontinental ballistic missile and security forces competition.
"I had
to balance between prepping for Global Strike Challenge in the evening and
working on the missile in the morning," she said. "Working on both
called for some flexibility."
Limited Resources
After the
competition, Phillips went right back to work on the missile, with limited
resources and information. "The town really got together, getting lift
cranes and bucket trucks,” she said. “They would tap [it] out and take turns
scraping the paint off.”
After almost
six months of scraping off old paint, applying new paint and fighting bad
weather, the effort restored the missile to its original glory.
"The
town takes so much pride in their restored missile," Phillips said.
Lewistown
now views Phillips as a representative for the base, and the town now has
bigger plans to represent the missile wing in the museum.
"When I
drive by the missile, I look at it and think 'I helped with that project,' but
it's more than that,” Phillips said. “I think about all the hard work from
others that did more than I did. There are so many people in the town that were
so amazing. It was the town that came together and got this project done."
Phillips said
she’s happy she took on the project. "What motivates me is the sense of
pride -- pride in what my job does and pride of being in the Air Force,"
she said.