The Kwajalein Experience! |
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The Kwajalein Atoll was occupied by the Japanese in WWII. The Japanese had been designated the caretakers of the Marshalls just after WWI by the UN precursor group, the League of Nations. The US decided, in WWII, that the Marshalls would suit their purposes nicely, and took them by force in February 1944, in a little venture called Operation Flintlock. By the end of the week they landed, the US had taken control of all the Japanese held islands on the Atoll and started setting up camp. The Atoll is now home to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (or Reagan Test Site, RTS, for short) and has played a major part in every phase of the National Missile Defense shield, since its inception back in the 50's. Most recently, it has played host to a wee bit of a technical boo-boo, when, during an $85 million test of the Missile Defense Shield, that is currently in place, our little interceptor decided it didn't want to play with the missile that had already been launched at us! The interceptor failed to launch with 23 seconds left on the countdown clock! I was sitting in a very large concrete building about 200 yards from the silo! (We are trying to launch again this month - February 2005 - let's all keep our fingers crossed!) Well, that launch didn't work either. We should probably fix the problems BEFORE we try to launch! Oh well, launching missiles is WAAAAAY above my paygrade ... I'm just here if anything catches on fire! ** WOOHOO!! December 2005 - we launched a missile!! It was quite the cool sight. I got to watch it on a little monitor from inside a very secure building. Sadly, no grass fire on launch hill for the Meck crew to put out. Sucks for them. UPDATE: Our latest customer on the Atoll, Space-X, launched a private rocket from one of our islands recently. It was a successful launch, not so much a successful flight. It went up for a few seconds, then it came down and exploded all over the reef. It was quite the spectacular explosion ... got to see that one from a tiny screen inside a very secure building as well! THey are working on some bugs and plan on launching again out here sometime in the next 6 months or so. Pretty cool company, founded by one of the founders of PayPal. You know that guy has some serious cash to be throwing around! If you want to learn more about Space-X, check the links page. Anywho, so that's the history of Kwajalein Atoll, minus all the details about how we (the US) kind of screwed the Marshallese people and now the ones that lived on Kwajalein island and many who have moved here to try and get a job on Kwaj (about 12-16,000 people on 66 acres). But that's another story for another day! Now, what the heck am I doing here? I work for Chugach Development Corporation, based in, strangely, Alaska, as a firefighter/EMT, under contract to the US Army, through Kwajalein Range Services. Wow ... that sounds really complicated! I get my paychecks from Chugach and I have a little badge that says I am an Army Contractor. It's a really cool gig and I've made loads of money, have almost become completely debt-free, have almost saved enough for an awesome down-payment on a house, and have gotten some pretty fabulous training! The department has its issues, but has some really great people, slightly deranged, but we all expect that in the fire service! That's about it for now ... I'll add more when I feel like typing a lot more! |
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michelle@firefightermichelle.com |
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