I e-mailed my brother and he sent along a little explanation of his stint with the Pershing Missle

A little about Pershing:

I was assigned as a Firing Platoon Leader and finished up as the Executive
Officer of a Firing Battery ( D Btry 3/84th Field Artillery). I was
stationed in Neckarsulm and pulled extensive field duty at Mainbullau and
Kleingartach - both active missile sites with targets to the East. The
Pershing 1A system was an upgrade from the track mounted system mentioned
in one of the emails, and was much more mobile and reliable. The system was
a tactical system in that it served as a "first strike" weapon that was
also called a "theatre weapon". What that actually meant was that it was a
weapon that was available to the Theatre Commands (SHAPE, USAREUR, EUCOM
and NATO) but could not be used by anyone else without proper authority.
The fact that a weapon was nuclear in nature almost assures that it will be
deemed tactical.

Bottom line, we could not decide to "fire one down range" without the
proper release authorizations and PAL code to arm the warhead. Pretty heady
stuff at the time and a little sobering now that I think about the
possibilities. By the way, Chris is now HHD Commander for the 1st Bde 101st
Airborne Division (Air Assualt). The oddity here is the fact that he is a
Chemical Officer . He will rotate out of that position in June.


It's still sort of greek to me.

Dennis