Around 2001 I was standing in front of my girlfriend’s home in San Jose. I read on FR that there was going to be a Minuteman missile test out of Vandenberg, so I looked south, on a lark.
Certainly something that far away would not be visible, I thought. I was very wrong.
The enormous contrail was not only visible, but as it ascended and went through the different levels of the atmosphere it reflected different colors, so it looked like a giant rainbow.
A giant rainbow of freedom and awesomeness, that is.
I got a sense of pride at that moment that no lefty hipster will ever feel.
Five years before I viewed the up-close OT shot as a launch officer, I was a Marine sergeant stationed at Barstow CA on the high desert.
One evening, looking to the west we saw the double shot where they launched two missiles simultaneously. There were a lot of pictures of those birds flying out over the ocean but the view 100+ miles away on the desert was just as impressive, changing colors, forming ring clouds and you could see the long arc heading south over the pacific. Didn’t realize that five years later I would be witnessing it up close as an AF missileer.