Cookie, nukes in 'Nam.... I've never heard of that but everything was classified and need to know, which I didn't have the need to know that. He may have meant some nuclear artillery shells, I doubt it was any of our arsenal of nuclear weapons. I guarded weapons we transported in convoys on regular roads behind a special farm like tractor and loaded ready to go in 5 minutes notice bombers with nothing more than a M1 and 45.
Lineman is fairly dangerous but mining and truck driving along with a few others are much more dangerous.
I was never stressed working on nuclear weapons or the explosives or nuclear material (I've held a lot of it, maybe a ton total, in my hands with nothing but rubber gloves). We were always 'detached' (isolated and hush hushed) from the other areas of the bases we supported. We didn't have a lot of the spit and polish stuff 'regular' AF folks suffered. We really worked hard, and did so for up to a week at a time, 24 hrs/day about every 4-6 weeks with little sleep and no time off, out on the flight line in all kinds of weather, but when we could we played hard too. We were a very highly trained close nit small family type group. Unless we were on leave, we were always on 30 minute or one hour 'alert' status, meaning no matter where we went, we had to be back in that length of time ready to go (to war). The Cuban missile crises got me into quite a few short lived reflective moments though... I was in England at the time. Afterwards it was 25-30 years before the public learned just how close we came.
Sorry, I don't go to movies; last was like in 1993 and I hadn't been to one in a decade or two before that. I've chosen to live in reality. lol
I did a temporary 6 month refueling stint in the containment building in a nuclear power plant. Talk about guys being burned out! They worked for the power company for on average 20-35 years (the same I was a lineman for) to be able to 'bid' into the plant jobs and didn't know anything else and were scared to death of quiting for something else and totally miserable. It was hell working there due to the politics and negative attitudes and back biting childish BS they were involved in. The union had a lot to do with that. I've worked at a lot of places and that was the worst.
Of all I have done, I have one regret. In 1967-68 the Army wanted me to go into their helicopter training program and offered me WO 1 (warrant officer) if I would enlist for just 2 years. I wanted to do it but I put them off because I thought it was wrong because I was married and you know I would have went to Vietnam flying gunship helicopters... and she was from Holland were I was stationed after England and her BIL was a fighter pilot for the Dutch Royal AF but she wasn't supportive of me going. She had no one here but my parents, so I didn't do it. I've always regretted that decision.
