Last updated: June 20, 2023
Person
Steve Lockwood
NPS Photograph
Quick Facts
Significance:
Missile Combat Crew officer who painted the mural of a missile bursting through a Soviet Flag at Delta-01 in 1988.
Place of Birth:
Olympia, Washington
Date of Birth:
May 16, 1957
Mr. Lockwood attended Washington State University and participated in the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Following graduation, he served as an officer in the United States Air Force from September 1979 until June 1996. His initial assignments were as an Administrative Officer in Germany at Bitburg Air Force Base and then at Headquarters United States European Command. In 1988, while serving as a missile officer in the 66th Strategic Missile Squadron, he painted a mural in the entry to the underground control center. The shirt he used as inspiration for the mural in the Delta-01 tunnel junction was donated to the park's museum collection in 2017.
Mr. Lockwood was interviewed for the park's oral history collection in May 2018. Below are several excerpts from his interview.
What were the best and the worst things about the job?
For me - and I think this was because I was older - was the intrinsic reward of it. It's really boring, unfulfilling to a lot of second lieutenants that, you know, have visions of what a grand Air Force career is going to be like and they end up basically sitting downstairs watching TV doing document changes and very kind of boring things on a 24-hour basis. So, there's not a lot of luster if you hadn't gone into the military to serve and get intrinsic value of doing a duty that you don't want to do in real life - you don't really want to launch these things. You know?
When you're a ground troop, you really don't want to go to war and start exchanging bullets with people. So, you have to have that sense of, "What I'm doing is valuable because I'm training to do it, but I'm not wanting to actually do it." So, for me, being operational, having spent seven years just on the admin side of it - though, very interesting - being on the operational tip of the spear type thing, the last line of defense was rewarding for me.
During the Cold War missile combat crew officers carried .38 caliber revolvers while on crew; can you explain why?
Most people think we did to defend the capsule. It was really to protect the codes down there - and we didn't need it you know - so, all the
material classified and all that, it was all protecting the classified material and what our piece of the launch codes were. The authentication documentation. We weren't really expected to fight-off the Soviet spetsnaz with our .38s. It was all the coded stuff down there. So, and there were some equipment racks that had codes and things in it too.
We had - now, one guy shot a computer down there with a gun. So, weird things happen on crews. I was not in there at the time. But we had the .38s down there and I'm - I think it was Ellsworth. I don't think it was Warren. But I know one of them was you know, like playing quick draw and accidentally discharged the weapon and it went into one of the computer racks.
You lived off base in Rapid City; did your neighbors know what you did for a living?
My neighbor - now that, there's actually a funny story and it's actually true. My next-door neighbor was a very nice guy. Watched our kids and all that. He was a minister. Very peace-loving individual. They were actually part of one the protest groups in the area that would protest the weapons. So, their view was “We love Air Force people, but we don't like these weapons being in existence.” They were fine to us, they were just - they were members that wanted a nuclear-free world and all of that. One of the times I was out on alert, they actually protested my site. So, I actually had my next-door neighbor arrested. So, that was kind of amusing. Then we had a beer the next day and all that.
Where was this wall art that you did?
The wall art was when I was the Delta Flight Commander. I was the Delta Flight Commander for a year before I moved out and took over Echo. I had been in Strategic Air Command for a while and there were always things you do to try to - it was called self-help programs - that you always tried to do to make an impression and to give yourself an edge when it comes to the inspection team. That was when they went someplace they would see something that showed initiative they'd go, "Oh, extra bonus points." Also at the time, Strategic Air Command was going big on their nose art on aircrafts. Kind of bringing back the art you would see in the World War II bombers. They were doing some of those with the aircraft. So, they also suggested, "Well, missiles should do this too. They should do some nose art."
Well, we were out there anyway for maintenance. That's when it (Delta) went through its last rehabilitation. That's when the carpets got put down and the headliner got put up and all that kind of stuff. So, as the flight crew, we were kind of out there supporting that, we decided we were going go ahead and do the artwork anyway and put it on the wall next to the elevator.
So, that was the inspiration of actually doing it to begin with. The artwork itself was a result of - it's not my art. I just actually physically painted it up there. There were t-shirts that went around the bomb wing at the time of a B1 flying through the Soviet flag. The artist did the shirts as a fundraiser for them. So, the artist decided to also do one for us after that, with the missile coming up through the flag as a fundraiser. The artwork that was on the shirt, I put it on an overhead projector and projected it against the wall.