Roger Babler was born in Monticello Wisconsin. He graduated high school in 1959 and then completed two years training as an electronic technican at a technical school. He ran a small TV/radio repair shop as well as working at General Motors. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1964 and was sent to Alaska to serve at the Site Tare (A Battery A/2/562) Nike Missile Site outside of Fairbanks. He arrived on the same day as Ed Hansen. Roger worked on the plotting boards for the high power... Read More

Bob Bishop was born in San Francisco, California in 1944 and grew up in San Carlos, California. He joined the U.S. Army at age 18 after graduating from St. Francis High School in Mountain View, California. After basic training at Fort Ord, California he attended Military Police School in Fort Gordon, Georgia. Bob came to Alaska in December 1963 to work as a MP (Military Police) at the Site Tare (A Battery A/2/562) Nike Missile Site on the bluff overlooking Moose Creek, just outside of... Read More

Billy “BJ” Foreman worked as a Specialist E6, Operator, and Instrumentation and Controls (I&C) Technician at the SM-1A Nuclear Power Plant at Fort Greely, Alaska between August 1969 and July 1971. His journey in the nuclear industry began as a student of nuclear engineering at Kansas State University. He left in 1966 and applied and was accepted to the Army Nuclear Power Program training program at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. After two years of intensive training, BJ, his wife, their two... Read More

Joe Griffith grew up in Oklahoma. In 1960, he entered the U.S. Air Force Academy and spent the next four years there. He then went into pilot training at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma. He served three tours in Vietnam and worked at the Pentagon in readiness assessment. In 1982, Joe came to Alaska to serve as Commander of the Air Force's 21st Wing, which had just failed an operational readiness inspection. Joe retired from the Air Force in 1984, but has continued to reside in Alaska.

Ed Hansen is from Beloit, Wisconsin. He graduated from South Beloit High School and then attended Northern Illinois University. He was drafted into the Army in 1964 and was sent to Alaska to serve at the Nike Missile Site Tare (A Battery A/2/562) outside of Fairbanks. He arrived the same day as Roger Babler. Ed was responsible for the target tracking radars. When their military service ended in... Read More

Originally from Kentucky, Ron Hogan came to Alaska in 1960 after graduating from Western Kentucky University with his bachelor's degree. He followed his wife who he met in college who was originally from Fairbanks. Ron became a schoolteacher with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, teaching in Kotzebue and Elim, and then was high school principal in Kotzebue. Ron also has a degree from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks in secondary education, and a master’s degree from Western Kentucky... Read More

Virgil Naylor, Sr. is an Iñupiaq elder in Kotzebue, Alaska. He was born in 1936 in Noatak, Alaska, and grew up living a traditional subsistence lifestyle. He attended Mt. Edgecumbe school in Sitka, Alaska, and after graduation traveled around the state working as an electronic technician repairing the Air Force’s White Alice communication system. In 1965, he married his wife, Elsie, originally from Shishmaref, and they moved to Kotzebue. He continued to work for the White Alice station in... Read More

Robert "Bob" Raichle was born and raised in Westfield, New Jersey, just outside of New York City. He atttended Purdue University in Indiana, where he earned a degree in business and participated in the Army ROTC program. He graduated in 1965 as a comissioned second lieutenant in the US Army.  In the spring of 1966, he was assigned to the Air Defense School in Fort Lewis, Texas and after three months obtained certification to work at a Nike missile site. From 1966 to 1968, Bob was stationed... Read More

Ruth Rice is originally from Texas. Her father worked for a small retail automotive company and was transferred about every two years so she spent her childhood moving from town to town in west Texas. In 1942, when she was a teenager, her family was living in Abilene, Texas which is where she met Howard Rice. She and Howard married in September, 1957. Howard joined the U.S. Army and Ruth led the life of an Army wife, including time in Anchorage, Alaska while Howard worked at the Site Summit... Read More

Karl Santone worked as an Operator and Health Physicist at the SM-1A Nuclear Power Plant at Fort Greely, Alaska. He was accepted to the Army Nuclear Power Program’s school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia in the second class of 1959. The training program lasted about one year, with instruction from captains and majors who were mostly West Point graduates. Coursework involved physics, math, and technical subjects including electronics and mechanics. Following graduation, Karl worked as an instructor... Read More

George Shaw worked as a Civilian Operator and Shift Supervisor at the SM-1A Nuclear Power Plant at Fort Greely, Alaska between 1963 and 1968. He was one of a handful of civilian employees at SM-1A. George was born and raised in Alaska, and had been working as an engineer on tug boats in Whittier, Alaska before taking a job as an operator at the conventional power plant at Fort Greely in June 1962. George's extensive professional experience and time at Fort Greely led to an invitation to... Read More

Robert (Bob) Wallace grew up in Kansas and earned his Bachelor’s degree in History from Ottawa (Kansas) University in 1966 and a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Kansas in 1968. He served in the U.S. Army from 1968-1970, led long-range reconnaissance patrol teams of Company E, 75th Rangers in Vietnam and was awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, two Bronze Stars with “V,” and three Air Medals. In 1970, Bob moved to Washington, D.C., and served as an... Read More