Pershing!: Missiles of the Fall!

By Donald Hawkins

This book is one of honor and patriotism and is a true story. This book tells of one man's many struggles manning three of the United States nuclear missiles. The time period of this epic story takes place during the late 1970s and during the Cold War. The struggle was caused by the many social pressures of the day. The pressures also came from the lack of qualified personnel crewing those missiles. The Cold War was won by the United States due in part to the mighty Pershing missile, without firing a shot!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781647012939

Book preview

Chapter 1

In my early life, my political views were very confusing. Both in my thoughts and sometimes in my actions as well. On one hand, I have seen enough hatred, enslavement, violence, greed, and bloodshed to last anybody a lifetime.

This was the reason for my more passive thoughts that people should in the grand words of wisdom Live and let live, while thus letting their neighbors control their own individual destiny or plainly just get along with their neighbors.

But on the other hand, with the passing of time, I have come to see the reality of life and its sometimes very brutal incidents of that reality. Some people are not happy unless their wants and wills control others. Their control sometimes takes the form of a lot of savagery or brutality. This is the very sad reality of human nature, as unfair as it seems.

This, it seems, is the reality and demeanor of the communist movement and all the evils associated with it.

I feel, for this book’s purpose, the phrase coined by the late Sheriff Buford Pusser, in the movie Walking Tall, a 1973 movie that is directed by Phil Karlson and acted by Joe Don Baker. Sheriff Buford Pusser said with a meaning of negative connotations, Live my way or don’t live at all.

Though wrong in my thoughts, Buford’s words are a moral reality in that some people try to impose their desires on others.

Also, in that same movie, Buford’s friend Opra said to him upon his advice to Buford about his fight to help his neighbors fight those that try to control their free will or liberty.

Opra said, Walk softly and carry a big stick. Meaning, to Buford, do what you gotta do and help others but do what is necessary, quietly and discreetly.

That quote was taken from our twenty-sixth US president, Theodore Roosevelt, who in the early 1900s said, Speak softly and carry a big stick. This he stated about a foreign affairs policy to convey his views on how to police small, radical neighboring countries. In the movie Walking Tall, one word was changed, but the meaning remained kind of similar. The difference being that Teddy used it as a political threat to caution unruly Caribbean, Spanish, or East Asian countries. And Opra meant to do what you gotta do but be discreet.

Little did I know that this movie, with its actions and statements, would have a profound and big effect on me and my outlook on life.

My marine brat childhood taught me a lot about respect and compassion for myself and others, as well as fairness, social freedom, and the dedication to these causes or their cause and effects as they relate to the first two.

That childhood also taught me how fortunate I am to have been born in the great and free country of the United States. One should hold national pride in the great US, a country that has given us so much. And somehow, we as free people have an inherited responsibility to defend these social freedoms. Also, we have the responsibility to pass them on to our younger generations and help others with their struggles to attain such liberties and social acceptance.

But the one person who is one of my biggest heroes and helped me to shape my morals and values was America’s thirty-fifth president.

In a time when I was searching for a little support to reinforce my growing values, in my vulnerable youth, he appeared. The late John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth US president.

In those perilous times, a little more guidance helped me greatly. A hero for this country rose to greatness, and his wisdom touched my soul. I came to fully understand through his inspirational words all things are possible.

Although history now tells us that as one of this country’s most powerful and influential men, he was just a man. As commanding and insightful he was, he also possessed several characteristics of human weakness, though most of his endeavors were positive and for the betterment of the country and for the betterment of society as a whole.

To me and the vast majority of Americans, President Kennedy was an honest, powerful, intelligent, and visionary leader, one who was also a very good speaker, one who spoke to the people and his audience with great passion and emotions. He also was a very insightful and charismatic person and always gave hope to all for their future. President Kennedy’s words and speeches were always very inspiring and filled you with patriotism and expectations. Always a man of integrity, high values, and good morals, his presence always left you highly charged with much hope for the future and, most of all, peace for all people.

It is very hard for me to convey the high social values and magnetism of this great man and all he offered the great nation of the United States. So I have found it necessary for me to include exerts from two selected speeches of his many.

The first one being his inaugural speech, and he gave it challenging Americans everywhere on January 20, 1961. In his usual electrifying abilities, he captivated his audience by saying the following words in the speech he gave below:

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the beliefs that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

To those people in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass-misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; But as a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in year out, rejoicing in hope, against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease itself.

In the long history of the world only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

And just a short twenty-nine months later, in June 1963, the other speech that I include out of his many inspiring speeches, he spoke at the America University presenting the Commencement Address. And it goes as follows.

Today the expenditures of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them, is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles—which can only destroy and never create—is not the only much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

To secure these ends, America’s weapons are nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.

For me growing up in the ’60s and early ’70s may have been a time of great changes, but it offered me many different ideas to build a strong set of values and morals.

I feel in order to attain and enforce peace, you must be willing to not look away but get involved and meet the aggressors head on to prevail. And in the process you will be helping yourself when you help your neighbor.

It would be a very good thing if in life we all could live in peace and harmony and could solve all social problems by nonviolent means.

But in the reality of this world, every situation cannot be solved by peaceful means, even though I would like to think they could. If diplomacy fails to achieve the results, society must not be afraid to resort to physical strengths and carry a big stick to enforce justice. And in this world, it is the responsibility of those that are strong to help the weak especially when civil liberties, justice, and corruption are of concern.

In society people are vastly different, as people say variety is the spice of life. Some people are strong, mentally or physically, and others are weak or oppressed. We all must realize, however, that there are a few people in this world that do try to impose their own will on others through evil means and corruption.

I strongly feel that all my fellow people and myself privileged enough to be born in any of our free democratic societies have an inherited responsibility to assist those people who are struggling with wrongful suppression, tyranny, and injustices from the bullies of the world while helping them to break free from those burdening chains. After all, we enjoy and cherish the fruits and freedoms fought for by our forefathers and delivered these things to us.

That freedom we enjoy today was not free or easy. So we owe it to the generations of people to come and people struggling everywhere to help them to obtain their peace and freedom.

Peace and justice are the common goals of everyone, and everyone everywhere needs to unite to obtain these common goals. But we must not lose sight of the basic rights for all and be willing to challenge the oppressors of the world everywhere by any civilized means if necessary. It is a small world, after all, so we all need to respect our neighbors as well as ourselves to survive as a whole, all of us together.

I was born Dan Hawks, the oldest child of a US marine and a by-product of the Korean War in 1954. By my eighteenth birthday, I knew that serving in the military service like my father was out of the question for me. Even more so after being raised for the past eighteen years in a strict, regimented military lifestyle. This type of childhood gave me an even stronger belief that physical violence and bloodshed were wrong. Surely people are more intelligent than that, and they should be able to not settle for uncivilized actions to resolve the differences between them. So I feel personally that diplomacy is the best solution for people and society to resolve their differences.

I also knew deep down in my heart that intelligent human beings should be able to solve their differences in a much better and a more civilized manner. But why do people or countries have to resort to violence to deal with their problems?

Deep within my heart, I know, when diplomacy fails, and as a last resort, we must be prepared to resort to stronger physical means to free our and our neighbors’ bonds. Or simply put, carry a big stick, but only after all avenues of diplomacy have failed.

Like a lot of other hardheaded teenagers, I knew all about life and its challenges a whole lot better than my parents.

However, even though my growing up within this strict military family lifestyle was at times a very emotional testing period, I felt that despite those challenging times, they did instill in me very high social values, consisting of thinking about society and others first. Because I am an important but smaller part of the much greater whole of society and my country! My total significance is defined by the roles I perform while supporting that greater part of society or in this direct case the United States. Also unbeknownst to me (as in most cases), you are a product of how you are raised, and I was raised with a strong sense of duty, respect, and honor for all.

It was not until two and a half years later that I felt I was trapped in a job that was taking me nowhere. With the feeling of little hope for the future, I looked into enlisting. I felt that for me and my future outlooks on life, I had to get out of Oceanside, California, and get on with my future existence. It wasn’t that I was not having fun. I was! Who could not have a lot of fun in sunny Southern California? But as a young man, I felt that sometimes I was having too much fun, and that probably was most of the problem. My life in Southern California was centered on a low-paying job and the beach, with all the social living or parties that resulted from those two things. I loved the beach, surfing, and swimming. Plus the nightlife was fantastic. But I felt as though I was still trapped and looking at a very bleak future as I had dreams for my future that I was not pursuing.

I dreamed of eventually working in the forestry industry. But I knew that I would need to take some college classes to further my education to accomplish that dream. Unfortunately, I hadn’t even finished high school, so how could I ever consider going to college? Even if I could somehow swing it, I couldn’t break my old habits and buckle down to study very hard, not even to make something of myself. The vices associated with the beaches and the partying life in Southern California was just too strong for me to deal with. I did not think that I would ever hear myself say this, but I thought, If I’m ever going to make it, I’m going to have to get out of here, and my best chances to do that was to enlist in the military. All things considered—the benefits, the chance to get out of Oceanside, and having the possibility of going to college—the US Army was looking better and better every day.

So a few months later, in October 1975, I was in the last place I thought that I would ever find myself—a US Army recruiting station. There I was waiting for a US Army sedan to take me up to the AFEES building in Los Angeles so I could get my final physical, do some test, and then legally swear into the US Army. The staff at the AFEES station worked diligently to calm my fears and answer most of my