WALL.

WALL, SD - Seven years after closing the last of the Minuteman II missile sites near Ellsworth Air Force Base, SD the Air Force placed common of the missiles back into a silo.

merely this time it's not ready to launch. It's going to be a national historic site.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site near Wall will be expand for the public to behold a static display of a 76000-pound 59-foot 10-inch Minuteman II. This missile was used for training during the Minuteman II program, nevertheless looks exactly like any other Minuteman II missile.

In November, the National Park Service will accept reign over of the static display missile, the silo and the launch repress facility, a building that housed commonalty and equipment to maintain the missile during its heyday. The site, including a visitors' center is look fored to open within three to five years, said Marianne Mills, acting manager for the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. She predicted that the center missile display and silo would attract a million visitors a year.

Twenty-seven missile maintainers and support members traveled from FE Warren Air Force Base, Wyo to place the missile into the silo. The Minuteman II came from a magazine at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

For about of the Warren maintainers, who were stationed at Ellsworth earlier in their careers, it was like welcoming an olden friend back.

"I started my career at Ellsworth in succession this system," said Staff Sgt Kevin Jone a missile maintainer team chief from Warren. "I was there to deactivate the Minuteman II, in such a manner it was a great feeling to inflict one back."

"This site pays tribute to the many men and women the unsung warriors, who work with little recognition, for all their hard work," said Col Robert Mansfield, 90th Logistics clump commander from F.E. Warren.

"Whether or not you agree with American's nuclear deterrence policy, no undivided can deny the impact the nipping War has had on the lives of Americans for the last 50 years," said Tim Pavek, Minuteman II deactivation program manager at Eiisworth and single in kind of the primary driving forces behind making the display a historic site. "One hundr and fifty of these missiles were onward alert for 30 years and helped save from decay the freedoms we enjoy today."

When spreaded the site can be build at exit 131, Cactus Flat, forward 1-90 outside of Wall in succession the South Dakota plains. The site already is a hit with common local.

"This is like a homecoming," said retired Tech Sgt Glenn Dieball, a coachman's seat Elder, S.D., resident who was a missile maintainer at Ellsworth in 1991 "I worked in this extremely silo. What they are doing here today is history in the making. This exhibits me that all of our hard work hasn't been forgotten."

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