In an interview on "Main Street" hosted by Craig Blumenshine, Colonel Jimmy Schlabach, commander of the 91st Operations Group at Minot Air Force Base, discussed his career and the current state of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Colonel Schlabach detailed his journey in the Air Force. He emphasized the ongoing modernization of the U.S. nuclear triad, particularly the upgrade of ICBMs from Minuteman to Sentinel missiles, to maintain strategic deterrence.
He explained the importance of the land-based nuclear response as part of the triad, highlighting its 365-day-a-year readiness and responsiveness. Schlabach also touched on ethical considerations and the rigorous process involved in launching nuclear weapons, ensuring decisions are made in a broader context.
Regarding community and personnel welfare, Schlabach spoke about initiatives like Operation Home for the Holidays, demonstrating the base’s commitment to airmen's well-being and the wonderful relationship with the Minot community.
He also addressed the public's perception of the military, stressing the importance of serving professionally regardless of public opinion.
On challenges of recruitment and assignment, Schlabach encouraged embracing the unique experiences offered by locations like Minot. He shared personal reflections on his decision to join the Air Force, driven by family legacy and a call to service.
Lastly, Colonel Schlabach offered insights on leadership, career progression for missileers, and the reliability of ICBMs in extreme conditions. He concluded by discussing the gravity of handling nuclear weapons and the balance between safety and readiness, drawing lessons from the movie "Oppenheimer."
Here is the full text of the interview (during the broadcast of Main Street, excerpts from this interview aired.)
Colonel Colonel Jimmy Schlabach, commander of the 91st Operations Group at the Minot Air Force Base
Full Transcript
Main Street
Welcome to Main Street. I'm your host Craig Blumenshine, and I am honored today to have as my guest Colonel Colonel Jimmy Schlabach, commander of the 91st Operations Group at the Minot Air Force Base. Colonel, thanks for joining us on Main Street today.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and everybody.
Main Street
Give our listeners a sense on what brought you here. Where have you been in the Air Force?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Oh, wow. Well, I've been a lot of places. So what brought me here this, I was coming home.
Shortly after I commissioned, this was my first long-term duty assignment back in 2000. So from 2000 to 2004, I showed up here as a second lieutenant, left as a captain, and then got the opportunity to come back here last summer, in the summer of 22, to command the Ops Group. So it's been a whirlwind 24 years from coast to coast, and various number of jobs throughout the nuclear enterprise specifically.
Main Street
The ICBM weapons that are here at Minot Air Force Base are undergoing upgrades, as are all of the ICBMs in the United States military under the Air Force Command. Give us a sense of what that means to not only the base, but also North Dakota.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
So specifically to the base in North Dakota, what it means is Minot is going to continue to be the, at the center of gravity of our strategic nuclear deterrence that we have across the nation. The modernization programs we do have going across the Department of Defense, you know, we've pushed that off for decades, and it's come time when to maintain our relevancy, and to maintain our ability to project the combat power that we need to provide that strategic deterrence, we've got to upgrade our systems. And that's the whole triad.
Bombers, submarines, and the one near and dear to my heart, ICBM leg of the triad. And that means, especially with two legs of the triad being here at Minot Air Force Base, it's going to continue to be the center of gravity for that for decades to come.
Main Street
How long do you anticipate, once the project begins here, that it will last?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Depends. I've seen varying estimates on it. Until we put a shovel in the ground and start pouring concrete, we really won't know, have a higher fidelity sense of how long that's going to take.
But I would expect, once we do begin the modernization process here to upgrade from Minuteman to Sentinel, it'll be a number of years, probably in the two to five year range from first shovel to the last one being done.
Main Street
One of the things that surprised me when I was in Wyoming that I learned about the Minuteman missile is, once they were launched, that was it. They were going somewhere, and there was nothing that was going to change that. Is that the same with these new LGM-35A missiles?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
With the new missiles coming online, we're going to maintain some of the previous capabilities and functions that we have with our current Minuteman III system, as well as some modernization upgrades. I haven't seen yet any specific plans on the aspects of the weapons system, so I don't really have a comment on whether or not that aspect is going to change. But by and large, rest assured that this modernization, what it will do is continue to provide that combat capability that we need to be able to provide that strategic deterrence to our national interests.
And with the modernization, that allows us to get that out decades in the future, beyond the Minuteman III, which is nearing the end of its service life.
Main Street
And there are 150 missiles here today under your command. Will there be 150 missiles also once this modernization process is completed?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Yes. The current plans for the Sentinel upgrade at Minot Air Force Base is to maintain the facilities that we have, or to upgrade the facilities that we have here, and to upgrade the same numbers of those.
Main Street
I've always been curious about the nuclear triad, land, sea, and air. Colonel, why is it important that we have a land-based nuclear response capability here for this country?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
I try to liken the nuclear triad as an analogy to the vehicles we drive. Because the vehicles we drive have different functions. And if they all work well and they work well together, we have a fantastically functioning vehicle.
Same thing with the nuclear triad. Each leg of the nuclear triad provides various aspects, various benefits, that in and of themselves are good, but when we couple them together, that's when they really, really function well. And so specifically to the land-based leg of the nuclear triad, one of the aspects that it gives us is the ability to provide 365 days a year coverage and provide that combat capability so that it doesn't matter the time of day, it doesn't matter the day of the year, that we are always on ready, always standing guard, and our adversaries know that as well.
So that's the biggest aspect of it. And we do have some other attributes of our land leg as well. One is we are the most responsive.
The most responsive being the one that if somebody would try to sneak attack or try to catch us off guard, we're ready and we're able to respond quickly. And more so than that capability that we can do it, any potential adversary knows we can do it. And that's really where the deterrence equation comes in.
You've got to be credible and you've got to be reliable, and that's what the land leg does, it provides with that. Also responsive in that if we need to, if we have emerging targets, if we have things that pop up that we didn't expect, the land leg, the Minuteman III specifically, and then the Sentinel in the future are responsive enough to be able to quickly hold those targets at risk, and our adversaries know that as well.
Main Street
Colonel, my wife and I watched Madam Secretary and I realized it's all fiction. But one of the things that struck me was an episode where a nuclear strike against the United States happened, or at least they thought it was about to happen, and the minimum amount of time decisions needed to be made to respond. And in this fictional episode, it was a cyber error.
They were able to catch it in time, etc. But it struck me that there's not a lot of time, perhaps, that these decisions have to be made. Give our viewers a sense of how that can happen and how that can happen safely in our current system.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
A scenario like what you described is not necessarily incorrect in and of itself, but a lot of times the context is lost. So in a scenario where we have to make a quick decision, if you back up and start walking the dog, how did we get there? Well, chances are years, months of build-up to the point where a conflict is coming.
So our policy makers, our decision makers, who will have to make those time-critical decisions, they're going to understand the full context of the current situation. And so I try to caution folks when they see, you know, in a movie you've got two hours, right?
Main Street
This was 20 minutes.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Right, 20 minutes in a series. And so if something would happen suddenly, unexpectedly, out of the blue, chances of somebody making an incorrect decision in a time-constrained environment are extremely low. And there's a whole lot that goes into that process.
And a lot of that is, like, what's been happening in the world? What is the intelligence community? How do they assess the situation?
And so for something to happen suddenly out of the blue where we suddenly have to make a decision like that, I would consider that possibility extremely low. Makes great movies, makes great TV, because you've got to build that tension. But in the reality of it, and I've had experience in the nuclear enterprise across 24 years, so I've seen various aspects of it.
And the nice thing is, too, that we exercise and we drill for a myriad of situations. And so in situations where something happens unexpectedly, we do have procedures to make sure that we're making the right decisions at the right times.
Main Street
If the President were to ever make that decision (to launch nuclear weapons), Colonel, what would your role be in that moment?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
So my role in that moment, here as the 91st Ops Group Commander, actually comes way before that moment. My role here is to ensure that our airmen of the 91st Ops Group are proficient in their job, in their role of providing that combat capability, that they're current, that they have had the training, and they have the resident expertise to execute the President's orders. If and when it comes from the President, I'm out of the loop on that, unless I happen to be on alert that day, which I do that as well.
I still maintain combat mission readiness, so I do pull alert every now and then. But by and large from that, my job is to enable our airmen to be able to do their job and to make sure that they have the resources, they have the training, they have everything they need to provide that combat capability so that the President and our national policymakers can provide that strategic deterrence to any potential adversaries.
Main Street
When President Putin said that he might use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, what went through your mind when you first heard that?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
The first thing that went through my mind is I've been living that mission for 24 years. Nothing really changed in my world because that's what we've been doing since the day we put our first ICBM on alert, is our job is to make sure that anybody who would consider an attack on us or our allies knows there could potentially be a grave consequence with that. And that comes from, and I'm a little biased on this, it comes from the men and women of the 91st Missile Wing here at Monad Air Force Base and specifically for the 91st Operations Group, our missile leaders that are downstairs on alert are ready to provide that combat capability if the President needs it.
If President Putin or any other national state leader decides to make a statement or any kind of comment like that to try to flex their position, well, I know our job here, we're providing our President with what he or she needs to be able to do their job and their role on a national political scale.
Main Street
The ethical decision to launch a nuclear weapon is horrifying. How do you counsel those under your command about that?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
It's a long process and it starts very shortly after commissioning and sometimes it starts even pre-commissioning that we talk to our airmen and make sure they understand that there is a process to this. We don't exercise it on a whim. There is a long legal process from everything to what targets we're allowed to project our weapons to to how we go about executing that.
And so we walk them through that process knowing that the worst day possible is the day when we have to exercise our combat capability. I am over the moon ecstatic with the fact that we have been ready for over half a century to exercise that combat capability with ICBMs, but yet we've never had to do it. And so we give our officers and we give our airmen a perspective of what the potential combat capability that we provide does not only if we execute one but the fact that we are ready to execute one.
And we show them, our officers and our airmen and we try to help other folks understand it as well that just by us being there and just by us being ready that helps prevent the very horrific things that we often can foresee.
Main Street
I read a Gallup poll this past June, Colonel, that was troubling to me that said only 60% of Americans have a high level of confidence in the military and that's the lowest since 1997. When you hear that what does that bring to the table to you?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
It brings a number of things. One, sure I'd love everybody to love us but that's okay if everybody doesn't. It doesn't change how it doesn't change what we do.
We are here to be professionals and to execute our civilian leaders' orders and to follow the Constitution. And so our goal here is to help do that in a way that is professional that ensures dignity, respect and inclusion of everyone that decides to put on the uniform and to serve their country and we sure hope that projects to the American public that we're here to serve and that's what we do for those of us in uniform. It'd be nice, like I said, if everybody would have a higher rating of us but that's okay.
The great thing about the Constitution is it doesn't say we have to agree, it just says that hey we're all part of this democracy and our role is to defend that Constitution for everybody regardless of their opinion and I love that aspect of it because of what our airmen do, we are able to let folks exercise their opinion and to me that's the glorious part of our country and that's what sets us apart from other countries.
Main Street
We're conducting this interview, Colonel, in your office. When you came in the door this morning what's the greatest challenge that you worry about that's in front of you?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
The greatest challenge that I worry about on a day-to-day basis is and it's a personal leadership philosophy is I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to provide for our airmen and their families to take care of them because they take care of our mission. They take care of the day-to-day grind of doing the small, just intricate details of what is necessary to be done to provide this mission to our national leaders and so my job I really see my job as being the servant to them and their families and advocating for them to make sure that they have everything they can to do their job as well as possible.
Main Street
I'm curious too about technology and this is back to nuclear weapons. We hear about hypersonics. What should our listeners know about hypersonic weapons?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
So hypersonics great nomenclature, right? You say hypersonics and it elicits an emotional reaction in a almost sci-fi fantastical vision of what that means. So as far as hypersonic weapons go one thing I would say is they're not a surprise to anybody because the concept of them have been around for decades now that science and technology are catching up to where now they're becoming a potential real impact on combat operations so what I would say to listeners is nobody is surprised by them necessarily the concepts have been out there.
I would also say that our government, the military has seen the onset of hypersonic weapons coming and has taken safeguards to make sure that we are able to provide our national defense through all ranges of conflict Enjoying our conversation with Colonel Jimmy Slabaugh, he's the commander of the 91st Operations Group at the Minot Air Force Base.
Main Street
Colonel the holidays are coming. How tough is it for folks who are here in Minot to endure the holidays maybe a long ways away from home?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Holidays are glorious but they can also be emotionally challenging. Just kind of like you said I was talking to our crews that were departing for the field last week and I asked them to raise hands. There was about probably about 50 people in the room and I asked them, you know, how many of you live within 500 miles of your immediate family?
And I think about three people raised their hand and so I looked at them and I said your family is right here and it's not easy it's hard to be away from home especially during these moments that have such emotional ties back to memories and all those things especially folks that are gone for the first time but the nice thing about the Air Force is it's not just a job. It is a lifestyle and it's something that we actively try to ensure we provide as much of a connection to other people as possible through the Air Force.
I'll give you a couple examples.
One on last Saturday the spouses and I'm going to brag a little bit my wife Monica who is a fantastic fantastic servant of folks one of the best unpaid employees of the Air Force she and many many other volunteers had what we call the North Pole stroll which is we set up in one of our buildings different stations face painting and pancakes and crafts Santa Claus was there, the Grinch was there and it was a way to welcome families in bring your kids, have the whole families come in and that as I was walking around talking to folks and a lot of our active duty folks were volunteering as well I was talking to folks and I said this is the difference between a job and the Air Force is we know that a lot of the folks the spouses and children that were there their dependents were out in the missile field but they had a connection they knew they had somebody to welcome them and to share the holiday season with them even when they're out in the missile field that's one example
And another example is if I can brag on the Minot community for a minute and sorry this is going to be a little bit long winded but I want to make sure I tell the full story because how much this means to me and I think Abby probably knows where I'm going with this so there is a program called Operation Home for the Holidays and a lot of bases do it and what it is is it's a charity event that they'll raise money to send airmen home for the holidays who otherwise may not financially be able to afford a ticket.
So we had a lieutenant now a captain in the 91st Ops group who was an enlisted airman here and last year he remembered being a first term airman here and it was the holidays and he was missing home and he remembered that feeling in the dorms where he couldn't go home. And so he wanted to make a difference. And so he got with our company grade officer council last year and they raised enough money to send four airmen home for the holidays well he briefed that at our military affairs committee luncheon back in March I think and I could feel it in the room the Minot community took that and they were like we're all in and within three weeks they had already raised I think it was $16,000 so they quadrupled what we raised the year before.
But the Mayor (Tom) Ross and the whole Minot community took it a step further and throughout the year they've raised so much money they got Anheuser Busch to donate a motorcycle a Harley so they auctioned off the Harley they've raised so much money I believe it's up to $125,000. Our airmen are going to be able to go home with their families because of this community and last year it was four and it started with a lieutenant in the ops group and he's now Captain Murray his idea of doing that and serving others brought it out to the community and this community just puts their arms around our airmen.
And it doesn't make it you're not, you know it's not the same as being home all month but golly we've sent 125 airmen home this year and some as far away as Thailand I think and then other some stateside and so it has just been such an overwhelming heartwarming story to see because the holidays are emotional and we want our airmen to know that we're going to do everything we can for you we've got a mission to do and that is the challenge with a 365 day a year mission is on Christmas day we've got folks down in the capsules ready standing guard so that others can enjoy that day every missileer has pulled those alerts and every defender has been on watch and they're not easy but boy I'll tell you they are fulfilling because we know we're doing that at that time so that others don't have
Main Street
I want to ask you a question about recruiting and specifically recruiting folks here to Minot I'm guessing that maybe some people who are assigned here it may not have been their first choice on their list but then they're here what do you tell them?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
That is a challenge that is a challenge we have to overcome is dispelling the myth of Minot and the myth of Minot by and large is perpetuated by folks who have never been to Minot and I'll be honest that kind of rankles me a little bit because I've spent now five and a half years of my life at Minot and I love this town.
I love this community I love this area the community here is the best I've ever served with and I've served with some fantastic communities and I will say it is challenging and so I understand the challenges and I understand don't get me wrong I'd love to be stationed in a nice tropical environment as well.
But and what I try to not remind folks but I try to explain to folks is every one of us that puts on a uniform when we do that and we say I'm going to serve this nation as a member of the military that's what we say first I'm going to serve and then the Air Force decides where we're going to serve it may not be our first choice it may not be our second choice and sometimes it's our last choice but the first thing we do is decide whether or not to put on that uniform and then I also try to remind folks when they get here that didn't want to come here which does happen I try to remind them or try to give them the challenge of try it before you make up your mind definitively try it, go downtown try ice fishing, try curling try all the things that are unique to this area that only this area can provide and try to take I'll call it the influencing of others before they got here try to put that to the side and let them decide themselves on what this base and this community have to offer.
And I tell you this and I am biased but also I've been to six or seven bases I forget how many now across the nation and there is no base that I've been stationed at that has a tighter community and family than this base and a lot of it is because we are in an austere environment and so our social structure is made up of other airmen and those around us but it draws us closer together and anecdotally when I got here in 2000 I showed up with a number of families and some of those families we still vacation with we go to each others kids weddings and so we still are in contact two and a half decades later folks that show up here will make lifelong friends
Main Street
How do you colonel you've got a high stakes position how do you balance the demands of your position with your personal well being
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
it's not easy and one thing I try to look at it is and we use that word a lot balance and I try not to look at it as a balance because as soon as we get it balanced it's going to teeter off balance and so I look at it as I've got a couple gas tanks and I've got to fill them up I've got work gas tank and I've got personal gas tank and so sometimes work demands are a little lower and when it's lower I try to fill up the personal gas tank and family gas tank because work will need me and it will always need me at an inconvenient time and the luxury I have is in my capacity right now.
When work needs me airmen need me and so they need me to serve them and so they need me to have a full gas tank on the personal family side so that way I can give them all the attention I need at that time but then I do need to sometimes move the nozzle over to the other gas tank but the nice thing is we have so many great leaders here that I know if I need to hand off the reins to somebody else for a day or a week or so we're in good hands in my opinion probably better hands sometimes because we do have great leaders here and so I try to make a concerted effort to focus on both at specific times so that when one does need all my attention that I've got some in reserve from the other,
Main Street
We're going to visit with missileers a little later today. They go down in the silos for an extended period of time It may be monotonous at times for them based on my experience how do they deal with that?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
It's tough because our job it's one of those that demands constant attention focus on details and is never ending and it's a lot of aspects in our lives whenever we start anything we're excited, we're going but then it becomes routine and when it becomes routine is where we can start to have higher risk of lapses because we start to think oh I've got this and we can sometimes lose focus one of the nice aspects we've done over the years is for our officers the missile leaders that go down in the capsules on alert.
We have a series of progression milestones that they will hit so that roughly about every 6-7 months we are training them for another position we're training them for another growth step along their career development and so what that does is it keeps things fresh because we train them, we get them certified they're in a role and then it's time to start looking at the next role and it can sometimes be frustrating because it's like I just learned my last job and now you've got to teach me a new one and it's yes.
But it does two things one it keeps our growth and development going and the other aspect is it keeps our perspectives fresh because we're constantly in that mode of growth development, education we have technical education as well as we highly encourage folks to educate themselves from a broader perspective whether that's a master's degree whether that's a certification whatever aspect that is. Down in the capsule we do have internet connectivity so we do have folks that can use that for a secondary degree or they can use that when they have a moment of quiet they can use it to Facebook chat, I was Facebook chatting with my wife on my last alert and it just keeps us fresh, keeps us perspective.
Main Street
Colonel, I'm guessing that people generally join the Air Force to be a pilot or a navigator or something really cool, and they probably don't join the Air Force to be a missileer. How does that career process work for those who are missileers?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
So you're right. My first choice was pilot because we, you know, the Air Force aim high, right? We all want to fly.
But the pilots are actually, you know, a small percentage of the folks that have a, that are in the Air Force. Now, they're a huge aspect of what we do, projecting combat air power is what the Air Force is all about. For those of us that aren't pilots, though, we do have a very regimented and deliberate series of progression and growth and development for our missile operators.
The first aspect, generally about six years, will be spent at a missile wing. And that goes from once they graduate technical school where they learn the basics of operating the Minuteman III weapon system, they get to a missile wing, whether it's here at Malmstrom Air Force Base or F.E. Warren Air Force Base, and they'll go through those series of progressions that I talked about. And then by the time they graduate, I call it graduate, they finish those six years, then they're on to, they become so ingrained with day-to-day operations and what they've seen here through various experiences.
Then we send them off to either go back and teach the next generation, or we can send them to the test squadron to do test launches, or we can send them to weapon school to be part of the bigger Air Force weapon school at large to develop tactics, techniques, procedures, and grow into the next level of leaders that we need them to be. And then eventually, you know, keep walking them through the process as they grow from company-grade officers to field-grade officers, giving them those leadership skills all along the way through mentorship and experiences, so that one day they can come back and be commanders and lead larger groups of other airmen.
Main Street
How do you know the missiles will launch when it's 40 below outside and the wind's blowing 40 miles an hour, and at my house there are drifts five feet, six feet over stuff? How do you know they're going to work?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
So, yeah, those are challenges we face at all three of the bases we've got. The weapons system is designed to overcome those aspects, and the reliability that we have in the weapons system is through, I mentioned briefly, the test position that we do send officers to. So we do up to three or four test launches a year, which test a number of various aspects of the weapons system.
Main Street
Do you take a missile from Minot, transport it to California, and launch it? We do.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
We will pull a missile from here, and that will remove some components, like some of the specific components, so we make sure we don't set off a nuclear yield, and we'll put them with test components. But by and large, from the top of the nose cone to the bottom of the nozzles is the missile that we pulled out of here at Minot Air Force Base, send it out to Vandenberg Air Force Base, and launch it down to the Kwajalein Atoll, and that is specifically testing the missile itself. And we'll also do tests up here at the wing itself.
In fact, we just did one last September, where we will test all the ground equipment. And so we make sure everything from when we turn keys that the electronic signal goes out correctly, and that the mechanical aspects of the door open correctly, to everything inside the launch facility works. And so we do that to test the entire weapons system, and we do that in a repeated pattern with a number of frequencies, as designed by our engineers, to ensure that we can have the confidence that the weapons system will function correctly.
Main Street
What advice do you give airmen who want to become you, who want to become more established in a leadership position in the Air Force?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
The first thing I would suggest to somebody who wants to grow into a 20-plus year career, is understand your own personal goals, dreams, hopes, and do what you can along your career path to maximize your probability of getting those. And so, what do I mean by that? Because somebody may want to serve 25 years, but never be necessarily a commander.
And that's okay, because we need folks to do a myriad of activities. For somebody who would like to be a commander someday, what I try to ingrain onto them is, it's about service. Ironically, the moment you get a job where you're the highest ranking person in that unit, you are, in my opinion, the least important, because without everybody else in that unit, the unit doesn't function.
And so, the commander, whether it's a squadron, a group, a wing, their job is to do whatever they can to enable everybody underneath them to do their job. Because a lot of times, the only person that can fight for the resources and all the things they need to take care of themselves, and their families as well, because that's another aspect of it. And my wife reminds me of this all the time, that over half my unit does not wear a uniform.
And she is so right about that, because if an airman's family is struggling and suffering and doesn't have the resources they need, whether that's medical, dental, mental health aspect, whatever that is, that airman is not going to be able to focus, understandably so, on the mission that they need to do. So, my job is to take care of all of them. And so, for anybody who wants to serve in that capacity, I really try to help them understand that it's not about, does everybody stand up when I walk in a room?
It's, do people listen when I'm fighting for our airmen? That's what our role as commanders is, is doing what we can for the folks who don't necessarily have the voice that a commander does.
Main Street
Tell me about the moment you decided to join the Air Force.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Whew. Wow. So, it wasn't necessarily one moment.
I will, there's two moments I'll share with you. It was a, it kind of built up a number of things. One, my grandfather, that's his World War II uniform up there.
My grandfather served, my dad served, and I always felt kind of a call to it. But I went through college, normal college student, had graduated. And then, I wasn't real happy with what I was doing after I graduated.
And a friend of mine had suggested going into the Air Force. And so, one day I asked my wife, this is the first moment, I said, hey, what do you think if I joined the Air Force? And we were married at the time, thinking she would say, no way.
She goes, if you want to. And I was blown away. And my wife is so amazing in so many ways.
And she has been beyond supportive of everything we have done as a family, which has largely been driven by my career. And so, that is emblematic of her over the last 30 years. She has been the rock that has been there for our whole family.
So, that was the first moment. The second moment was when I told my dad I was going to join the Air Force. And so, to give perspective, too, my dad got drafted in 1971, which was a different era.
You talked about the public's image of the military, so you can imagine what it was in 1971. And, you know, my dad had friends killed in Vietnam. And so, that shaped his image of the military.
Got drafted, served, and then when I told him I was going to join the Air Force, he said, well, why do you want to do that? You know, I wanted to serve, wanted to look for the career, that type of thing. I told him I was going to go to officer training school and get a commission.
And he looked at me without batting an eye, and he goes, you find your sergeant and you do whatever he tells you to do. And I didn't know what that meant at the time.
Main Street
You learned.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
I learned. And what he meant was, listen to counsel. You're not the smartest person in the room.
You don't always have all the answers. And, especially from his generation, people who didn't listen got people killed. And I've always carried that with me for the last 24 plus years now, is you need to be a team, and you need to rely on very smart folks.
Because as soon as we think we've got all the answers, boy, Murphy comes and rears his ugly head and shows us we don't.
Main Street
Colonel, what are you most proud of in your career so far?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
From an overall perspective, I would say one thing that brings me joy in looking back is serving others. And I've been blessed with positions that I've grown in my ability to serve others. There was a moment, specifically, that I highlight a lot, and I think about it kind of as emblematic of that, is when I was a squadron commander, we had a member, that person's spouse was in the emergency room, and the member was in the missile field.
And so as we were getting the member home, the spouse that was in the emergency room, they had been on station for about a year. And we had met with the member and their spouse. When they first came in, it was a welcome, and my wife was there.
We met together, and my wife hadn't seen the spouse in that time. But I was helping take care of getting the member home. I called my wife, and I said, Hey, can you go to the hospital to make sure that person's okay?
And my wife showed up at the hospital, and she said, Hey, I'm here for this person. And they called, and the spouse said, Yes, please, she can come back. So my wife walked in the room, and as soon as my wife walked in the room, the spouse broke down because she had somebody there.
And at the end, when we got the member home, we got the spouse connected with the member. The member's spouse said, I didn't used to think the Air Force cared. She goes, I don't think that now.
And that was a pretty special moment. All we did, we were just there. That's all we did.
When we can be there for each other in crisis, because family is hundreds of miles away, those moments make the service worth it.
Main Street
Last question for you, Colonel. You told me earlier you watched the movie Oppenheimer.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
I did.
Main Street
What did you think?
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
I thought it was entertaining. One thing I really took away from it was the gravity. It's what we deal with every day.
These weapons, nuclear weapons, are extremely serious. And that's why we take our business so seriously. And we go through every procedure, every aspect we do with fine-tooth comb after fine-tooth comb after fine-tooth comb.
And when we make a mistake, because we're human, when we make a mistake, we self-identify. We raise our hand and say, I made a mistake here. We share it with others so that hopefully we don't make that mistake again in the future.
And the other aspect of that is we've come a long way from 1945, when we did the Trinity test, in that we have designed so many safeguards and so many procedural as well as I'll call mechanical, but part of the systems themselves, safeguards, to make sure that one of those never goes off unless it's supposed to. At the same time, we balance that with we need to make sure it does go off when we want it to. Because if we get either of those out of balance, we either lose faith with the public and our ability to safeguard them, or our adversaries don't believe that we actually can project combat power.
And we've maintained that balance with ICBMs for over 50 years, and with Sentinel coming on, we're going to continue to do that for decades to come.
Main Street
Colonel Jimmy Slabaugh, the commander of the 91st Operations Group at the Minot Air Force Base. It's been a pleasure.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Likewise. Thank you so much for your time and the opportunity.
Main Street
Thank you for joining us on Main Street.
Colonel Jimmy Schlabach
Thank you so much.
NOTE: Main Street transcripts are AI generated and corrected on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of Main Street programming is the audio record.
