Jack O’Rouke had been living on the Marshall Islands for more than a year preparing for this moment.

It was 1968 and the U.S. government was about to launch its antiballistic missile answer to Russia’s ICBM warheads that could fly 4,000 miles to their target.

It was the Cold War and O’Rourke was part of the effort to protect America from attack.

The LIM-49 Spartan was designed to intercept attacking nuclear warheads from ballistic missiles at long range.

A 5-megaton thermonuclear warhead was planned to destroy the incoming ICBM warheads, but the test missile had a dummy warhead.

It was still an awesome sight for a young man from Wyoming on the front lines of America’s next level of high-tech defense.

“It was really fun when they launched them, because that sucker just rattled the gro

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