How much has to be true? Multiple war stories perhaps?
Not a big deal, really. Was a controller at Holloman, AFB, early 80’s. They tested all kinds of stuff there, and within the neighboring White Sand’s Missile Range:
Ejection seats (on a high-speed rail - seen that several times)
Stealth fighters
Patriot missiles
And related to this story – AIM-9’s. That’s where the -102 drones come in. Runway 22 (I think, been a while) was the slab they launched them from.
They had an explosive package in the nose for, well, times when they weren’t going where they were supposed to go. And probably other reasons. In this case somewhere just prior to rotation. They used that runway cuzz it pointed out towards ‘nothing-ness’.
I watched it start the takeoff roll (wasn’t that far from the tower back then - all them century types were VERY LOUD TOO), turned around to punch in the key combo to get in and, as I was opening the door - KA-BOOM! Not sure how far away I was but it did punt me into the door. Was told it was “out of parameters” during takeoff roll. Or something like that.
Looking back, quite a few ‘interesting’ things went on while I was there. Every now and then you could see a drone eat a 'Winder from the tower cab.
The Test Track, at night, was cool; you’d be in town (20 miles away at least) and see what looked like a shooting star - except it was going along the ground. The track was miles long.
They use to do Red Flag mini-ops there; think “traveling road show” for the aggressors. Guess what the F-5 callsign’s were? Yup, MIG. They may have been great fighter pilots but they were a lil, shall we say, free-lance when it came time to recover. The didn’t know our procedures like the Eagle guys did.
We’d sit there watching targets start to exit the airspace up North. “Here they come”. One, two, four…eight…this was before targets had data blocks. Then it was mini-chaos trying to sort and split them up for recovery, all while they were getting closer, fast. Time is your enemy in that job, at any level.
Worked a bunch of Stealth’s there before even I knew they existed; they were “A-7’s” on the flight plans. Only put two-and-two together later on. They tested the initial prototype out there for RADAR stealthy-ness.
Heck, they STILL (as of late 2000’s) launched missile’s into the range from Colorado! And…nobody knows…
My first pointy-nose jet incentive ride happened there: T-38.
Space Shuttle did a test landing there in, oh, about 83/84, give or take? When it took off, on the back of the 747, I was working Departure. Vectored it over the RAPCON so my bud’s could get a good look. Thought it’d be fun. If I recall it didn’t climb real quick 
- it was still kinda low as it went over the back door.
Chief came in and asked, “What’s he doing over here?”. No, that’s not accurate: he EXPLODED THROUGH THE DOOR like the squatty little bull he was, with, “What the F— are you doing!”. Me go, “uhh, vectoring him for his climb Chief?” in my best, please don’t eat me voice. He did request it though.
He was a classic brown shoe Chief MSgt (E-9) in the old-school mold: short-ish, stocky, male-pattern baldness going on up there, with a slight comb-over; perpetual stern look, and a short cigar always sticking out of his mouth.
Guy never really spoke much, but we were both in fear of and in awe of him:
-He made our (AF Academy grad) Captain cry one day, no seriously. I was an E-2 at the time and in training, with several others. We’re studying one day and the good captain thought we should police the grounds before someone was going to visit (don’t recall who). So we store our books/charts/maps and head outside.
We are milling about picking up butts and I hear a serious one sided conversation rattling the windows, something like, “…if you EVER PULL MY PEOPLE off for something like this again…”.
-Wing Commander did something he thought was, well, less than optimal concerning how he was going to utilize our service one day. Only heard the Chief’s side of the phone conversation (he left his office door open): “Colonel, put your pacemaker on backup power cuzz I’m coming over there RIGHT NOW to set you straight!”. SLAM goes the phone and out the door he went. They [CMsgt’s] probably don’t do that anymore.
Dang, I should have a beer. Lotsa stuff goes on above our heads (and in association with the business), as most of you know, that the general public has NO CLUE about. I could go on.
