What the hell is Nuclear Football Guy?

[walldude]

I'm following Ari's testimony on Firedoglake and at one point he's talking about passengers on AF1 and he said this: "The people who typically sit in that cabin are nuclear football guy, personal aid, head of advance, photographer." Can anyone tell me who or what is nuclear football guy?

[cynatnite]

1. He carries the codes to launch nuclear bombs n/t

[C_U_L8R]

4. I wonder where the missiles are pointing these days?

[Crabby Appleton]

25. San Francisco?

[walldude]

7. Oh swell. I feel so much better...

Thanks Cyn :toast:

[MADem]

12. Or SHE...it's usually an 0-4, rotates between military services.

There's a watchbill, and people who have the job take turns for eight hour shifts. You get the assignment for something like a year....it's a burnout job, because you never do anything, but you cannot DO anything, either...

[evlbstrd]

2. He's the long snapper.

Very specialized.

[CottonBear]

3. The guy who carries the case with the nuclear missle codes.

He goes everywhere with the president just in case Little Boots decides to start WWIII. :scared:

[cynatnite]

8. Do you think he freaks whenever bush looks at him?

Thinking, 'OMG!'.

[CottonBear]

20. It's probably crossed his mind.

:scared: I would not want that job, no way in hell. :(

[SteppingRazor]

5. The nuclear football is a briefcase-sized device...

that carries all the launch codes for our nuclear weapons.

[AlCzervik]

6. he carries the case with the red button inside we hope * never gets to open.

[AllexxisF1]

9. Yeah.

A top military officer is assigned to carry a suitcase that contains a mobile communication phone in order for the President to call in a nuclear strike. The codes and equipment is referred to as the nuclear football.

[rocktivity]

10. Legend has it that Nixon was discreetly "relieved" of his football-playing "privileges"

as he reached the end. Reagan, too. Bush? Probably.

:headbang:
rocknation

[wakeme2008]

11. And sometimes the codes are real and sometimes they are not as in the

case of Nixon in the last few weeks of his being in the office.

[davepc]

13. wikipedia has a good entry on it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Football

[MADem]

17. Yep, no one calls it the "President's Emergecy Satchel" except in the fitness reports! NT

[walldude]

14. Thanks everyone..

:toast: :yourock: I guess I really should have known this :shrug:

[soswolf]

15. I'm surprised it's not with Cheney anyway n/t

[ChickMagic]

18. I think it probably is with Cheney

I remember a snippet from some time ago. Cheney had a secret meeting in Iraq, and the article mentioned that he holds the nuclear football (even in Iraq).

[conscious evolution]

27. They both have the football with them.

In case some thing happens to the prez.

[ChickMagic]

29. Okay, that makes sense

I was outraged when I heard it was traveling with Cheney inside Iraq.

[KamaAina]

16. I don't know, but I was ready to go nuclear on this football guy

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

Fuckmook.

[JackintheGreen]

22. I'm a Bears fan

and even I want to beat the dumbass outta this guy.

[KamaAina]

23. You could bury the remains in a shoebox

even I want to beat the dumbass outta this guy.

[JackintheGreen]

26. You know our work?

[Greyhound]

19. I believe it was LBJ that fist termed it the "nuclear football" n/t

[Bake]

21. Guy with a "rocket arm"

You know, like Peyton Manning!

Bake

[Catherine Vincent]

24. If you ever get a chance, view the movie "Air Force One" with Harrison Ford as the prez

A couple of scenes show where there's this guy with the nuclear codes in his briefcase. He is handcuffed to them and travels wherever the president travels. I wouldn't want that job.

[Little Wing]

28. Brett Favre.. if you're asking John Madden

[krispos42]

30. I have this vision

Go watch the movie "The Dead Zone", with Christpher Walken and Martin Sheen.

There's a scene where Walken's character touches Sheen's character in a social context and gets a vision of Sheen's character as president at some point in the future. Sheen's character has snapped and gone mad, and while speaking of all of this religious mumbo-jumbo he opens up the football and launches an unprovoked nuclear strike.

I can see this happening now. Bush snaps and orders the guy with the football to give him the launch codes, and the officer is like, "Um, no." So they begin wrestling for it, and the Secret Service agents rush in, pull the officer off of Bush, help Bush to his feet, then slap him hard across the face and say "No! Not for President!"