Base Crews Wait For Contest Results - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Base Crews Wait For Contest Results

Dozens of men and women who work with nuclear weapons and the systems that operate, maintain, and protect them are on edge right now.

They're waiting to see if they've won an annual competition among squadrons of the Air Force that deal with the nation's most lethal weapons.

Global Strike Challenge has been going on much of this year - with bomb squadrons competing in the spring and summer and missile squadrons going head-to-head in September and early October.

The Minot Air Force Base leader of the 91st Missile Wing's competitors says it's more than just seeing who's best.

(Lt.Col. Heidi Paulson, 740th Missile Squadron Commander) "The point in this is not only to reward these guys and recognize some of our future leaders in all those areas, but also to improve our tactics and techniques and our procedures. The competition brings out the best in our guys and competing across the different wings, we share a lot of tactics and techniques and innovations that we've found and we all get better in that whole process."

Lieutenant Colonel Paulson says the competition among the three missile wings in the Air Force has been spirited over the past several weeks.

And she says that competition pays off in new ideas for doing their critical jobs better.

(Lt.Col. Heidi Paulson, 740th Missile Squadron Commander) "There's a lot of rhetoric going back and forth between all the wings about who's going to take the Blanchard - that's the trophy for the best missile wing - and that's been touted for some time throughout the summer. It's a lot of fun to try and raise the bar across all three wings."

Winners, including best missile wing and best bomb wing, will be announced in November at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana - the home of the Global Strike Command.