December 1, 2013

From the "You can't write this" Department:

In one of the more "what in the actual hell were we thinking?!" moments of American history, we now know that the launch code for America's deadliest arsenal was — wait for it — 00000000.

Seriously. And it was written down in all of the checklist manuals handed out to the soldiers in case they forgot.

As Dr. Bruce G. Blair, who was once a Minuteman ICBM launch officer for the Air Force, stated:

"Our launch checklist in fact instructed us, the firing crew, to double-check the locking panel in our underground launch bunker 'to ensure that no digits other than zero had been inadvertently dialed into the panel.'"

We're trusting these people with nuclear weapons and they can't come up with a launch code varied enough to qualify as a password at Amazon.com?

How reassuring.

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