Woman Keeps Missile Command in the Family

Lt. Col. Patricia Fornes will be sworn in today as the first woman in Air Force history to command an operational missile squadron, and the history-making step will be doubly special for her: Her father held the same post more than 20 years ago.

The 740th Missile Squadron at Minot Air Force Base is now equipped with Minuteman 3 missiles.

“My dad’s pretty tickled,” she said. “When I called to tell him that this had happened, he was beside himself. It was the first time he was ever speechless to me.”

“I didn’t have much to say. That is quite unusual,” said retired Lt. Col. Glenn Fornes. “Her mother and I always insisted that she could do anything she ever wanted and she’s proven that.”

Fornes remembers exactly where she was when she decided she wanted to take over the missile squadron. It was 1978 and the Air Force had just decided to allow women to join missile crews.

“I was sitting in a radar station on a hillside in Alaska,” Fornes recalled Wednesday. “When the announcement came through that women were going to be allowed to be on missile crews, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to command the 740th.”

Fornes, 40, will be in charge of 74 people and five missile launch control centers, which have 10 missiles each.

For Fornes, taking over the squadron is not only a personal triumph, but proof of how much the military has matured in the past 20 years.

Her husband, Lt. Col. Douglas M. Marshall III, said his wife has strong qualifications and her determination.

“I can’t say this really surprised me at all,” said Marshall, commander of an operations support squadron at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.