The day a Major got fired from the Air Force for asking if the president was mad



At the height of the Cold War, some forty years ago, Major Harold L. Hering was in the middle of a nuclear missile training class when he posed a question that put an end to his 21-year Air Force career.



‘How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?’ he asked at the Vandenberg Air Force base in 1973.



As a Minutemen missile crewman, it was Hering’s job to ‘authenticate’ the code in the launch order to ensure that it came from the president himself, according to Ron Rosenbaum in Slate .



Missile: A U.S. Navy Trident I (C-4) fleet ballistic missile (FBM) is launched from the submerged nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine USS Ohio (SSBN-726) during a Demonstration and Shakedown Operation (DASO) off the coast of Florida 17 Jan 1982

As an officer, Hering was under oath to carry out only 'lawful orders ' so, to him, his question seemed legitimate - but the military did not agree .



He was dismissed from the training class and was forced to leave the Air Force after two years of appeals.



His dismissal came as Richard Nixon, the president at the time, was rumoured to be drinking heavily and acting erratically.

His behaviour was so odd that James Schlesinger, secretary of defense and No. 2 in the nuclear chain of command, had asked officers to double-check with him before carrying out any ‘unusual orders’ from the president.



But, despite the circumstances, Hering’s questioning of the president’s sanity went beyond ‘his need to know’, the Air Force Board of Inquiry told him during an appeal hearing in 1975.



‘I have to say, I feel I do have a need to know, because I am a human being,’ he replied.



Cold War: Richard Nixon, the president at the time, was rumoured to be drinking heavily and acting erratically

But despite serving in multiple tours in Vietnam and being on the brink of a promotion, Hering was discharged.



Wracked with guilt, he became a driver, a counsellor for the Salvation Army and even worked on a suicide hotline.



Disappointed at the premature ending to his Air Force career, Hering rejected the free healthcare he was entitled to as a veteran and spent 16 months in solitude in the 80s.



‘I thought my actions were proper, but felt shame,’ he told Rosenbaum in an interview last year.



But his love for the Air Force never waned and he told how one of his proudest achievements was competing in the U.S. Air Force marathon at the age of 72.



'I still miss/regret the loss of promotion to lieutenant colonel and believe I had the potential to advance further. And I have certainly missed flying,' he told Rosenbaum.

