This is a NORAD map of early warning radar installations and HQ annotated to show the places where my father was stationed in North America from the time I was born in 1945 to the time he retired in Texas in 1962. They are also the places where our family lived, with one exception – My sister was born in Denver in 1948, but I couldn’t fit it in.

Tinker AFB, and Keesler AFB were electronics and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) training sites and Wright-Patterson was a combined SIGINT and advanced cryptography training center.

Harmon AFB was an eastern anchor for the Pinetree Line and Elmendorf AFB was the logistical center for installation, maintenance, and repair of Mid-Canada Line and Distant Early Warning (DEW) sites.

Most of the sites on each of the three lines are now decommissioned, abandoned, and as they decay, becoming environmental hazards either undergoing or in need of very expensive remediation.