On July 19, South Korean media and Stars and Stripes were given a tour of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system site at Andersen Air Force Base. News of the tour did not, however, reach Guam media at the time.
“Right off the bat, I’d like to apologize, for it taking so long to invite you all to come see THAAD," said Rear Adm. Bette Bolivar, commander of Joint Region Marianas, during a media tour on Friday. "It was a surprise to both me and Congresswoman Bordallo in July when we found out that you didn’t have the opportunity to go up to the site. It’s taken us that long to pretty much figure out the logistics, and we are now good to go for you to be briefed on THAAD.”
Lt. Col. Jeffery A. Slown, the commander of Task Force Talon, currently the first and only THAAD missile battery, a permanently forward deployed unit of the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command based in Hawaii, briefed the media on all public aspects of Talon’s mission. Talon has provided continuous ballistic missile defense of Guam since April 19, 2013, when then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered the first forward deployment of a THAAD battery to deter North Korean aggression. Within a week of the deployment order Talon arrived on Guam, and 21 days later the THAAD was fully operational, Slown said.
Slown proudly called Guam “the assignment of choice” among the Army’s missile defense duty stations. He announced that 110 personnel are now permanently deployed on Guam out of the 210 total assigned personnel to Talon, being 85% complete of its recent conversion of the task force from temporary to permanent deployment.
The THAAD system, built jointly by U.S. military contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, is operated exclusively by the U.S. Army and is comprised of five major components: interceptors, launchers, a X-band radar, a fire control unit and support equipment. THAAD is managed by the U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency (MDA), which described THAAD’s effectiveness against all types of ballistic missile warheads including weapons of mass destruction. THAAD can engage a wide range of ballistic missile threats in both the upper and middle regions of the atmosphere using a proven and tested “hit-to-kill” technology. Eight individual interceptors are loaded into nine launchers, giving THAAD a capacity to handle up to 36 shots with a reload time of no more than 30 minutes.
After a 45-minute drive down to Northwest Field from Andersen, the bus containing members of the media entered an overgrown area of the old runway. In the middle of this wild jungle was Camp Armadillo.
The camp is named after the appearance of the radar unit, which resembles an armadillo. There are temporary tents and wooden guard towers. Slown said the camp will soon have permanent concrete structures.
During the tour, the media met the soldiers of the unit, who were busy maintaining the support equipment around the camp. The equipment appeared to be in pristine condition, with no evidence of the effects of Guam’s harsh weather.
THAAD runs on an independent power generator producing 1.3 megawatts of power running 24 hours a day, protecting Guam’s skies even during islandwide blackouts.
At the end of the tour, the media fielded questions to Slown and Lt. Col. Ray Morgan, product manager of the THAAD interceptor.
When asked if the computerized assisted targeting of the THAAD system may be vulnerable to cyberattacks, Slown said, "there have been teams that have been looking at our system, because we are a critical asset here on Guam. Those tests have happened, the results have not come out yet, the preliminaries have come out and announced no significant risk.” He added that he is "confident in the capability of the mission, the mechanical, and the technical capabilities of the system.”
