VANDENBERG AFB: Rank has its privileges, as I was reminded last night when our bus was waved ahead of the traffic jam to view this morning’s test launch of an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM. The young airman driving the bus shouted out that an 06 (i.e., an Air Force/Army colonel; a Navy captain) was on board and away we went.

Despite the cold, the VIP launch area was crowded. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, contractors and even some family members — with an atmosphere that one media colleague astutely compared to a high school football game, complete with metal bleachers and hot chocolate. We were told that more folks were packed into the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense Site farther away. Since there are only four or five opportunities a year to see the fruits of your labor, it’s not surprising the turnout was so big.

The test itself, dubbed FTU-2, went off relatively cleanly at 12:33 am, with a short 15-minute delay caused by an unexplained anomaly. The missile splashed down some 30 minutes later 4,200 miles away near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall islands.