F.E. Warren Air Force Base: A Missile Wing on the High Plains
On the high plains at the edge of Cheyenne, F.E. Warren Air Force Base is the oldest continuously active installation in the Air Force and primarily a missile base: the 90th Missile Wing and its hundred and fifty Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, with Twentieth Air Force headquartered here over the whole land-based leg of the nuclear deterrent. The missile alert is pulled in hardened capsules across a field that stretches into Nebraska and Colorado, with helicopter support from the 37th Helicopter Squadron. Cheyenne sits right outside the gate at six thousand feet, windy and dry, with Frontier Days, the Daddy of 'em All rodeo, every July. A wing whose entire reason for being is reliability holds its people to a standard that leaves no slack.
Military defense is all Bilecki Law Group does, and Airmen fly us in from around the world because a contested court martial is won on trial experience, not on how close the lawyer sits to the gate. At a missile wing, the case and the access can both be gone before any verdict, so people here bring in their own counsel early.
The Commander Who Pressed the Mission Through the Fire
The standard for a missile wing built on discipline was set by Colonel Leon W. Johnson over the Ploesti oil refineries on August 1, 1943. Leading his bomb group into the low-level attack and arriving to find the target already aflame and the defenses fully alerted, Johnson held his formation together and pressed the run through flak, fighters, and delayed-action explosions to destroy the assigned refineries. He kept the formation disciplined when it would have been easier to break off. That refusal to flinch from the mission is the standard we bring to a case at Warren.
Why Missileers at Warren Bring Us In
We win court martial cases. Military defense is all we do, and Airmen fly us in from all over the country because of our trial record. The military justice system is not built to find the truth; it exists to preserve good order and discipline, and a missile wing will make an example of an Airman to keep its reliability beyond question. On top of the criminal case, the Personnel Reliability Program runs in parallel and moves first, and a positive test, a security flag, or even an unproven allegation can pull a missileer off alert status at once, on a standard far below what a conviction requires. A serious case is investigated by the Office of Special Investigations, and for sexual assault and other covered offenses the decision to refer charges to a court martial no longer belongs to your command but goes to an independent Special Trial Counsel. The Area Defense Counsel may be capable but carries a heavy caseload inside the same system, which is why missileers serious about winning bring in their own counsel.
UCMJ Charges We Defend at F.E. Warren Air Force Base
These are the most common cases at F.E. Warren. They are examples, not limits, and we defend service members against the full range of UCMJ offenses.
Sexual Assault and Sex Offenses (UCMJ Article 120 / Article 134). These allegations route to an independent Special Trial Counsel now, and the command treats a report as established before the investigation is finished. A conviction can mean confinement and a federal record, with registration required for a covered sex offense under the applicable federal and state law, and a single allegation can pull a missileer off alert status long before the case is resolved. These cases demand counsel who will run an independent investigation and contest the case rather than let the allegation stand in for proof.
Domestic Violence and Assault (UCMJ Articles 128b and 128). Domestic violence under Article 128b is charged as aggressively as any offense in the UCMJ since the Office of Special Trial Counsel took these cases over. It covers a spouse, an intimate partner, or a family member, and it treats strangulation or suffocation as its own charge that the government can bring even with no visible injury. A qualifying conviction also triggers the federal Lautenberg firearms bar, which can end an Air Force career because an Airman has to be able to carry a weapon. We also defend assault under Article 128, where self defense is a recognized defense.
Drugs (UCMJ Article 112a). A positive urinalysis is the fastest way a career here unravels, because at a missile wing it can trigger suspension from PRP duties or a reliability review that pulls you off alert before the case is ever decided. But a positive test is evidence the government may use to argue knowing, wrongful use, not an automatic finding of guilt: the collection, the chain of custody, the lab work, and whether any use was knowing and wrongful all remain the government's to prove, and the decertification is an administrative action, not a finding of guilt.
Drunken Operation and Dereliction (UCMJ Articles 113 and 92). A night out in Cheyenne that ends in a DUI is charged as drunken or reckless operation under Article 113, and on a nuclear mission a lapse on alert or against a standing order is charged as dereliction or a failure to obey under Article 92. Both still require the government to prove the elements, an applicable duty or lawful order, a violation, and the state of mind required by the charged theory or reckless operation, impairment, or a prohibited alcohol concentration, as charged, not just an accusation.
A Career and a Reputation Worth Defending
We do not pretend that every missileer who calls us from Warren is innocent. What matters is how serious the case is, not your rank. If a matter is genuinely minor, the Area Defense Counsel can handle it, and we will tell you so honestly. But when the case is serious, everything is on the line at once: your alert status, your clearance, your career, and your freedom. A court martial conviction is a federal criminal conviction, and the applicable sentencing parameters tie a confinement range to the offense, two and a half to ten years for sexual assault and ten to twenty for rape, that a judge can depart from only by stating specific facts in writing, on top of any required or adjudged punitive discharge and, for a covered sex offense, sex offender registration. That is why you fight. The court’s jurisdiction and the convicted offense determine which sentencing rules apply; some offenses use separate sentencing criteria rather than these ranges.
If you are facing an investigation or court martial at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, reach out for a free, confidential strategy session. We will tell you exactly what you are facing and how we would defend it. The government is already building its case. The only question is whether anyone is building yours.
FAQ
OSI wants to interview me at Warren. Do I have to talk to them?
No. Under Article 31b of the UCMJ you can stay silent and ask for a lawyer, and you should do both before the interview starts. OSI is collecting evidence, not giving you a chance to explain, and at a missile wing a single statement can drive the criminal case and a decertification that ends your time on alert. Decline, ask for the Area Defense Counsel or your own lawyer, and say nothing first.
I was decertified from the PRP over an allegation. Does that mean my case is already lost?
No. A decertification is an administrative reliability call, not a finding of guilt, and it should not be treated as proof of anything at a court martial. The way back to status is to beat the underlying allegation, because that is what triggered the action in the first place. That is the fight, and it is the one that decides both the career and the case.
I'm under an Article 120 investigation. Will I have to register as a sex offender if I'm convicted?
A court martial conviction for a covered Article 120 offense triggers registration duties under the applicable federal and state law, with requirements and duration determined by the covered conviction and jurisdiction. The entire defense is aimed at defeating the charge or reducing it to an offense that carries no registration, and the investigation and the charging decision are where these cases are most often turned. Get your own counsel involved before you ever sit down with OSI.