On 28 May 1987 a West German pilot named Matthias Rust landed his small, private plane in Red Square. This once unbelievable possibility signaled to the countries of the Soviet Union that Moscow power was a myth. Increasingly over the next four years movements toward Democracy by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, along withthe recent display of United States military power in swiftly terminating the occupation of Kuwait by the Republic of Iraq, demonstrated the once-perceived military might of the Soviet Union was nothing more than an illusion. On 21 December 1991 all countries dominated by Moscow voted to remove themselves from the Soviet Union. This vote required an immediate military alert by The United States and its Allies to ensure widespread military actions did not occur and the nuclear arsenal of the soviet Union was safely secured against rogue use. Your Service during this Alert Period was critical to preserving peace and Security.