Loring is just a bit colder than Plattsburgh, neither very desirable during the winter months.
I was at Plattsburgh during the "cold war", part of a contingency of SAC aircraft - B-47's and KC-97's. Loring had B-52's and KC-97's.
Both bases were closer to Russia than southern bases so the reaction time to get all aircraft air borne was shorter due to timing of theoretical incoming missiles. SAC liked to get their bombers as close to Russia as possible. The place was quite a bee hive when the alert klaxon sounded. The 97's had engine heaters running 24-7 during the cold snaps.
We lived in the mole hole seven days at a time ready to launch. There were a lot of guys living there around the clock, generally we spent 2 weeks a month in the hole. What did we do with all that time, some time in class rooms studying the war plan, watching movies, eating, sleeping - and poker. There were games going on constantly when nothing else was on the docket.
During the Cuban missile crisis, SAC decided there was insufficient time to launch so aircraft were disbursed to civil airports around New England. There were B-47's at the Burlington airport, for example. The KC-97's were fueled up and programmed for a one way trip, off load fuel somewhere over Canada and ditch the aircraft. Our navigator picked out what looked like a good fishing lake, we had survival gear and planned on surviving if radiation did not do us in. Everyone had sent there families out of NE, mine went to Minnesota.
Speaking of Aroostook County. I went deer hunting there one time with a friend from Maine. We hired a guide and I shot a skinny doe (they probably had all the nice bucks locked up somewhere for local hunters). The guide volunteered to drag the critter out while I went to reconnect with my friend. When we arrived back at the car, the guide said we have a problem - a game warden was just by and he said you guys violated the law by not accompanying the guide dragging the deer - he wants to see you at his house this evening. So we went to his house that evening and paid him off. Between the guide, the warden, the permits, lodging and food and fuel to get there, it was a mighty expensive week end for one scrawny deer - which tasted like eating pine needles. Must be they live on pine needles in the county, nothing else grows there.
Aroostook County did not like outsiders in those days, they liked our money but not us - including my friend who was from southern Maine, that was obvious. I promised myself never go back there for any reason and so far have kept that promise.
One quick story of those cold, cold winter times. One morning a B-52 diverted from Loring to Plattsburgh due to weather and landed with fuel vapor in the tanks - he was so low on fuel there was insufficient weight on the gear struts to compress them which locked out the brake system. The 52 rolled off the runway and into a row of parked 97's fueled up for war and on alert status - plowing into 3 or 4 of them. I remember one 97 took a wing tip in the cockpit and got turned 180 degrees. There were thousands of gallons of 120 octane avgas and JP4 on the ramp from the collisions but it did not ignite. It was too darned cold! What mess.
The good news was the base was down graded off alert status for a while and guys in the mole hole could go home.
The pictures of Loring are reminiscent of times gone by. The world sure is changing before our eyes. Today drones get the job done anywhere in the world, all from a comfortable office is sunny Arizona, at least not at Loring or Plattsburgh....a far cry from sleeping in a mole hole