Great moments in eye patch history
So during the cold war, the US was like "Man, what if Russia nuked all of our command centers and no one was left to launch our nukes! A missile could be here in 15 minutes and we wouldn't be able to react!"
And the solution to this was to have a plane in the air at all times that could command all nuclear forces from the sky. Wikipedia tells us "Looking Glass aircraft were airborne 24 hours a day for over 29 years, until July 24, 1990, when "The Glass" ceased continuous airborne alert, but remained on ground or airborne alert 24 hours a day"
Which is a long time to always keep planes up in the sky
But this is my favorite part
"The Looking Glass pilot and co-pilot were both required to wear an eye patch, retrieved from their Emergency War Order (EWO) kit. In the event of a surprise blinding flash from a nuclear detonation, the eye patch would prevent blindness in the covered eye, thus enabling them to see in at least one eye and continue flying"