One day I was on TDY assignment to a base about 10 miles from my home base. Me and my buddy Bruce were out on the flight-line working on aircraft, and we heard a distant boom. We looked out to the horizon and saw a giant fireball go high up into the sky, then a mushroom cloud formed and spread over the city towards us. And we thought, this is it. We’ve got about 30 seconds before it hits and incinerates us.
Fortunately, we were both wrong. Because we didn’t die, and the city wasn’t destroyed like we’d seen in the training films and on the death charts in Job Control, where concentric circles spread out on a map showing thousands and millions dead. No, we were lucky, but nine of our brothers were not so lucky. During combat simulation launch, a B52 had crashed at our home base, exploding 300,000 pounds of fuel on contact.
I probably haven’t said this much, but I’m a little pissed that we’re back in the Cold War again. I served during that, for whatever that’s worth to ya, to the planet. More than that, those guys gave their lives for it. If you think that’s being overdramatic, I think you should think again. And as for the Russians, threatening to go nuclear — we were ready then, and we’re ready now. Don’t even go there.
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