RE: Does the prospect of nuclear disaster still frighten anyone these days?
March 21, 2015 at 3:29 am
(This post was last modified: March 21, 2015 at 3:30 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
The last time I was worried about nuclear warfare was right after 9/11. Living in Port Hueneme, CA, three hundred yards from a big Navy base sitting stride the only deep-water harbor between LA and San Fran -- I considered the possibility of a terrorist nuke being sent into the port on a container ship. The likelihood was extremely low, it seemed to me, but it did cross my mind.
The most nerve-wracking experience I had in this regard, though, was in 1991, not too long after returning to Carswell AFB from Desert Storm. We were toned out by the alert klaxon, meaning, get in our fire trucks and take up preplanned positions. My truck was to head to the north end of the runway and stand by. We'd done these drills once a month since god-knows-when, but on this day I saw something I'd never seen before: the tails of our H-model B-52s started rolling out of the alert compound, and taxiing up towards my truck, a line of fat bombers waddling up the parallel, each carrying 20 nuclear cruise missiles. The first one rolled past my truck and came to a stop at the head of the runway, and then started its slow roll. I was sure that the shit had hit the fan -- the Air Force does not like nukes to be airborne without need. But he never accelerated, merely taxied to the midpoint of the runway where it turned off and headed back into the alert pad, followed by 7 other -52s and four KC-135 tanker aircraft.
That was pretty creepy. I thought the balloon had gone up.
The most nerve-wracking experience I had in this regard, though, was in 1991, not too long after returning to Carswell AFB from Desert Storm. We were toned out by the alert klaxon, meaning, get in our fire trucks and take up preplanned positions. My truck was to head to the north end of the runway and stand by. We'd done these drills once a month since god-knows-when, but on this day I saw something I'd never seen before: the tails of our H-model B-52s started rolling out of the alert compound, and taxiing up towards my truck, a line of fat bombers waddling up the parallel, each carrying 20 nuclear cruise missiles. The first one rolled past my truck and came to a stop at the head of the runway, and then started its slow roll. I was sure that the shit had hit the fan -- the Air Force does not like nukes to be airborne without need. But he never accelerated, merely taxied to the midpoint of the runway where it turned off and headed back into the alert pad, followed by 7 other -52s and four KC-135 tanker aircraft.
That was pretty creepy. I thought the balloon had gone up.
