“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”
-- Variuosly attributed to Winston Churchill, George Orwell, etc.
I do not sleep soundly in my bed at night. I sleep with demons, and they do not rest lightly.
Sometimes they speak with the voice of thunder, with trails of fire.
Have you ever seen B-1Bs or F-15Es take off at full afterburner into the sunset? It is a truly glorious sight... until you consider the death that will soon rain down on someone else.
I saw the Minimum Interval Take-offs (MITO) into the frigid cold mornings of the North Dakota sunrise, and I wondered if my daughter would grow to be a woman, to ever find love, to feel safe.
I had a Top Secret security clearance, and I held codes in my hands, the keys to the nuclear apocalypse. Some of the pieces we called "biscuits" because they would be broken open when the launch order came, much as one might crumble bread. Even though there were safeguards in place, and I alone could not launch a nuclear attack... I still feel the weight of that burden.
I saw the planes take off toward Saudi Arabia, I helped prepare them for their missions. I knew where they were going, I knew that people might likely die because of what I was doing. I did it in 1990 - 91, I did it again in 2003.
I also saw the bomb-laden aircraft take off into the evening sunset from both RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, to rain down destruction in the night upon Serbian forces in 1999. Do you know what it is like to do your job, and see the results on CNN the next day?
How many of you have ever wondered how many people you had a role in killing? That is not even an issue which should enter a person's consciousness. Am I a mass murderer? How many body parts have you created with your actions? How many orphans or widows have you created?
I saw bomb-laden aircraft depart the balmy airstrip on Guam, to know that their contents would fall upon the Taliban fighters who gave shelter to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2001 & 2002.
F-15s
B-1Bs:
While "Global Shield" was real imaginary pretend stuff, when we pretended to blow the crap out of one another... Desert Shield and Desert Storm was real, so too was Operation Allied Force. We threw massive amounts of stuff into the sky and let it rain back down.
I do not know who I killed... but I had a hand in each of those deaths. I do not even know how much blood is on my own hands.
I have seen these visions, I do not casually carry this burden.
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