[Un leu, un leu... Chapter X] From The Sublime to the Ridiculous, or Vise Versa

This is a continuation of the book "Un leu, un leu...", which was written in Romanian by my late godfather and uncle Bill Edwards, and published by Evenimentul, a now defunct Romanian publishing company. The book is being released for the first time in English exclusively online here on Steemit, as a serial. I hope you enjoy his writings as much as I do!
-Rob

Painting of Loring AFB. Source

In November 1963, I was stationed at Loring AFB, near the cities of Limestone and Caribou, Maine, as assistant information officer of the 42nd Bomb Wing of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). Having been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve in May of 1962, I had just completed the required 18 months of satisfactory service for promotion to first lieutenant and I was proudly wearing my new silver bars. Two things barred my complete pleasure in this event. A friend of mine, who had graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in the same class of 1960 with me, and who had been commissioned at Officer Training School with me the previous year, did not get his promotion. He had been reprimanded for bad judgement — a weekend trip to Quebec City, Canada, 150 miles away, while he was on telephone alert, a trip on which his hotel room was burgalarized and he lost keys to a top secret communications room, which he had with him. I had refused to accompany him on this trip despite his urgings, pleading that I was also on telephone alert that weekend. As a result of this, his promotion was held up for three months. The second event was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

John F. Kennedy's state funeral service. Source

SAC had a policy of having all of its IOs' get orientation tours on its strategic weapons systems. My bomb wing had two squadrons of Boeing B-5 2H "Stratofortresses" and a squadron of Boeing KC-135 "Stratotankers", the military version of the venerable Boeing 707, the first American pure jet airliner. I had orientation flights on B-52s and KC-135s on missions in the arctic and all over the U.S. and Canada. Now I was scheduled in late November to visit Plattsburgh AFB, New York and received an orientation on the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) stationed there. These ICBMs were the only ones that the U.S. had east of the Rocky mountains at that time, and they have since been phased out. At that time, however, the missiles and their crews were on full alert. The day I was to depart for Plattsburgh, the assassination took place and all activities, as one can imagine on the SAC base, under these conditions, came to a halt until the national and international situations clarified.

Vandalized missiles. Source

Once some semblence of normalcy returned, I traveled down to Plattsburgh, and can recall watching the Kennedy funeral services on the first color television I had ever seen, in the officers club and bachelor officer quarters there. The following Monday, a bitterly cold day, I recall being taken to one of the missile silos and entering the underground world of nucler deterrance, for my orientation. While at that site, I was told that I could observe the changing of a missile's warhead. What had happened was that someone at the missile site had inscribed some graffiti in margic marker on the warhead — "To Russia with love", "Kilroy was here" or some such drivel, causing what was in SAC parlance, a bent saber, dull sword or some such code phrase indicating a minor nuclear weapon compromise. No matter how minor the compromise involving its nuclear weapons, those weapons had to be closely examined, thus the change of the warhead at a cost of thousands of dollars and downgrade of SAC's war capability. As I stood around the silo with its multi-ton cap raised, dressed in a plastic raincoat with a light wool lining, ill prepared for the frigid subarctic winds blowing in off Lake Champlain, I placed my gloved hand on the warhead which had just been winched out and placed on a flatbed truck for transport to a maintenance area. I was reminded of Shelley's Ozymandias, I looked upon its face and despaired.

After the orientation, I went on leave, boarding a SAC flight to Homestead AFB, south of Miami. Later that night I was drinking scotch and water with a very raucous crowd at a black bar called the 21 Club in my hometown of Key West, not three hundred meters from the house I had been born in 25 years before. That night I felt I had gone from the sublime to the ridiculous, or... vise versa.

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