On Nuclear Defense

In Germany during the Cold War, we had nuclear weapons on our mind. It was expected that should the Soviet Army awaken from the vodka-induced hangover our intelligence reported among soldiers in their border units, they would use nuclear weapons to engage NATO forces at the Fulda Gap, in what we more specifically called the Hofbieber bowl. Those of us in a mechanized infantry unit in the Eighth Infantry Division hoped the balloon wouldn’t go up, and we’d arrive home safe and radiation-free.

Nuclear weapons were part of the tactics of infantry, armor and artillery units stationed in post World War II West Germany. Officers knew where nukes were stored, how they would be deployed, and pulled security missions to protect them. This wouldn’t have been the big bang as when the air force dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were smaller, so-called tactical nuclear weapons. None of us had actually seen one go off.

We received training in what to do if we spotted a mushroom cloud on the battlefield of people’s farms, towns and businesses. The short version was to avert our eyes, find a low spot on the ground and cover ourselves as best we could with our poncho to prevent the radioactive fallout from touching our skin and clothing. The idea was to avoid the shock wave as best we could, shake off the radioactive fallout, and continue fighting.

In retrospect, the idea we would go through with it— position and detonate nuclear weapons— could only have existed within a culture of nihilism… and blind following of commanders’ orders. The officers I knew, who were selected for the nuclear mission, would have gone through with it. I’m not sure I would have, and maybe that’s why I wasn’t picked for detonation duty.

When we consider our recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it becomes clear that conventional weapons wreak enough havoc, that nuclear weapons are no longer needed. To cling to them now is a form of nostalgia the world can’t afford, if it ever could.

~ Written for the Nuclear Neighborhoods Project.