I remember as a child going to my father who knew so much about everything, and asking, "But Dad there is a W.W.1 and a W.W.11 but there is no W.W.111? "Where is the W.W.W.111?" My father who himself was drafted out of UNC to be an aviator in W.W.W.11, not only knew it all, but had seen it all. In his typical lecture fashion he briefed me on war history, as well as the evolution of weaponry. From the revolutionary bayonets, muskets, to the first war fought in flight, to tanks, and thus eventually evolving to nuclear weaponry he concluded, "So you see, Morna there can never be a W.W.W.111. You don't want a W.W.W.111." He gently advised.
I remember sitting there, and staring down at that olive green shag carpet that basically enveloped me in the horror of what my father was saying. W.W.W.111 would destroy us all. Yet, although I was struck by the immensity of what he had just said to me, I was also instantaneously comforted that the adults had somehow already figured it all out. They had agreed (I thought in my little twelve year old brain) not to do this.
I always think of Sting's song "Russians". Now I wonder if we need to be hoping it is one particular Russian, more than the collective whole.
ReplyDeleteI too remember those conversations about how a WWIII would mean the end of civilization as we knew it. I am sure hoping we all heard that lesson
ReplyDeleteThis post gave me chills. Thank you for writing about this thing that we are all thinking.
ReplyDeleteAn important moment captured that ends up having frightening relevance decades later. Sobering realization.
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