His Finger Was on the Red Button
Michael Brohm
I
traveled for three days with a group of six retired Russian military
officers. With great pride they sang songs about Fatherland Russia,
hero jet fighter pilots and the softness of a mother's love. They had
never encountered an American and worked to show me both their strength
and their friendship.
They
had firsthand Cold War experience flying warplanes and training for
battle. Late one night, during the usual rounds of vodka toasts, I
asked them what they did in the military during the Cold War.
One
of the men told his story of being assigned to a nuclear missile train
that constantly traveled around Russia to avoid detection by the
Americans. He was on the train car containing, as he called it, the"red
button", the device that when pushed would launch the missile. He
spoke of the eagerness, the readiness of his comrades to engage the
enemy. As he spoke excitedly about training for the mission, the actual
launch of his nuclear missiles, he stopped in mid-sentence. Looking at
me, he suddenly realized that I was his intended target. I would have
been killed by the missiles he was preparing to launch.
The
room went sober and silent as each man thought about the moment. After
a few quiet breaths, he came over to me pulling me up into his arms
saying in english...
"Never again."
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