
Diary of an atomic bomb technician - timdierks
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n15/mike-kirby/diary
======
viraptor
I love this article. Some people are surprised that I tried hard (and
succeeded) to avoid army service (obligatory at the time), and that I'm not
keen on people joining army by choice. It's hard to explain all the reasons
clearly, but this post has the essence of it. The stupidity, the submission,
the lack of responsibility, the disregard for life. The atomic bomb didn't
even matter that much in this story.

~~~
chrisseaton
"The stupidity, the submission, the lack of responsibility, the disregard for
life."

This is absolutely nothing like my experience of life in the military (British
Army). If you people think life in a modern western military is about
stupidity, submission, lack of responsibility and disregard for your life you
are so incredibly far off I don't even know how to start making you better
informed.

My experience of military life was one of mutual respect, shared experience
and delegated responsibility and at a level most civilians can't even
understand.

You could have taken the squadrons and batteries I was in and put them
anywhere in the world and asked them to do anything and we would have made it
work no matter what. Try that with a group of civilians without the values the
military has and see how far you get.

If you really think the military is like this, challenge your preconceptions
and sign up to your country's reserves in your spare time for a year or two.
See how far you get with stupidity, submission, lack of responsibility and
disregard for people's lives.

~~~
dalke
I'll assume the parent poster is from the US, where conscription didn't end
until 1975. In that case, the authors views are very much shaped by the
Vietnam War. See [https://libcom.org/history/1961-1973-gi-resistance-in-the-
vi...](https://libcom.org/history/1961-1973-gi-resistance-in-the-vietnam-war)
for how the army then was quite different than your military experience:

> For soldiers in the combat zone, insubordination became an important part of
> avoiding horrible injury or death. As early as mid-1969, an entire company
> of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade sat down on the battlefield. Later that
> year, a rifle company from the famed 1st Air Cavalry Division flatly refused
> - on CBS TV - to advance down a dangerous trail. In the following 12 months
> the 1st Air Cavalry notched up 35 combat refusals. ... Soldiers went on
> “search and avoid” missions, intentionally skirting clashes with the
> Vietnamese, and often holding three-day-long pot parties instead of
> fighting.

A co-worker of mine, ex-Navy, said in the 1970s there were parts of the ship
where officers wouldn't go alone, for fear of being attacked.

I think you can see how that experience leads to different views than yours in
an all-volunteer, technology-focused military that isn't sending 10s of
thousands to their death in an unpopular war.

~~~
runarb
> A co-worker of mine, ex-Navy, said in the 1970s there were parts of the ship
> where officers wouldn't go alone, for fear of being attacked.

>

Apparently they had a real reason to fear attacks. At least 230 American
officers was killed by their own troops in the Vietnam War, maybe many more.
It become so common that it is even a word for it: "Fragging". Interesting
read at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging)
.

~~~
dalke
Since you found that interesting, you may be interested in the link I posted
earlier. Not only does it cover fragging, but also near mutinies, strikes, and
sabotage. Nearly 1/4 of the crew of the USS Coral Sea signed a petition
against going to Vietnam -- something not mentioned on the ship's WP page nor
a tribute page -- and the commander of the USS Constellation had to return to
port or risk losing control of his crew and ship.

Edit: it's on the WP talk page.

------
rrggrr
Portrayed by the author as taciturn and evangelical, Lt Com. Karlsven, a farm
boy who joined the Navy, went on to become a teacher and pastor working with
children. The rear admiral, identity unknown to the readers, commanded four
months prior to the Cuban missile blockade, the height of the cold war, and a
time when the nation's military credibly believed nuclear war was imminent.
Kirby's beautifully written accounting of his own internal struggles with
identity, faith and authority is a delight to read for its prose. But, still
arrogant as he thought he only once was, the author finds fault with
everything except himself. Karlsven deserves better than Kirby's depiction (
[http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/47643008/](http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/47643008/)
)

~~~
bellerocky
> still arrogant as he thought he only once was, the author finds fault with
> everything except himself

He did find fault in himself. He clearly described himself in a flawed
disposition while he was working brainlessly on weapons of mass destruction.

~~~
aragot
That's the best part of the article to me. He had the ethics to ask for a
discharge. He said he was close to detonating the heads.

Rationally speaking, if he had detonated a head and thus blown the warehouse
(and possibly a part of New Mexico?), he might had weakened the US nuclear
inventory and caused the domination of the USSR.

~~~
mikeash
This was the early sixties. The US outclassed the USSR in nuclear arms by
literally an order of magnitude. The US had tens of thousands, with thousands
of those immediately ready to be delivered, while the USSR had thousands, with
hundreds immediately ready.

For example, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US had about 170
ICBMs, 100 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and 450 shorter-range
ballistic missiles based close enough to reach the Soviet Union. The USSR had
20-40 ICBMs and no SLBMs, and of course the whole deal with the Crisis was
their attempt to base short-range missiles close enough to reach the US, so
they just had those few. The USSR had 160 long-range nuclear bombers, while
the US had well over 1,000. This doesn't even include the British and French
forces, both of which were fairly substantial. (The British V bomber force
outnumbered the Soviet strategic bombers all by themselves, and was in
position to strike quickly.)

One guy blowing up one weapon in one stockpile wouldn't have altered this
significantly.

------
VilleSalonen
If you're interested in reading a more extensive account of history of nuclear
weapons in USA, I highly recommend Eric Schlosser's Command and Control:
[http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/command-
control...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/command-control-eric-
schlosser-review)

------
PhasmaFelis
> _" At night jack-rabbits electrocuted themselves against the security
> fences: distant pops and small blossoms of flame."_

Yikes. I've never heard of a lethal electric fence before.

~~~
Someone
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_of_Death](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_of_Death):

 _The name 'Wire of Death' is an English rendition of one of its popular Dutch
names; Dodendraad which can be translated as either "Death wire" or "Wire of
the dead". As the war continued and more and more victims fell to the electric
fence it became known as simply De Draad meaning "The Wire". To the German
authorities it was officially known as the Grenzhochspannungshindernis ("High
Voltage Frontier Barrier")_

------
laxatives
I'm guessing its probably not possible to take a look at that training footage
of the radiated guy in his last moments, right?

~~~
matthewmcg
It was probably Harry Daghlian. I could not find any footage of him on
YouTube.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr).

------
Tech1
Prior Army EOD (7.5 years) (ATO for you Brits) and HN participant reporting
in.

------
thisjepisje
Throwing a dummy bomb at someone who thinks it is a real bomb. Lol.

~~~
trhway
or throwing a [look a like of] high security key (strategic command
communication in another country with big nukes) used punch card (which
supposedly was just burned following strict procedure in the presence of 3
witnesses - birth of a king is witnessed less strictly :) into a toilet bowl
of the commander - by his reaction he would prefer real bomb or even crocodile
there than the card.

