(I live around the "B" in Bay on the picture.)
Posted on 12/04/2005 12:37:04 PM PST by mgiorgino
“First call, first call to Colors.”
Lieutenant Commander Thomas Carter stood at attention on the flight deck of USS RONALD REAGAN. He waited in silent anticipation for the first strains of the “Star Spangled Banner,” the signal for the petty officers of the watch to begin raising the extra large flag, only displayed on Sundays and holidays.
Tom loved weekend duty—a heart-pumping bike ride up the Strand, bounding up to the Quarterdeck (“Good morning, Sir!), shower, uniform, coffee, Quarters and then observing Colors—that bright, broad and magnificent flag rising over the blue-green water of San Diego Bay under the sleek arch of the Coronado Bridge.
A spark of light caught his eye, low, just outside the oil containment boom between the REAGAN and the aircraft carrier NIMITZ. It’s a little early for pleasure craft to be sightseeing, he thought, but not so unusual, I guess, with three carriers at North Island—quite a sight since USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN pulled in yesterday for a short visit.
Tom saw a large, bearded man dressed in white stand up in the boat. He appeared to be shaking his fist—shouting something—jumping up and down . . . and then a BLINDING FLASH . . .
The fireball soared thousands of feet above the harbor, fueled by the near simultaneous explosion of the three carriers, each contributing nearly one million gallons of jet propulsion fuel and thousands of pounds of bombs.
The blast instantly leveled the Naval Air Station and the village of Coronado. The bridge collapsed into rubble. A tidal wave capsized or grounded the fleet at 32nd Street Naval Station. Every tall building in San Diego from the Manchester Grand Hyatt to Symphony Towers tumbled like children’s blocks. Fires roared up Broadway and into Mission Valley and beyond.
Sleeper cells destroyed three carefully selected bridges on Interstates 5, 8, and 15, cutting off virtually all escape to the north or east for many days as a cloud of radioactive water, fuel, and debris slowly drifted inland. Thousands died while attempting to escape south across the International Border, after being denied entry by Mexican armed forces.
The atomic explosion in Washington incinerated the White House and Capital within seconds, instantly killing the President, Vice President, most of the Cabinet, Supreme Court, and Congressional leadership. Hellfire erupted at Times Square in New York City, Union Square in San Francisco, the Sears Tower in Chicago, and in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Omaha, Pittsburgh, and near the carrier piers at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia.
In all, more than four million Americans died that day, including more than two million children. Eight million more were burned, blinded, crippled, or fell grievously ill. Over half of those exposed to the radioactive fallout downwind—another 15 million people—would be dead within five years.
Those who survived discovered that Osama Bin Laden had purchased twenty nuclear warheads (1 – 10 kilotons each) from Chechen mobsters in exchange for $30 million in cash and two tons of opium. Al-Qaeda agents bribed the Mexican mafia to create a diversion with a series of violent cross-border confrontations with American Border Patrol Agents. During the confusion, the bomb crates were carried across the sparsely protected border to waiting trucks.
Fate chose the Treasury Secretary to be the cabinet member kept safe in a “secure location” during a cabinet meeting hastily called by President Bush to address the massing of Chinese forces in the Taiwan Straits. Thus, John Snow, fifth in line of succession, was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.
President Snow addressed the nation, declaring, “Our darkest fears have come to pass. Millions of Americans lie dead and dying. Our cities burn. More than half of our Navy is destroyed. As I speak, foreign opportunists are aggressively attacking American forces around the globe. Our people, our way of life, our very freedom is in the gravest of danger. After September 11, we naively believed that the pursuit of terror abroad would keep us safe while we turned our heads and ignored thousands of strangers streaming across our borders every day. Our luck finally ran out.”
“Therefore, I vow to you, as God is my witness: We will finally do whatever is necessary to secure our borders!”
* * *
Mike Giorgino is a retired Navy Surface Warfare Commander and a Gulf War Veteran. He was a Republican candidate for Congress (CA-51st) in 2004, www.Giorgino4Congress.com. He now lives in Coronado and practices law in San Diego. He may be contacted at mgiorgino@aol.com.
Freaky-to-the-1000th-power!
With any luck, the CIA has been for some time fielding
units pretending to be Russian mobsters selling nukes.
In addition to not actually being working nukes, such
devices could have all sorts of benefits.
Al Q has to suspect this, which means they need to buy
multiple devices, and actually test one. Haven't seen
any suspicious seismic reports lately.
nice
I'd expect the nukes to come through Canada. I imagine it would be much easier that way.
ping
This nightmare scenario is something we all have been aware of for a loooooong time here in California.
And keep in mind those carriers have reactors themselves in them. We had THREE all moored at the same time next to each other once.
I have a buddy who is an Air Force intelligence office and very deep in the world of nuclear weapons. When I asked him about a similar scenario where the Iranians had deployed numerous weapons to our cities, he replied, "Don't lose any sleep over it".
Whether or not that means they have ways of tracking the emissions from these types of weapons, I don't know. But he was adamant in his reply of don't worry.
It wouldn't be prudent.
(I live around the "B" in Bay on the picture.)
plenty of land here in Podunk
All they need to do is to smuggle in enough fissionable material to create a "gun type" crude atom bomb here in the USA.
Two sub-critical chunks are fired at each other in a piece of a howitzer barrel. Results guaranteed--ask anybody who was in Hiroshima.
I think it's more likely the material would be smuggled into the USA (well shielded of course) in a cargo container.
since when are islamonazis expected to be prudent?
I'm moving to Podunk next year.
My sailboat (Escape Pod One) is located just to the right of the little copyright (c).
You teach them prudence the same way you teach mosquitoes not to bite.
I *do* like enduring lessons of that sort
well, if ever you get near my area of Podunkia, let me know.
I'll bring the porch and the beer.
"The Little Boy type of bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima, had a much simpler design than the Fat Man model that had been tested at Trinity. Little Boy triggered a nuclear explosion, rather than implosion, by firing one piece of uranium 235 into another. When enough U235 is brought together, the resulting fission chain reaction can produce a nuclear explosion. But the critical mass must be assembled very rapidly; otherwise, the heat released at the start of the reaction will blow the fuel apart before most of it is consumed. To prevent this inefficient pre-detonation, the uranium bomb uses a gun to fire one piece of U235 down the barrel into another. The bomb's gun-barrel shape was believed to be unquestionably reliable and had never been tested. In fact, testing was out of the question since producing Little Boy had used all of the purified U235 produced to date; therefore, no other bomb like it has ever been built.
"Detonated by a mechanism that resembled a cannon, Little Boy had a muzzle or target that was a hollowed-out subcritical mass of uranium. The cannon ball was another subcritical mass of uranium, which fit perfectly into the hollow of the target as a plug. The plug was propelled down the cannon barrel by several thousand pounds of high explosive. When it hit, the combination of compression and increased mass pushed the uranium to the supercritical level and the bomb went off."
http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/twocities/hiroshima/page2.shtml
Deal.
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