Driver, T. C. by The Great Ark Read Free Book Online Page B

pissed away. All the graves in France are now pointless. A few poor, old men still survive, living to see the mockery of their own sacrifice.”
    “One thing that did happen of note in World War II was the A-bomb it was a big money maker. This bomb scared the hell out of the war merchants and ruling elites. Mature, old, powerful men now had their own butts on the line. Fear slowed down the old 'boys fighting in a field game', but not for long. Old men the world over soon used smaller low-key wars like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Sudan to keep the 'boys in the field' game alive. Always stopping the conflict before it got out of hand; meaning men over forty years old started dying. Nowadays, we mostly bomb the poor, dumb little bastards of the 'third world'. We do this for practice, sport, population control, to sell arms, to make money, and of course, to save the planet from being overrun with billions of more 'poor, dumb bastards'.   Our ruling elites can always find men of low moral character, or of brain-washable will, who will kill for money. Men like you and me. We kill, or thin the herd, of unwanted population groups as defined by the elite authority in power. Men like us work for the likes of Castro, Stalin, Mao, and Osoma. You name the leader they are all cut from the same cloth. All have the same evil high priest. Guess what, children? It's not Jesus. It's not the Holy Bible. These men deal in death and lies. Not truth, life, freedom or liberty.”
    My many young students left the Gospel Cafe that night, off the coast of East Africa, encouraged once again to a life of military service and the Godly importance of our ship's mission. This mission of killing off all the Africans to save the world! That is the least I could do for them.
    On ship, I loved to listen to the many sounds, and look out over my high deck porch railing. At my quarters, during nights and early mornings, the smell of the ocean uplifted my heart. Often a beautiful star filled sky dazzled my eyes. Lou Goodliar roomed down the deck from me, he too enjoyed the solitude. Often, we made hand gestures, for it was too far to shout.   The silence was broken only by the B44s screaming off the deck and the much quieter drones coming in, and or stretching for the sky. Life was good! I enjoyed life aboard the Ark. Anyone would. Well, any sailor.
    Most days of 'wartime' were lazy and uneventful. We did start making manned bombing runs to small port cities and villages. Targets were picked with care, but not by 'CARE' (ha-ha).
    These targets had to be found by satellite; a house here; a dock or boat there. One target was a lone dish antenna. Two of our B44s would be lost and two more out of service by the end of our four-month long deployment at Gumbo Station.
    Our longest 'feet dry' bombing run that was done with manned B44s was less than a week before the 'Big Attack' as we called it. I assumed that we, the ship I mean, had approached the shore too close to keep our bombing mission 'still night', which made it possible for the ship to be attacked. Twelve heavily loaded B44s with no cannons and no missiles, just one drop tank and two bombs on each hard point took off before midnight. Big, ugly looking cluster fire bombs, over one thousand pounds each, slowed our small, light planes. This was a 'long run' with our new hydrogen 'cold fuel' because hydrogen does not push you as far as the old 'dirty stuff' could. We were feet dry for over an hour before letting go and pulling skyward and south. Whatever we hit caused many secondary explosions. There was even some old time fireworks type anti-aircraft fire. That old gun fire didn't even start until after we were turned home; our target bright orange ablaze. I could not make out what we hit, but it was near a pretty big town. The fireworks were beautiful against the end of night mountain skyline. Of course, this night was quite different on the other side of those thin, early morning clouds, down on the killing