Rolling Thunder

It started again at 3 a.m. with strobe-like lightening flashes, then rain and hail. The thunder was off in the distance, perhaps over Medford or even Grants Pass. By 4 a.m. it was rolling over Ashland with loud cracks and and rumbly belches. The noise was tremendous and water poured down in a tropical way and overwhelmed the gutters and down spouts. The temperature had dropped 40 degrees from yesterday afternoon.
The noise must terrify some people. Thunder directly overhead can make one believe that the world, or at least one’s life, will end momentarily. Linda and I once spent twelve hours in a plastic shelter with thunder and lightening directly above us. At first it was very frightening. But it lasted so long that we finally gave up on fear and went to sleep. It occurs to me that I have weathered many severe electrical storms with no adverse affect.
During the Vietnam war we code named our bombing operations over North Vietnam as “Rolling Thunder.” Each night hundreds of Air Force and Navy jets swarmed over Hanoi and Haiphong dropping huge bombs and making a horrible deathly racket, creating a man-made rolling thunder to terrify and destroy. Think of it. An artificial thunderstorm each evening. But one that does much more damage than God’s average noisy demonstration. And, wasn’t it artful to call the effort “Rolling Thunder?”
I’ve been watching an old BBC series called “Danger UXB  about the young men assigned to defuse unexploded bombs during the London Blitz. Every night those Brits had a thunderstorm created by the Germans. Then, with the help of the US Army Air Force they delivered rolling thunder back to Germany.
Denied sleep at 3 a.m. this morning I struggled to make a connection between thunder and bombing, wondering what it was like for those poor souls who heard the noise in the distance and wondered if it would come closer. They probably yearned for a natural storm with light flashes and clanging cymbals and timpani. And what about those of us who sent the lethal jets on their way, supplying them, briefing them, fueling and loading them. Did we ever stop to think of the havoc we created? Or, the noise?
Somewhere today we are sending pilots out to create a rolling thunder, to make a U. S. Thunderstorm. It’s great fun to deliver the bombs, to pop the flares and fire the cannons. It’s satisfying to look back and see the secondary explosion on the ground. It’s rather quiet in the cockpit of a modern jet fighter-bomber. The tight helmet blocks out most sound other than the radio transmissions and the explosions on the ground are a silent movie, puffs of dust and smoke boiling up from the distant earth. But you know you’re making noise. It’s Godlike to be able to make this kind of racket, to create the rolling thunder.

Comments

[noble]

Great blog! I think that someday you and I should take a trip to Vietnam so you can exercise some of those old demons.

[Kirsten]

Last night, this morning, was scarey for Coler. He came to our bed around 3:30 a.m. and we layed talking softly. Everyone in Ashland is tired today from the storm. It was a wild storm!

[Rolling Thunder in Washington]

There are photos and a story of Rolling Thunder here:

Rolling Thunder

Alan Gray