Gita Nazareth - Forgiving Ararat

“That’s pretty scary.”

“Yes, it is. So, Sam and Brian begin their preparations and their countdown. One minute, they’re just two perfectly nice, normal guys with families, you know, but suddenly they have the power to destroy ten cities at once by pushing a few buttons and turning a few keys. When the alarms go off, their humanity is switched off and they’re turned into machines. They’re actually trained not to think about what they’re doing or the consequences of it, to just obey their orders and launch their birds. Ironic isn’t it…? They call them, birds. If the right set of numbers and letters blip up on a screen, they take a key, open a box, get another key, put it in a console, lift a panel, press a button, and in a few minutes fifty million people are erased from the planet. They’re gods. The Air Force missileers are gods.”

I glanced again at my watch. “This is all fascinating,” I said, “but we’re running out of time. What happened that caused you to be arrested and taken to Leavenworth?”

“Sorry,” she said. “Okay, so the countdown winds down to two minutes before launch. The fuel and oxygen lines disconnect from the missiles; there’s lots of hissing and white vapor clouds rise out of the silo on the video monitors. Sam and Brian pull out their top secret launch codebooks, strap themselves into their seats, and take their first set of keys and open their launch panels. I’m in disbelief at this point. It looks like they’re really going through with it; two minutes until the end of the world. It’s crazy. How could I just stand there and let them murder fifty million people?”

“Because it’s not your decision to make,” I said. “It’s the president’s decision.” Karen looked annoyed again. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s obviously a huge deal and it must have been very difficult. Nobody wants to murder fifty million people. Go on.”

“So I tried to reason with them and get them to stand down.”

“What did you say?”

Karen ran her fingers through her hair and laughed. “You’d think at a time like this,” she said, “-the two most important minutes of my life-maybe the two most important minutes in the history of the world-that I’d have something eloquent and convincing to say to save humanity, but the only words that came out of my mouth were: ‘Hey, come on, guys, you’re not really going to do this, are you?’-like I was trying to stop them from having a squirt gun battle or something. Unbelievable. They didn’t respond, of course. They were automatons by this point, reading off their checklists; the only thing they were worried about was whether they completed everything in the correct order, as if any of that would matter in two minutes.

“Well, apparently somebody on the surface didn’t like that I was down there during an alert because suddenly two armed SPs-Air Force Security Police-burst into the capsule to escort me out. I’m convinced now that this isn’t a drill and they’re going to launch. It’s like a nightmare: I’m standing there seconds before the nuclear exchange that ends the world and I can do something to stop it. ‘For God’s sake!’ I say to Sam and Brian, ‘don’t do this. What if it’s a mistake? You’ll kill millions of people-women, children, mothers, fathers, maybe all life on the planet. For what? For an order? For an eye for an eye? For justice ?’

“They glance at each other but say nothing and continue with their checklists, launch codes, and buttons. The two SPs order me out, but I stall a little longer and keep pleading with Brian and Sam. At this point, a new alarm starts sounding and an ominous computer voice comes on through the speakers. I’ll never forget it, it’s burned into my brain: ‘Warning! Warheads armed! Launch in sixty seconds! Warning! Warheads armed! Launch in fifty-nine seconds.’ We’re one minute from destroying the world. One minute. There’s this big red digital clock in the MAF and it’s counting down to the end of time. You have no idea what it’s like until you’re in one of these silos. They’re the scariest places on earth.”

“This is unbelievable, Karen,” I said, riveted by the story. “It’s like a movie or something.”

“I wish it were only a movie. One of the SPs finally walks over to me to lead me out by the arm… That’s when I saw my chance.”

“You’re chance for what?” I asked.

Karen stared into my eyes. “I grabbed his gun from its holster and told Sam and Brian to get away from the launch consoles.”

“Oh, my God, Karen.”

“I know. Another warning comes over the speakers: ‘Warheads armed! Launch in forty-five seconds!’ The other SP pulls his gun and orders me to drop mine, but Sam orders him to hold his fire. I tell him I’ll drop my gun only if Sam and Brian move away from the launch consoles.

“Another warning sounds: ‘Warheads armed! Launch in thirty seconds!’ Everybody looked scared now, but not because I had a gun; none of them had ever seen a countdown go this far. They confirmed that they had received valid launch codes, and Brian crossed himself. They were going to go through with it. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let them launch the missiles, but I had no intention of shooting anybody either. I yelled again for them to get away from the launch consoles, but they refused. I’m no sure shot, but I had basic small arms training in Officer Training School. I steadied the gun with both hands, aimed it at Sam’s launch console and fired two shots to scare them and maybe disable the launch controls. The SP with the gun pleaded with Sam for permission to fire but Sam refused.”

“You could have been killed, Karen!”

“Yeah, I know. The bullets went through the metal of the console but didn’t disable anything or hurt anybody. And they didn’t cause Sam or Brian to move either. They stayed at their launch consoles under fire; their commanders would have been proud. At ten seconds, a new siren sounded, signaling the final phase of the countdown. We all realized now it wasn’t a false alarm or drill. They were about to launch their missiles. We were ten seconds away from Armageddon.”

“Unbelievable,” I said. “What did you do?”

Karen smiled. “I put my gun down.”

“What? You put it down?”

Karen looked past me and her face became blissful, like the face of a monk meditating. “I could see it all so clearly in that moment,” she said. “Everything became perfectly calm and still. I suddenly understood what Jesus had been trying to teach us by not resisting his executioners and forgiving them. To reunite with God, we must be like God, and we must love like God. Even God wasn’t going to come down from the sky and shoot Sam and Brian. He had already forgiven them for launching the missiles and destroying the world, just as Jesus had already forgiven his executioners. A great God loves without condition-even when we murder millions of people, even when we attempt to murder God Himself. In that instant, I was standing in the Garden of Eden, Brek, right there inside that nuclear missile silo.” Karen’s eyes glistened. “I had come home. It was the most sacred moment of my life. I got down on my knees and laid the gun on the floor as an offering. I touched the face of God.”

For a moment, I thought I could almost feel what Karen was feeling, that I could almost sense her ecstasy; but suddenly some inmates started shouting at each other in the hallway and I snapped out of it. We were talking about nuclear warheads here, not beautiful sunsets. I was worried Karen might be forced to spend years in a prison or a psychiatric ward for the sake of her spiritual epiphany.

She smiled at me. “You think I’m crazy.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. This was a gift from God.”