We do not know and cannot tell what the future holds for our countries. Whether we shall remain friends and allies or find ourselves opposed is a story our grandchildren will tell But we do know, and can tell, what the past holds. That together our two nations stood together at a time of grave peril and together they defeated a great evil. This is a story that we must tell our grandchildren. It is right and proper that the B-36 Texan Lady be preserved in your new museum for it was she who took nuclear fire to the heart of the enemy and killed the fascist beast. In commemoration of this, the Russian armed forces and the Russian people respectfully request that they be allowed to provide, in perpetuity, an Honor Guard for Texan Lady.
President Patton had agreed and, three years later, when the Russians founded their Great Patriotic War museum, the US provided an Honor Guard there. It would have been an easy agreement to destroy, it was painfully easy to imagine a politician trying to make a cheap point by withdrawing or expelling one of the Honor Guards but somehow it had never happened. Somehow, politicians, even the most venal, realized that they represented something much more than an easy target for political gestures.
So, through good times and bad, the Honor Guards had stood their watch. Nor were they entirety ceremonial, a few years ago some “peace activists” had tried to attack Texan Lady. The guards had beaten them senseless. The demonstrator's political supporters had demanded an “enquiry” and the Air Force had responded with a full-scale court of enquiry into the incident. This concluded that, while the four American guards had hit the demonstrators more often, the four Russian guards had hit them harder and, therefore, the honors due for duties well and enthusiastically performed should be evenly divided between the two contingents. Most of the country had burst out laughing, the “peace activists“ had gone ballistic but there had been no more trouble.
Surrounding Texas Lady were a series of displays, some permanent, some transient. This month, one of the latter was on the loss of the Shiloh, the carrier that had died to open the way for the B-36 strike. Dedmon grinned to himself, there were still diehard fanatics who claimed that Shiloh hadn't been sunk at all, that she'd been scuttled. Still, the staff had done the display well. A big model of the ship, showing where the bombs had hit and the progress of the fires that had finally killed her. Photographs, descriptions, history. A series of plaques of members of the crew. Headed by two that had a pale blue ribbon with stars. Ship's Chaplain Westover and (by special order of Congress) Surgeon Commander Stennis. The Navy had honored them both its own way. The USS Westover was a hospital ship that spent her time bringing aid to American allies struck by disaster. One of the Navy's nuclear-powered cruisers, CGN-174 was the John C Stennis.
One name was not mentioned. Postwar Captain Madrick had been court-martialed for the loss of his ship and, in a verdict that remained controversial to this day, found guilty of hazarding his ship by negligence. Dedmon's eye was caught by one Silver Star Citation, to Ensign Pickering - now Admiral Pickering of course. Describing how he had lead his damage control team to put down the worst fires and, when cut off by fire and explosions, had lead them to safety. Dedmon knew Pickering well, a good officer whose only quirk was a nervous tic that developed every time somebody mentioned Democrats. The citation was not the way Pickering told the story.
One of the permanent displays was of President LeMay. Dedmon stopped to look at that. After leaving SAC LeMay had been President Patton’s Secretary of War, then had been elected President in 1956. He'd won again in 1960 although for a while it hadn't looked that way. A charismatic Democrat called John F Kennedy had given LeMay a hard run for his money. Kennedy would have been a disaster as President but fate had taken a hand. Late for a party meeting in Massachusetts, JFK had accepted a ride from his brother Edward. At Chappaquiddick Island, near Martha's Vineyard their car had gone off the road into the water. JFK had been trapped and Edward Kennedy had run off “to get help''. By the time he got back, some hours later, JFK was dead.
It was said every American remembered where they were and what they were doing when JFK's death was announced. Dedmon had been in India dining with Sir Martyn Sharpe. Lady Sharpe and an old friend of theirs. Sir Eric Hoahao. When the news that JFK had been killed in a car crash was brought in. Sir Martyn had gone straight to the Washington Diplomatic List, looked something up then showed the result to Sir Eric. Both men had spent the rest of the evening with rather foolish smiles on their faces.
President LeMay finished his second term in office and retired from public life. Having achieved the highest offices in both civilian and military life, to retire loaded with honors and distinction, respected and admired by his friends, respected and feared by his enemies, President LeMay had died a bitter and unhappy man. In his eyes. The Big One had failed and the goal of his working life had been a debacle. He had despised war; the object of The Big One had been to make the ultimate statement that war was lunacy, and in a nuclear age it had to be avoided at all costs.
He had sought to demonstrate that the cost of war was so terrible that it shouldn't be fought, but if it had to be, then it should be fought to win. That hadn't happened. Overt invasion and conquest had vanished certainly but states had found other means to make war, ones that didn't expose them to the terrible threat of SACs bombers. Terrorism was one such way. As Dedmon had feared so many years ago, once the cult of terrorism and suicide bombing had started it was proving terribly hard to root out. The simmering Cold War in the Pacific had been another - and there were rumors that Chipan and The Caliphate states were becoming closely aligned.
Still, Texan Lady had tried her hardest and fought a good fight. Dedmon unlocked the security panel that surrounded her, as the President of the Museum he had a key of his own, and let himself in by the familiar route. Up the steps into the nosewheel bay, through the hatch into the bombardier navigator compartment. Then up steps to the Engineering section, then up some more to the flight deck. And there was his seat. He'd kept his promise to Texan Lady. nobody else had ever flown her. He and his crew had picked her up from the factory in Fort Worth, he and his crew had flown her here to her honorable retirement.
He slipped into the pilot's seat and. once again, felt the comfort of being with an old friend. When his wife had died some years earlier he had grieved for her here, sitting alone in Texan Lady, feeling the bomber's familiar presence and talking quietly to her. For eight years after The Big One, they had ruled the skies together, the B-36s cruising serenely anywhere they chose and over everybody they wished. Then, one day, one of the Air Force's new F-100 fighters had flown up alongside them, kept them company for a while then become bored and accelerated away. A sobered crew had brought Texan Lady in to land. Two years later, the last B-36s, the GB-36 units, had been retired.
The crew had mostly gone as well. Major Pico had left SAC after The Big One to join SACs defensive equivalent NORAD and devoted his life to designing defenses against the sort of attack that had destroyed Germany. America had a strong shield now, one that could take on any threat. Just like the Germans had believed they had designed. The brief missile scare in the late 1950s had caused SAC a problem but sanity had prevailed. After all, who seriously believed that missiles could replace bombers? A missile, coming in on a fixed trajectory at set speeds was an easy target compared with a manned bomber that could twist and turn at will. NORAD had shot down missile after missile showing off its new defense systems. In the end the obvious had happened; a new breed of bomber had arrived that combined the speed of missiles with the evasiveness of manned aircraft. The new orbital bombers equipped SAC now and were leading the drive into space. If the bombers couldn't be stopped and mankind couldn't be persuaded to play nice, then space was the only way out.