The story that follows is from a letter sent to Keith Whittle, web master for the Atomic Veterans History Project in Portland, Ore.

She asked, "What was it like?" expecting a word or a sentence. There isn't a word or a string of words that can be shaken out of me that quickly, that would describe the hundreds of images her question evoked. Sorting through the playback of the sights and sounds, I said, "beautiful" I could have said colorful, awful, frightening, painful, but any of these would have been as inappropriate as the dumbfounded "beautiful", I blurted out. Here is the image given after nearly forty years of reflection.

It is dawn in the sea and the lagoon is iridescent aquamarine. The sand is pink from dawn light. Oceanside combers shine with pearl and gold, rumbling, crashing to the reefs edge. The damp trade wind drifts the sand into the slight surf at the lagoon beach and that slow swell throws it back again. The sky is dark purple on oceanside, tinged with green over the lagoon, laced with cream clouds overhead, streaked with black fan shaped shadows cast by storm clouds over the horizon. Their tops are catching the sunlight there, while here it is still mostly dark.

The men are gathered on the beach dressed in fatigues. Full coveralls have not been required for other shots. This will be a hot one.. It is H minus five and "manhunt" reports over a scratchy speaker that all are present. Thermos black coffee and donuts are self-served from the tailgates of several weapons-carriers backed into the beach. The dawn flares brighter now and manhunt begins the countdown.

"This is manhunt. The time is H minus four and counting. If you do not have shot-glasses turn away with eyes closed. I will tell you when it is safe to look. The shot is an air burst about ten miles away, centered in the lagoon. A flare will mark it at H minus one".

The men talk more as they wake up. The morning light increases; yellow now with rose gold near the apex of the cloud shadows. Manhunt continues the scratchy instructions, repeating himself.

At H minus one, manhunt has something new to say and an ominous low note has eased into his voice. "Put on your shot glasses or turn away. I repeat; Put on your shot glasses or turn away. The marker flare is lit. The marker flare is lit. Put on your shot-glasses or turn away. The time is H minus thirty seconds and counting by fives. Check those around you for shot-glasses. 25--20 -15--10--5,4,3,2,1 "

A needle sharp blue white point of pure light stabs at our eyes through the black glass of our masks. All is quiet.

As the heat builds, no man is breathing. The light grows and licks the lagoon and surf and sand, still blue white to our eyes but sending the spectrum, all of it, in all directions. Then this ball of blue, not so white now, begins to float upward in the air as a bubble rises in water and manhunt says we can take off our glasses. The upward movement becomes very rapid, and the fireball increases in size and leaves a vacuum in its wake and the water is lifted by the vacuum and the clouds from all around the sky are moving toward the vacuum and still--all is quiet. But now the earth moves. It moves as a pendulum swings; one way accelerating then slowing to a stop, then back again quickly then slowing. We all stumble. Some fall in the sand cursing, and we see the shock wave approaching; a white, perfect, spheric bubble of condensation, and our ears ache from the compression of the atmosphere and the ache becomes severe as the pressure mounts and then the shock wave strikes and the expected thunder roll is instead, a sharp knife of doom sound that smacks the eardrum like a paddle We pick ourselves up and continue lo watch the show.

The clouds have been pulled from the sky for a radius of twenty miles. Those that are left around the periphery are pulled and stretched into unnatural streamers. The mushroom grows and rumbles and the fire within it flickers faintly through the colors of the radioactive cloud. In some places the fire is red, in others it is still white and blue. While crooked-needle slow-motion lightning bolts crawl over the surface like worms. The colors of the cloud are searing to the eye as new elements are created, oxidize in the heat and transmute to the next step on the atomic scale; browns that are the color of rich soil after a rain, shades of green that seem to reflect the lagoon water, blues and yellows and purples that were not meant to be in the sky, and all of this turning and rolling, boiling into the heavens.

Then someone looks at his watch and says, "It's about chow time" and we all turn our backs on the scene and head for the mess hall.

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