I do not smoke anything.
This week, the National Museum of the USAF (NMUSAF) in Dayton, Ohio, accepted and dedicated the F-111 memorial. There were about 400+ of us Cold Warriors showed up. Here is me...Am sure you understand if I chose to remain anonymous...
I posed next to my old units: 27th and 20th.
The museum finally completed an FB-111 cockpit display and I sat in it. There is not that much difference between the -111 models. Here is me in a familiar position in the pilot side of the cockpit capsule...
Note where I pointed. Yes, left hand on throttles and nuclear weapons switch enabled. If there is a nuclear exchange between US and Russia, we would be hurt but Russia would be gone, and that was known back in my days. The calculus was/is not about how many nuclear warheads one has, but where they are targeted. Russia, due to geography, have always been the more vulnerable. My F-111 maybe retired, but there are more capable platforms that took its place, and Russia have nothing comparable to them. Russia is on the losing end of the nuclear survival game and Poutine knows it.