#unexploded bomb

Being Watched While He Works

“Girls, I can’t cope with being watched while I work!” Greg Harvey, US Army Lieutenant proclaimed angrily, ceasing in his efforts to remove the nose of the unexploded bomb that he and his unlikely group of four German prisoners and three young underwear-clad French beauties had encountered as they tried to make their way to the surface of Paris. Celine, her blue eyes wide as she held open Harvey’s tool box, said softly: “We are sorry, Gregory.” Harvey smiled at her despite his impatience. “Not you and your pals, babe - ” he replied, “I mean the krauts you chicks captured when you rescued me. They look so damned terrified - like I’m going to blow everybody’s asses off!” To his right, the rifle-wielding Veronique joined in. “What do you want us to do, Harvey?” she asked. The American indicated the toolbox in Celine’s arms. “I’d like you and Marguerite over there to tie up those Nazis so I’m not scared they will rush you girls while I’m busy defusing this thing, but I want you to gag and blindfold them too so I don’t have to listen to their chatter or see the darned fear in their eyes! There’s rope and cloth in the toolbox.”

Marguerite and Veronique nodded. Marguerite rested her lantern on the surface next to the bomb and rummaged in the toolbox. “Tu les boches couvres, Veronique;” she said to her friend as she retrieved rope and rags, “je vais les attacher.” Both young women then walked purposefully towards the German captives, Veronique with her rifle levelled and Marguerite wielding the coil of rope. “Retournez-vous et placez vos mains derrière votre dos, s’il vous plait, messieurs.” she told the men politely.

First things first: There’s no immediate danger (that I know of) from that thing because then we’d be long since evacuated and I’d be home. However, information about the entire thing is scarce. Here’s what I know:

1) Experts looked at old aerial pictures from WW2 bombardments. Which lead to the suspicion that a place a little more than 500 metres airline from my workplace might be an old bomb.

2) That suspicion lead to the experts starting to look for the possible bomb. (Those of you who’re following me for a while already might know that since I joined Tumblr, there’ve been at least 3 different WW2 bomb defusings in the area around my workplace. The town I work at has been heavily bombarded during the War and not only there/here, but all over Germany are still many un-exploded bombs in the ground.)

3) It’s being assumed that the bomb is about 7 metres deep in the ground. The experts will have to be careful with their digging in order to avoid accidentally setting it off should it really be a bomb. It’s still not certain if there even is one in the ground, but they must work with a scenario where there definitely is one and being careless can set it off are facts.

4) The suspected place is in the town’s city and near the governmental hall.

5) At some point around midday (which can be anything between at actual midday in 15 minutes from when I’m typing this and I’d say 2 pm) the experts will know and communicate if there’s something and - if yes - what that something is. Should it be a bomb, they’ll try to defuse it by this evening.

6) There’s no official plan what’s going to happen when they actually find a bomb, but I guess it’s gonna go like this: a) finding out how big the bomb is so they know how big the evacuation zone needs to be. There’s certainly some way to calculate it, but I can’t find it. b) evacuate everyone within that evacuation zone. Most likely it’ll also involve putting the rail line that’s between us and the bomb to a full stop until it’s over. If we’re getting evacuated, at least one older people home needs to get evacuated too. There’s also gonna be a lot of shops that need to get closed and the city’s government. c) make certain there aren’t some assholes who didn’t want to leave or returned into the evacuation zone and get those people out who maybe need help. d) the actual defusing.

It’s been busy here. People are beginning to get spooked. We went to the store the other day and it was utter pandemonium, like a scene from a movie; people grabbing items and running through the store like maniacs.

Work has been dropping the ball lately. We are beginning to get coronavirus patients in this area, and even now we are running out of supplies. Nobody planned ahead or took this seriously. A sense of panic is slowly building in the air, but people remain civil - for now.

On the other hand, Florida is a heavily armed state at baseline. I’m a left-winger overall but I own and regularly shoot a number of guns.

I went to wal-mart and they were completely out of shotgun shells.

Two of my coworkers bought new guns. I’m glad I have ammunition for the guns I have.

My particular department at my job is letting us stay home more but insists that we still need to go to clinics in person. This is contrary to the social distancing guidelines that we should be following. It is stubborn foolishness that will make a bad situation worse. Leadership has stopped communicating as well and we almost seem to be drifting closer to chaos. My friends who are respiratory therapists tell me they are out of personal protective equipment at work; one is considering walking off the job.

It is eerily quiet on the roads. A drive that used to take 45 minutes takes 30 now. The brakes are not used nearly so much.

It is quiet in the neighborhood. A spoken voice echoes.

‘You will not eat lunch in Charlotte Street today’ ..

... In the post-Cold War years—1989, 1999—the largest refugee population in the world were Afghanis and Pakistanis. They were being blown up by the thousands,” says Ken Rutherford, a professor of political science at James Madison University and the director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery. “What we’re talking about is a weapon of mass destruction that moves in slow motion.”

So began efforts to launch the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The group organized a Mine Ban Treaty that called for banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel land mines and required countries to destroy their stockpiles, clear affected areas of mines, and assist victims. Rutherford, who is himself a bilateral lower leg amputee due to a near-fatal land mine injury he sustained in 1993 in Somalia, played a role in bringing the treaty to fruition.

“For a year I really believed my story was kind of different and odd, a freak accident,” Rutherford says of the period immediately after he was injured. “I’m a Colorado boy, I’m telling people and they don’t believe it and I don’t believe it. But my story wasn’t unique, it wasn’t special at all. The real strange thing is so many people were being maimed and killed and nobody was writing about it.”

When the final draft of the treaty was written in 1997, over 120 countries became signatories; now, 162 have signed it, including all countries in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba and the United States. The U.S. is a leader in combating land mines, Rutherford says, and was the first country to permanently ban the export of land mines. The refusal to sign the treaty comes down to North Korea; if North Korean forces invade South Korea, the U.S. wants to be able to deter an invasion with the weapons of our choice.

“I’m proud of our country that we [support demining and help victims], but I’m not so proud because there are a lot of countries that look to the U.S. for leadership,” Rutherford says.

Navy Removes Unexploded Bomb From Australian Reef

An unexploded 45 kilogram (99 pounds) bomb has been towed into deep waters five months after being found off the New South Wales coast.

The weapon was found in late April by an unsuspecting fisherman on Lord Howe Island’s Elizabeth Reef, with Defence personnel admitting the item could have posed “a significant risk to the general public.”

The local angler was visiting the reef, about 550km off…