The Price of Peace

By Elizabeth Smith

It is mid April, and I am with my two little daughters at the Air Force museum ten minutes north of our home. We are greeted by a tall, white-haired man, a veteran who volunteers. He shows us the beginning, those delicate kites the Wright brothers threw together. He shows us a plane from the First World War, made of fabric, and he says the fashionable spurs on the officers’ boots would punch holes in it.

I ask about the Second World War because my grandfather served as a bombardier, and I hardly know what the word means. This man walks me to the B-17, which looks like it’s made of the soup cans I flatten and throw into the recycling bin.

“Your grandpa would’ve sat up there.” He points to the back seat of the cockpit. “And he’s where the enemy would aim. Kill the bombardier, and they won’t drop the load, even if the plane’s still up.”

He leads us to the largest plane, in the center. He says that it's the one, that the training took place at this base, that it was a real trick to get all the way to Hiroshima without exploding mid flight.

I marvel that these machines protected this place I call home, and I weep that the cost was to burn someone else’s. I take a photo of my girls in the exhibit and wonder if we drove the price too high.