© April 15, 2024, the Griot Poet
Source: https://www.britannica.com/technology/thermonuclear-bomb
September 15, 2001, was a Saturday.
We were all still reeling from the attacks on the Twin Towers
that no longer existed,
The Pentagon had a sizable hole in it,
Every news outlet had “theme music,”
As pundits pontificated about Flight 93’s purpose when some
“Let’s Roll” brave souls scuttled it.
“Pop, isn’t that where you went to school?”
My youngest son said it.
His older brother was at Prairie View, trying to figure it out.
We were in H-E-B getting groceries,
Before me, on the shelf,
On the top fold of the Austin American Statesman,
There was a photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, my classmate.
Under the caption of his photo was where he went to pursue his
Mechanical Engineering degree:
North Carolina A&T State University.
The largest HBCU in the country and our Alma Mater.
Khalid and I were STEM majors,
He was in Mechanical Engineering, I was in Engineering
Physics,
I was in my senior year, and he was a transfer student.
[And] we were taking a graduate-level course in Nuclear
Physics.
The course was taught by Dr. Amin Haque (may he rest in
peace),
Who explained that the reason why we were taking this upper-division
course was to ensure the country had enough STEM students to manufacture
thermonuclear weapons in case of a war with Russia.
“Who would SURVIVE a first exchange to manufacture ANYTHING?”
I thought.
I kept my concerns mum.
I have since realized that the government used a competitive,
captive audience of STEM students working on the same issue across the country,
HBCUs, and PWIs, a youthful “think tank” with no salary.
Khalid and I were as different as two people could be,
He was a child of wealth; I was born into designed poverty.
He drove a Porch; I drove a Chevy.
He wore Birkenstock; I wore sneakers.
It wouldn't be an understatement to say that we said two words to each other throughout the
semester.
We were both trying to graduate.
We both learned the intricacies of fission reactions,
Chain reactions are like billiard balls,
That fact was the basis for the Manhattan Project.
A fusion reaction requires enough force to push hydrogen atoms
with the same positive charge into each other.
How would you do that, you wonder?
A mechanical disturbance causes the fission reaction,
Uranium 235 is the element,
That can happen in a laboratory or in a reactor.
The Hydrogen Bomb is a step above the ones,
Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
The fissile material is caged around a Nickel Cadmium core of
Plutonium 239,
The explosions must be simultaneous,
For the fission chain reaction to compress the atoms in the
Nickel Cadmium core,
A description I recognized reading the Tom Clancy novel, “The
Sum of All Fears.”
"600 megatons of TNT,"
"Concussive shockwaves at supersonic speeds,"
Enough to flatten any municipalities,
Capable of murdering populations by the millions,
And the radiation: Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100
years.
And my senior project improved this killing machine by eleven
percent.
Source: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/plutonium.html
Khalid, my colleagues, and I were mastering the intricacies of Doomsday Devices.
Tearfully, I recounted the Vedic scripture,
J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted at the first test explosion:
“If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky.
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty
One...
(Now)
I [am] become Death,
The destroyer of worlds.”
I wept then for the children who hadn’t been born yet.
“Pop, isn’t that where you went to school?”
Yes, it was.
I was snapped back in the present, then September 15, 2001.
Still reeling from the attacks on 9/11,
And this was the face of my classmate, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad,
Number three in Al Qaeda,
And I was dumbstruck in H-E-B.
I had to move along because someone behind me insisted on
getting on with their shopping day.
I realized that for Khalid,
Everything he needed to accomplish his dark deed was public
knowledge,
Figuring out how to burn down buildings was a mechanical
engineering problem.
Not nearly as intricate as it was to build a thermonuclear device.
I recall getting an “A” in the course and for my senior project.
I assume Khalid did as well; he seemed intelligent.
Our paths diverged after graduation:
I took an oath to defend my nation,
Khalid joined Osama Bin Laden in the CIA-backed Mujahideen,
Encouraged by President Carter and National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Defending Afghanistan from Soviet invasion,
In what would soon become the textbook definition of blowback.
I stared at a familiar face.
I connected with him over the time and space of memories.
We were both in the same class in Nuclear Physics.
Like most upper-division majors, we were both just trying to
graduate.
I was a pauper, and he was a prince.
We’re about the same age.
Khalid, my classmate, is in Guantanamo Bay.
My penance is Environmental Engineering.
After military communications and the semiconductor industry,
Using my STEM knowledge to make the world better for humanity,
And my family,
But for a moment in Greensboro, North Carolina,
