Comment on Instapundit: GOOD LORD: Shocking photos show massive fireball caused by explosion at Russian ammo dump said to house tens of thousands of artillery shells.

But we have dinner reservations at the officers club!

When I was a junior officer in the Combat Systems (Weapons) Department of an LHA (big troop transport) 35 some years ago we took on a FAE (fuel air explosive) bomb for the Marines. It was stored all by itself in a cargo hold at the bottom of the ship. One day I was wasting time in the Department office when an Aviation Ordnanceman came in and knocked on the inside of the door. It was his job to go down to the cargo hold and look at a tiny glass window on the outside of the shipping container for the bomb that was strapped down onto the deck of the space so that it would not bounce around. The Petty Officer looked at the Department Head, who was a Lt Commander and a very nice guy who never wore his academy ring, and the AO said "It looks pink Sir." The boss, who never cursed, said "The hell you say." Then the Commander, myself, the Gunners Mate Senior Chief, who was also a fine soft spoken man from Muleshoe Texas who happened to be completely tattooed from neck to legs, and a Lieutenant who was there as Assistant Department Head to make my life miserable because he had gotten tennis elbow at the naval academy and was late getting to sea to qualify but was still senior to me all ran and climbed the vertical ladder down to the cargo hold and each took turns looking in the little window. Another junior officer in the department who was going to EOD Dive officer school, which is considered the longest and hardest course in the Navy, also came to take a look. The hint of pink meant that the FAE might be leaking or unstable. If it exploded the good news would be that we might be dead before we knew it. It would have cracked the ships keel. So if the initial explosion did not kill us then we would have had a less pleasant death. We climbed out of the hold and frantic signals were sent to Washington, who unfortunately was dead. But then a team of qualified EODs did fly out fast enough to secure and then remove the bomb. Knowing that you are on a ship with that thing cooking a couple of hundred feet beneath you is an interesting feeling.

Just remembered the future EOD Dive officer who was a very good guy was actually in the Engineering Department next door but he spent time hanging around our friendly department to avoid getting screamed at by the Chief Engineer.