Page 16 - Self Talk

“Yes,” my mother choked out in a whisper, “Is it about my husband? Was he on the Thresher?”
The USS Thresher (SSN-593) was a nuclear submarine
that disappeared during sea trials earlier that week in the Atlantic. The newspaper said it was the worst peacetime disaster ever to hit the U.S. Navy. All 129 men on board were killed instantly but we weren't supposed to be too sad because the Navy said they never knew what hit them.
The disaster happened thousands of feet under water
so there wasn't anything left of the boat or the sailors
to give the American people a proper explanation. At first there was talk of a Russian missile. Back in the early 1960s we all knew the Communists were the only ones who would do such a terrible thing. But the government must have decided that Russia was not to blame because