We: a small group of pot-smoking, fornicating, seditious working-class Joes. It fell to us, the responsibility of making certain that a dream didn’t become corrupted, as so many others in the past had, into yet another Cold War weapon, with the only difference being that the Cold War was being waged this time against ourselves.

In a way, it was not right that it should have been us. It should have been someone else who had to wage the good fight. Maybe an earlier generation should have recognized the threat, and done something about it before the eleventh hour. But they didn’t, and we did; we got stuck with the dirty end of the stick.

Someone had to do it, and that’s why we did it. Looking back, I would have done it just the same way again, if I had been given the chance.

Allen Steele: Orbital decay