There are days when you just can’t get over the headlines. When you can’t ignore them, can’t look away. Can’t wash them out with a video of cute baby animals, or loud music, or images of sunsets and flowers. Yesterday was one of those days.

President Trump, in an off script, off-the-cuff comment on North Korea, turned to his inner bully and threatened the rouge country with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” North Korea has been testing ever more complex and capable rockets and missiles, culminating over the last two months with launches of ICBM’s. Missiles capable of reaching targets in the continental United States. Also yesterday, reports hit the media that North Korea has likely miniaturized nuclear weapons enough to attach them to those same nuclear weapons. It was shortly after those reports that President Trump essentially delivered a threat to initiate a nuclear first strike, something most would have thought they would never hear from a sitting U.S. President.

And yet there it was. A promise to deliver fire and fury. And just like that, the Spector of Nuclear Conflagration that had faded as the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed, was rising like a radioactive Phoenix into the consciousness of our nation. Those of us in our forties or older remember the dark threat of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. starring each other down with megaton weapons of mass destruction. The younger generation of today may not have a full appreciation of the threat we are now faced with. And certain older types, including our President, have never had the life experiences to prepare them for the situation he now faces. I don’t envy the man, confronted with the boiling point of a pot which has been heating for 25 years. There are no easy answers, no simple solutions, and no quick courses of action. There is one action, however, which must be avoided at all costs.

The fire and fury.

So yeah, yesterday was kind of a rough day if you are a news junkie with a respect for life.

One thing made it slightly better. We put our 16-year old on a bus (to be followed by a plane) for her to start an adventurous two week trip overseas. She will be participating in a high school theater festival with over a dozen of her classmates, staging four performances of their state award winning one-act play. Travel of any kind is one of my gospels. Get out of your home area, see and experience things you don’t normally have access to. Interact with others who might not look or sound like you. Do it often, and go as far as you can. And learn from the differences you encounter. I’ve been fortunate to see a little bit of the world, and to show my kids a little bit of this nation. But this is my child’s first major trip abroad, and I am confident that it will be eye-opening. That she will see and experience the differences, and come to understand them a bit more.

Overnight I woke up a few times, and lay awake for stretches of time. At first my brain was still on overdrive from the previous days headlines, nervous fears of an EMP far overhead. I was also half waiting for a notification that the school trip’s flight had landed. But eventually I drove both concerns from my mind. Other things flitted through, thoughts which all but those who know me might consider odd. Doctor Who speeches. Lines from Star Trek episodes. Passages from some books I have read lately on climate, history and expertise. Things my kids have said and done over the course of 16 years. And then, after those thoughts began to quiet themselves in the dark, I listened to the sound of my wife’s breathing. Slow, steady, calm. Just above that layer, the sound of a light wind outside as rain clouds began to move into the area. Not total silence. But natural. Peaceful. It was enough to reassure me all was well enough, and I drifted back to sleep until the morning alarm.

This morning I left the TV off in the office, replacing the anchors with classical music from my iPod. I am ignoring a politically minded Facebook group I am part of. I am shutting out the fire and the fury. Not forgetting about it, no. For over twenty years we allowed ourselves to forget about that ever present danger lurking in our underground silos, in submarines deep underwater and on trucks hidden in the woods and mountains. Never again should we forget that we command the most likely cause of our own destruction. But I didn’t want to be distracted by the loud din that has consumed the cable news networks for the last several months, one that turned into nearly screaming panic yesterday afternoon. I wanted a little silence in my office. A little peace.

And in that peaceful time today, as I have worked to finish up some inspections, I decided what another core tenant of my being should be for my remaining years. A friend of mine also found and shared a quote from one of our wisest former Presidents, Jimmy Carter, that embodies this core principle.

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how too live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

War may be a necessary evil, but it is always an evil, even if necessary. In my career I have to accept that necessity, but I also have come to terms with the true nature of the endeavor. I serve not in a desire to take lives, but in hope of saving them. Hopefully there are those far above my level that understand the consequences of ill-advised words, and who share the desire too work ourselves out a job. For the goal of every single one of us should be to rid ourselves of that fire and fury, so that perhaps, just maybe, we can all achieve a little silence–the ability to banish the constant threatening banter in the background–and perhaps have a little peace in our time.