No, I said dripped, not dropped. There is a big difference, of course, but even dripping was pretty scary. And dripping what, we did not know. That was what worried us most.

On a routine morning pre-flight check of our alert B-52 D-model parked on the ramp at Fairchild Air Force Base, we walked around the outside of that huge aluminum wonder. My job included checking the condition of numerous electronic countermeasures antennas on the belly of that big bird. Our defensive radar-jamming transmitters and warning receivers required a number of differently shaped antennas.

Just after I completed checking the underside of the plane aft of the rear landing gear, I then moved forward toward the closed bomb bay doors. I knew that I was standing just inches away from those massive finned cylinders of death and destruction. Each of the two atomic bombs that we carried could destroy a whole city. It was my fervent hope that they would never have to leave their racks within the bomb bays. Just being around them and so close to Armageddon was scary.

Then I noticed something strange, something very much out of the ordinary. A light oily fluid was dripping from the edges of the closed bomb bay doors. It was almost clear but had a slight yellowish hue. It couldn't have been rain water running down the sides of the airplane because for days it had been dry and clear in eastern Washington. "What could it be?" I asked myself.

Soon my pilot came over to where I was standing, for he had noticed my curiosity and interest in something below the bomb bays. "What ya got, Phil?" he inquired.

"I really don't know, sir," I hesitantly responded. "There's some kind of fluid dripping down here where the doors meet. Is that normal?"

"Hmmmm. Let me see," he responded while bending down for a better look. There was a wet spot on the tarmac below the airplane, perhaps the size of a dinner plate. And the droplets of liquid, a strange and unfamiliar fluid, hung along the door's edge. "Guess we better get the munitions boys out here to check this out," he finally declared.

My anxieties began to rise for sure. Was it something awry with those big nuclear bombs? Was something melting down inside those big monsters? And were we standing in an area of high radiation hazards? Those were questions that raced through my mind. And I was getting pretty darn nervous.

My pilot could sense that I was anxious, and he attempted to tell me it was nothing to worry about. But I was not sure that he really knew that. We both knew, and talked about, the fact that there were no hydraulic lines or fuel leak sources close to where the fluid was dripping. We just didn't know and that was the worrisome part.

Soon the alert maintenance people began to gather around. The crew chief couldn't explain what we saw. And those munitions experts still hadn't come. Where were they?

Finally a blue pickup truck with two sergeants appeared. The "MMS" markings on the doors indicated that these were, at last, the awaited munitions maintenance squadron experts. They would know.

We stood back, a few feet away from the airplane, as if that would really make a difference if there was something seriously wrong with those bombs. The two experts walked over to the dripping doors. One fellow actually wiped some of the drops onto his hands and then smelled and even tasted it. "He must be nuts," I muttered to myself.

In a few seconds one of them, a five-striper technical sergeant, came over to us, smiling. "No sweat, sirs. It's just oil, a light cutting oil used by the night crew for drilling some holes into the bomb casing."

"Oil? Drilling into the bomb casings?" my pilot loudly echoed. "Why in the hell would they do that? And why weren't we told?"

The sergeant calmly and respectfully explained to my now-irate pilot that he didn't know why the night crew hadn't told us that the MMS crews would be working on our bombs. An alert airplane should not be touched without notifying the flight crew, especially after it was put in a "cocked and ready" status by the crew.

The sergeant went on to explain that the drilling had been part of a small modification procedure. It had nothing to do with the functioning of the weapon. Rather it was something superficial that had been ordered by higher headquarters. And there was nothing amiss with that deadly device. There was no abnormal radiation hazard for us to worry about.

Before the sergeants left they wiped the dripping fluid with a rag and looked over at us as they patted the doors, saying with a parting gesture, "No sweat, sirs. It's nothing to worry about."

I wasn't entirely convinced, but then I knew little of the extent of the modification, that superficial drilling of holes into the hide of that beast. It took a few hours before I really calmed down and accepted the sergeant's reassuring words.