If ever there was something to be thankful for today, Alan Magee knows exactly what that is.
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
– Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
