The weapons of God

Carol Bellin still remembers the nukes. She remembers the silos that housed them beneath the dry earth of Montana’s prairies. She remembers the dust clouds made by airmen and their vehicles as they rumbled down dirt roads to guard them with rifles in hand four decades ago. She remembers the soft chirping of birds on cool summer nights as she prayed over the silos, praying for the nuclear missiles stored within to never take flight. Now the silos are guarded by new airmen with new guns, but Bellin still prays. She prays in silence, as most Quakers do; that’s why she can hear the birds — the little birds chirping at the weapons of unfathomable destruction.Bellin first found herself among the birds and missiles in 1984, when she spent a summer near Conrad, a small town north of Great Falls, protesting Montana’s nuclear weapons. She camped outside of a launch facility, or silo, with a group of other protesters. Every morning and night she kept a wordless vigil over the weapon inside.

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