Fire at Work

Black smoke could be seen rocketing skyward 5 miles away as I drove into work this morning. My first thought was that a house was on fire in base housing or a plane had crashed.
Well it was neither.

A van had exploded at the visitor's center. And when I saw it, I thought "Holy cow!" Funny enough, the thought of a terrorist's bomb did not enter my mind. Not even once. Leaky gas line. Crazy engine problem.
But C4 or TNT in a van at Maxwell Air Force Base never crossed my mind.

And now I think about that and wonder why. It's a pretty decent target. All the major schools are there. Air War College for smarty pants colonel-to-be-types. The doctrine center is the think tank of the Air Force. The Air Force Wargaming Institute. The library (excuse me, "research center") has the largest repository of classified material outside of Washington DC.

But there is no active duty flying mission. No active duty aircraft. No nukes (at least that I know of ... I'm not really cleared at that level).

So I guess it really is just a university.
So maybe it isn't such a great target after all.

It did provide for the most interesting morning drive in I've had in 2 years.
And yes, the poor girl driving the van did get out unscathed.