while patrolling beneath the waves of the North Atlantic and North Sea,, deliberately avoiding all contact with the outside world. Our mission: travel hither & yon, anonymously, while ferrying an arsenal of immense force. These were ‘deterrent’ patrols that kept the leaders of the Soviet Union at bay, never certain of our location at any given moment, ever present to ruin their day in a silent but deadly attack. Never mind that our life expectancy was quite brief, along with our capacity for destruction, figuring we’d be likely unable to launch more than a couple of missiles before a nuclear depth charge got lobbed our way.

As you can imagine, our mission and circumstances led to some interesting conversations.