LAUNCH

Sanislov Petrov stared at his monitor not wanting to believe what he was seeing. Erupting from the screen were large red letters forming one word. LAUNCH. His job was to watch these screens. And every day until this day there had been nothing to watch. In fact, he had hoped that he would work his entire career there and never see anything on his screen. What he was seeing now meant one thing. The United States had launched intercontinental nuclear warheads directly at the Soviet Union. His job now was to report the attack to his commanders, so that they could launch a counterattack, plunging the world into nuclear war.

I can imagine panic quickly gripped the room. That alert system was intended to provide the soviet government the time it needed to launch a counterattack. But it didn’t change the reality. The missiles were coming. They could not stop them. They may have time to bring the Americans down with them. But they were all going to die.

Stanislov would have known this fact. Not only that, but he would have known exactly how long he would have to call his family and say goodbye before the hit. He probably could have been able to calculate exactly where the missiles were headed, and where they would strike. But in the face of that terror, and despite his impending doom, Stanislov remained remarkably calm. Calm enough that he thought to check his secondary monitors. Those monitors showed a more detailed picture. After a moment, he was able to pick out five distinct missiles headed at the USSR. In that moment someone not as levelheaded as Stanislov might have thought, that was all the proof they needed. But Stanislov is not anyone.

He remained calm enough to think about the situation. Five missiles certainly seemed odd. Why would they launch five missiles? That was enough to provoke a massive counterattack capable of killing an estimated 50-70 percent of the US population, but not enough to really deal much of a blow to the Soviets. Why would they launch five? The more he thought about it the more it didn’t add up. With his level head, and in the face of complete terror Stanislov made a choice. If he was wrong, his entire country would be decimated. But he analyzed the information he had and made the best decision he could. It had to be a mistake.

Stanislov was correct. His warning system had malfunctioned and what it was seeing was the reflection off some dense clouds. He was correct. And his cool headedness that day saved the world.

Stanislov Petrov was the second Soviet who saved the world. 20 years earlier in October of 1962 during the height of the Cuban missile crisis, Vasliy Arkhipov was aboard a Soviet Submarine near Cuba. They had gone quiet (cut all radio communication) several days earlier and were unaware to how the heightening tensions between the two superpowers was playing out. It was during this radio silence that they were located by US Navy destroyers who began dropping depth charges in attempt to force the vessel to surface. Without being able to contact Moscow, the captain of the vessel concluded that war must have broken out, and he intended to launch the nuclear missiles on board.

Unlike many other submarines at sea at the time, this particular vessel, had three officer aboard. And to initiate a nuclear strike they all three had to be unanimous. The captain said launch. The political officer said launch. But Vasily, refused. After hours of heated argument, he would not back down. The missiles were not launched. And the sub returned to the Soviet Union. Vasliy had been right. War had not broken out. Vasily, in the face of immense and heated peer pressure, had saved the world.

Life confronts all of us with difficult decisions. Thankfully, they usually are not of the life-or-death variety. But they are often in the face of fear, panic, and pressure. Watching the value of your investments during months like we have been having can be as panic inducing as sky diving. But if you learn anything today, learn from what these men did in the face of terrifying situations. Remain calm, analyze the information available to you, and make the best decision you can.

What neither of these men did, was panic. It is panic that causes split second decision making. Panic is what causes investors to cash out at the bottom. Panic is what causes retirees to buy annuities in droves. We all know not to sell investments when they are down. We all know that they will regain their value if we just leave them alone. But when we panic, we forget those things, and we make decisions that can haunt us for the rest of our lives.

It's a wild ride out there right now folks. Remain calm, and remember that this too shall pass.