My Hands Were 'Like You Would See in an X-Ray'

Anxiety about the possibility that Pyongyang is, or soon will be, able to hit continental American cities -- eventually extending to Washington, DC and New York City -- has attracted more mainstream attention to the risk of nuclear war than we have seen in many years. Not since the USSR dissolved itself a quarter of a century ago has the risk of nuclear war been the kitchen table topic it deserves to be.

What's it like to be near Ground Zero in a nuclear blast? Recently it was my privilege to interview one of the survivors of one of those blasts, retired Col. Richard Rowland, a career US Army veteran, who was less than a mile from the detonation of a nuclear device.