Go-pher it!

Dear B-2 Pilots, I am very sorry to hear that you have a case of the sads because of media claims that your target in Iran was less than obliterated. Obliterated is an inexact and subjective bomb-damage-assessment (BDA) term. It has also been overused in jokes about Pete Hegseth’s drinking. Not by you, of course, except that one time when you were watching a Pete Hegseth speech with your fellow B-2 pilots at the Officer’s Club and had to drink a shot every time Hegseth said “warrior ethos” or “outside the box.” No one holds that against you. That was a lot of shots. Drunken SecDef jokes made at the O-Club stay at the O-Club.

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The good news is that we can all be reasonably certain Secretary Hegseth is, as I write this, perfectly sober. It is 0700 here in North Dakota, 0800 on the East Coast. Come to think of it, “reasonably” and “perfectly” might signal more certainty and sobriety than I should assume here. (This is why Stephen King uses adverbs judiciously.)

Anyway, I have even better news than Secretary Hegseth’s probable sobriety: you B-2 pilots have a shot at redemption. Not that I think you need one, but Hegseth and Trump’s comments would seem to indicate that your self-esteem has been almost obliterated by those expressions of BDA doubt in the mainstream media. The New York Times has no idea how hard it is to relieve your bladder while wearing a flight suit and survival vest and strapped into a B-2 bomber for 38-hours at 50,000 feet. You deserve a victory parade after every mission.

Your redemption target is a bold and aggressive enemy that frequently conducts operations underground via an extensive system of tunnels. They are called Richardson’s ground squirrels, but most North Dakotans mistakenly call them gophers. My grandma, Inga Wangen, defended her garden from them with traps, firearms, tunnel arson, and a garden hoe. She put chicken wire around the garden, but the gophers tunneled under it and ate at their leisure, protected from the angry Norwegian woman by their new chicken-wire perimeter. When Grandma looked out her bathroom window, she could see them munching on peas and zucchini. They would flick their tails at her, and she would flip them the bird.¹ Then she would write on her drug-store calendar: “Partly cloudy, 66°, gophers in garden!”

Now Minot Air Force Base is locked in an epic battle with these burrowing rodents. The conflict has been reported in Stars and Stripes and on all of the major news networks. The base is at RodentCon 5. Air Force Security Forces report that on numerous occasions, ground squirrels have been witnessed crossing the red line without authorization.² Can you even imagine how it makes Air Force Security feel when they see the enemy flicking their tails at them from the wrong side of the red line? To add insult to injury, all of that tail flicking and popping in and out of holes has Security’s military working dogs hopelessly distracted.

Ground squirrels are very hard to hit with vehicle-mounted M240 machine guns or Mk-19 grenade launchers. Air Force officials have considered flooding the base with prairie rattlers or with badgers and coyotes, which are known to cooperate with each other for this very mission. Both options were found to have significant downsides.

Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot suggested ICE raids to collect the little brown buggers from their homes or workplaces. They would then be shipped via crowded railcars to camps specifically built for vermin extermination and photo ops with Kristi Noem. An astute Air Force general pointed out that Grok’s recent “MechaHitler” phase had eroded public confidence in the chatbot. The general also put the idea in historical context, explaining its similarity to previous operations still unpopular with those Americans who have not stormed the Capitol. “This may be Stephen Miller’s favorite option,” said the general, “but it will have negative connotations for most Americans.” The general was thanked for his input and then fired for being woke.

You may not see the Richarson’s ground squirrel as an adversary worthy of attack by the Air Force’s most important aircraft and best-looking pilots, but the situation is deteriorating rapidly. Many of the Airmen stationed at Minot are missileers who feel a special kinship with all creatures who spend a significant portion of their time underground. We fear the ground squirrels may have moles among the missileers, and the B-52 community is largely made up of people who wouldn’t mind seeing Minot Air Force Base obliterated from their list of possible duty stations. You really are our only option.

If you are still unconvinced, consider this: right-wing conspiracy theorists believe that Canada has been deporting it’s ground squirrel population to North Dakota in retaliation for tariffs and that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and liberal professors from the University of Minnesota (Golden Gophers!) are aiding and abetting this enemy. A wildlife biologist inadvertently reinforced the conspiracy theories when he pointed out that Richardson’s ground squirrels organize themselves around female kinship, like the League of Women Voters. This is rapidly turning into a political powder keg.

If you are not yet lacing up your flight boots for the mission to Minot, I have one last thing to share with you: the ground squirrels are approaching the golf course. I’ve got your attention now, don’t I? What is an Air Force base without its golf course? No one knows, and we surely don’t want to find out. You are our last, best hope. We believe in you. You are cleared hot. Just be sure not to hit the O-Club or the bowling alley or the gym.

We look forward to your victory parade.

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