In the wake of the 2016 election many people hedged and postured about what the impending presidency would look like. One thread that stood out to me was the notion that the President had an almost unchecked power to deploy nuclear weapons. While there is no Big Red Button, there is a team of officers known as the Military Aides de Camp who carry the materials needed to launch the  nation’s nuclear weapons. I wondered what would it be like to know they might be called on to pass that to the president and how that their lives had prepared them or not to stand in the way of such an action. In the early days, President Truman stated that nuclear weapons should be under civilian control, the warheads were even designed to be loaded by a specially designated civilian group before they were launched. That power has been ceded to the Military, which leaves all but 5 Americans out of the decision. So, what would it look like to say no?