Who here lived the cold war?

originally posted by: Golantrevize
a reply to: DBCowboy

I wonder today if there would be a main target or just every city would get hit.

Does it matter? Don't want to sound flippant, but if the balloon goes up, it's not going to be nice anywhere.

a reply to: Golantrevize

everyday, this is my old duty station, take the picture tour. see the picture in the center on the first page. we use to load the... well even though it's closed i want say any more.
Master Naval Jet Base NAS Cecil Field Jacksonville, Florida Yellow Water Special ( Nuclear) Weapons Storage Facility Magazine once guarded by the United States Marine Corps.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

quite something, going for the tour brb soon.

when I was a kid in the 1960`s we didn`t watch the news in my house nobody including my parents were interested in the news.
I remember the fallout shelter signs on the wall in school but I never understood what a fallout shelter was.

the Russian`s and the U.S. weren`t in shooting range of each other anywhere in the world back then and the only nuclear weapons that they had were big ones so a nuclear war would have been a sure end to the world.

The cold war didn`t seem like a big deal to me because there was a real war going on in Vietnam at that time.
I always thought of it like a tornado, the chances of it happening were low but even if it did happen there was nothing I could do to stop it or escape it so I didn`t think about it much.

now they have little tactical nukes so it`s possible that nukes could be used without wiping out the planet,and now the Russians and the U.S. are in shooting range of each other in the middle east so the chances of a war starting are much greater than they were during the cold war.
if a war does start the chances of nukes being used are much higher because little nukes wouldn`t necessarily escalate to using bigger nukes and the end of the world.

there are people in both governments who believe that a limited nuke war could be won and survived and that increases the chances that some fool might try to test that theory.

I am reminded of Alas, Babylon. The war in that book starts over a bomb accident in Syria. An American jet pilot chases a bogey a bit too far and locks on a target, but something goes wrong and the missile instead hits the Russian base in Syria.

After that, there is NO response at all from Russia. Then the nukes fly.

Right now, the Russians are still talking and posturing.

a reply to: Golantrevize


I recall the hiding under the desk routine in elementary school, and like already mentioned thought, "how is this desk going to save me?". Yet as a soldier, I was also taught "Ass to the Blast". So who knows?

Anyhow, I think it is worse today. Back then at least I think WITHOUT the internet, and being spoon fed our daily dose of information, we as a society were more trusting and a lot more easily controlled. Perhaps our government wasn't as corrupt as well?


Anyhow, nothing would surprise me at this point. Not even a huge flash of light in the sky! I won't be putting my ass to the blast either, I will be chugging down that bottle of grain alcohol just for the visual effect for any higher life form watching humanity destroy itself!

a reply to: Golantrevize

I think this movie captures the insanity of the time:

www.youtube.com...

When I was in grade school we practice air raids by going out in the halls and lining up against the walls sitting down and covering our heads with our hands.

It was pretty crazy time. I used to think if we ever survived the 70s we could survive anything. There was this one time when I was in high school. I was sleeping one night and I woke up in the middle of the night. I looked at my clock and it was 2 AM. I went back to sleep facing my clock. 4 hours later I woke up still looking at my clock. But my room was totally bright from the morning sun. Remember it was 2 AM I jumped up and went to look out the window because I thought we were nuked! I turn back and look at my clock and it was 6 AM. I was thinking, "wow, I really thought we were nuked."

And then there was this other time when lightning struck a transformer near my house. It just after nightfall and I was in our TV room with my mother. The whole sky turn blue and there was this amazing electric humming noise in the air. Even though the transformer was a mile away it felt really close. I remember my mother saying, "Oh my God." But the way she said was with so much terror. I remember thinking, "it's not red so were not being nuked."

The Viet Nam war ended a couple of years before I was eligible for the draft. But a lot of my friends lost older brothers. It was really bad time. The threat of nuclear annihilation gets to you in ways you can't imagine. This week is bringing back a lot of the old feelings. But even so I think 9/11 and the few years after that event have a more negative zeitgeist than the cold war for me.

a reply to: seeker1963

You comment reminds me of this bit:

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: Golantrevize

Grew up with it during the 70's and as a teen in the early 80's. Served during the last part of it an when the wall came down.

Today's atmosphere compared to then?

Pfft. Trust me, it was a LOT scarier back then. Most people just knew there was going to be a nuclear war between the US and the USSR, and it could happen any day back then.

Now? Not so much now. About the only time I see it talked about or worried about now is on web sites like this.

a reply to: Golantrevize

Just finished the tour. How many soldiers woukd protect such a compound back then?

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Oh my god The Day After scared the shiz out me, we must be about the same age. I used to have repetitive nightmares about that movie. Still freaks me out.

It was scary back then and for good reason. I used to worry. I bit my nails for a few years. I thought more about things then other kids did, but I think we were all scared. To this day, I would rather just be friends with them.

When the air raid sirens went off, we hid underneath these exact same desks at school.

I would have been in grade school in the 70's and we didn't hide under our desks. We were herded out into the hallway, which was lined with lockers and had no windows, and told to sit with our backs against the lockers, our knees pulled up and our heads resting on them, and our hands interlaced over our necks.

We did it several times a year and it was considered both a tornado and a nuclear bomb drill, though the teachers emphasized the tornado part of it and only whispered about the nuclear drill part. We were only a couple of miles from a nuclear plant and located between two major cities, so we weren't going to survive a nuclear strike anyway.

In high school, which would have been during the mid to late 80's I don't remember anything other than fire drills.

I do remember the "The Day After" and that we weren't allowed to watch it. I'm not sure whether that made it more scary or not. I do remember kids who watched it the previous night talking about it at school the next few days.

You know there were times when I was scared, maybe I recall a handful of sleepless nights, but not much more than that. As far as I recall, we just kind of got on with life. If its affected me, I can't say in which way, because I'm not aware of it.

a reply to: visitedbythem

Damn same fall out 3 desk s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...

a reply to: imwilliam

This day after keeps coming up. Ill have to watch it. Might not be best timing tho

a reply to: Golantrevize

This day after keeps coming up. Ill have to watch it. Might not be best timing tho

Yeah, as I said I never saw it, but I'm fairly sure some of the sleepless nights I did have were around the time the adverts for it came out on T.V. and the discussions about it were going on.

I think its the isolated Westerners that are afraid this time around and probably Russia because the West is building up and antagonizing Russians. China has the world by trade, it isn't any threat unless you make her a threat. Unlike the Cold War era everyone is free to travel now a days with all the tourism. Plus you don't have the all mighty Soviet Union threatening the West these days. So, no it doesn't seem as scary as the cold war era, less people with agenda's. The only threat are those who are willingly to use nukes on purpose.

If you really think China is scary, you can actually travel there for tourism and see how scary it is. It is not a threat to be honest because they don't act like NK or Corporate America. You'll know when American military starts invading China, you won't be ready and you probably won't know what happen because media. So pissing off China is not the way to go.

I have not lived in the Cold War era. The cold war era obviously looked scary, even by videos because of miscommunication and different groups who have different agendas(lots of civil wars) showing up and lack of tourism. Now a days we got internet, fast travel, tourism, etc. So the only reason WW3 happens is if one group starts it on purpose which has been happily America this time making bad people as friends in order to justify invasions of other countries.

a reply to: makemap

I think China would just sit this one up and enjoy the show to become number 1 once Russia and USA go at it.

Or smarter, ally with USA on conditions of annexation of the Siberia they so much want once Russia falls.

originally posted by: makemap
I think its the isolated Westerners that are afraid this time around and probably Russia because the West is building up and antagonizing Russians. China has the world by trade, it isn't any threat unless you make her a threat. Unlike the Cold War era everyone is free to travel now a days with all the tourism. Plus you don't have the all mighty Soviet Union threatening the West these days. So, no it doesn't seem as scary as the cold war era, less people with agenda's. The only threat are those who are willingly to use nukes on purpose.

If you really think China is scary, you can actually travel there for tourism and see how scary it is. It is not a threat to be honest because they don't act like NK or Corporate America. You'll know when American army starts invading China, you won't be ready and you probably won't know what happen because media. So pissing off China is not the way to go.

China OWNS the precious metals market! Computers, cell phones, etc. etc. I am not bashing China for cornering the market by any means, but if China owns and possesses the material of the technology of the "future" and the likes of George Soros who is on record saying he wants the Yuan to take over the US dollar? Why did the western world allow China to corner the market on precious metals?

There are much BIGGER things in the works that we can even imagine........

a reply to: seeker1963

They also own land all over Canada. And are everywhere in Africa.