Who here lived the cold war?

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Some kids. I didn't. ...and I grew up on or near Air Force bases that were considered ground zero. I can not recall ever losing a bit of sleep over fear of getting nuked.

Surely some did...but not all of us. I had other things to do than worry about things beyond my capacity to effect in the slightest.

Oddly enough, I'm not worried about it now, either, some 40 years later...I've more important things to worry about.

I was born in '66 and was a kid during the Cold War. I live in the UK and, to be honest, we tried not to think to much about what was going on between us and the other side of the Iron Curtain. It was generally accepted that when it all kicked off we were going to be toast especially after Thatcher allowed U.S. missiles to be based here in places like Greenham Common. There were a lot of protests by CND and the Women's Peace Movement who had a permanent camps outside these American missile bases. But, as cliché as it sounds, the majority Kept Calm and Carried on. No drills or rehearsals, we just got on with things. The general consensus was that it wouldn't matter anyway once the balloon went up, we were all #ed no matter what we did.

I remember though when a TV movie aired on BBC One called Threads. It was basically a realistic depiction of Britain should the unthinkable happen. I suppose it was our version of The Day After. It scared the living # out of everyone who saw it and it was a point of discussion for months afterwards. I think the mood of the country changed a little after that. I think people were a bit less accepting of their annihilation.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Some kids. I didn't. ...and I grew up on or near Air Force bases that were considered ground zero. I can not recall ever losing a bit of sleep over fear of getting nuked.

Surely some did...but not all of us. I had other things to do than worry about things beyond my capacity to effect in the slightest.

Oddly enough, I'm not worried about it now, either, some 40 years later...I've more important things to worry about.

Kind of like yourself. I was raised in the country and had to worry more about working in the fields or catching supper than being bombed. The school I were I lived never did have a bomb drill; they were more interested in drilling stuff into our heads. ha ha ! I didn't know anything about the cold war until I went into the military at 18. I guess most of the trama to my mind was done by then.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

So, was just reading the boards here...and realized I wasn't four years old when JFK was shot...I had turned five years old five days prior to the assassination.

originally posted by: jaffo
a reply to: BuzzyWigs

That TV show is genuinely and appropriately credited with causing a massive shift of opinion in America. It scared the hell out of us all. Seriously.

It was just a movie. A made-for-tv movie.

a reply to: Golantrevize

yup - lived through 30 + years of " cold war " and some luke warm blips

zero paranoia about nuclear armagedon -

i just lived my life - came dammed close to death on numerous occassions [ various causes ]

accepted my mortality and carried on

originally posted by: stormcell

originally posted by: makemap

originally posted by: Golantrevize
a reply to: seeker1963

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

You can blame the Canadians that left the next generation to suffer for that. I heard in school was majority of the real Canadians went to America to make more money and leaving Canada because of Cold weather. I am not very surprised about that to be honest. Canadians abandoned their own land for what? More money. Today, I'm seeing more and more people who are from other countries, mostly brown people in schools(probably ME refugee crisis). Even then Canada lost most of its own companies and airforce(avro).
Canada would have been building their own weapons today if their gov didn't kill their own military complex. You see the LAV APC American army has? It originated from Canada.

I was in Canada, when Hong Kong was handed back to China, there was a big surge in immigrants from Hong Kong to Canada. The Canadian government instructed every company to do all they could to make the new arrivals feel welcome. This basically amounted to letting the graduates cherry-pick what jobs they wanted to do while the real Canadians got the scraps, so the Canadians left for California, Texas and Seattle.

The weather didn't help either. As Toronto became more multicultural, homes became more and more expensive, forcing many to commute by car from surrounding areas. Being close to Lake Ontario, means that there are frequent blizzards causing accidents on the 401 (an East-West freeway) with life-changing injuries.

The Chinese were doing the same in Silicon Valley - there would be 300 graduates applying for every entry-level software development position.

People need jobs, it seems that software is the way to go now a days. The Chinese are smart, they know when to move on. Have you not see the mainland already replacing everyone with robots?

Just like back then Chinese tend to tell their children to be doctor or lawyer because they pay well.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Azureblue
At some point in the Sixties, a couple of years before the events of 1968, a party from our school went to visit Czechoslovakia. I wasn't on the trip, but our French teacher was. He reported to our class later that someone had come up to a member of the party and remarked "I am a Czech- and ashamed of it". He was astonished that someone should volunteer such a dangerous statement.

Intersting and dangerous. Odd comment realy given that I live in the land down under and I think I might know what the Czech person was getting at.

It is with some shame and pain that I have to admit that all too many Australians regard things Americian as superior to things Australian, the young and the not so young in particular.

The sad part of it is that many just about break their necks trying to be the first to take up something American and discard the Australian version of it. Everyday examples are words, phrases, ideas, political views, idology, values etc. Australian males almost have an orgasm over the sight of an Americian made car on the street.

I was at a golf driving range a couple years ago. Two young blokes set up within earshot of me and the US accent comes on strong amongst the aus pronounications of some words

a reply to: Midnightmosesuk

Yep, that's how I remember it too in the UK. No drills, no panic, no propaganda...
I remember my dad (he was in WWII and ended up in Japan) saying when I questioned the Greenham Common protests saying, that "nobody will fire off the nukes....they have bigger toys to play with which are far scarier. That's the ace up their sleeves just like dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were".
To this day I think he was right. Nukes are just there to keep control of the masses. Things would have to get super critical, and then something far scarier would be 'launched'.....like a shock and awe tactic. I'm thinking bio=chemical or sound.

a reply to: Midnightmosesuk

I re watched Threads again a while back. My eldest was doing a thing about the cold war and I was telling him about it. Him and the others couldn't believe how grim it was, and when the wind blows and that Horizon one about a bomb going off over St Paul's cathederal.

We watched them all in a sort of doom binge

Though the thing that really hit home for me was a visit to Hack Green bunker in Cheshire a few years ago. We were on a canal barge and saw the signs and went for a look. That is one seriously grim place, a proper regional control centre for the civil defence peeps to try and run the country in the event of an attack.

Well worth a visit if you are ever up around that way. Shut the door behind you

I started 1st grade in 1962 so I remember the duck and cover drills. By 10 years old we called it, "the kiss your ass goodby dance" . I currently have a stocked bomb shelter in my back yard so, yes it had a lasting effect on me. I expect to see the flash any time, and wonder if today is the day.

On a good note, I live and work only 15 miles from the Y-12 nuclear weapons storage site in Oak Ridge so we probably won't suffer.

Lived as a kid and teenager in Lincolnshire, UK throughout the 80s. Basically the surrounding area was just one big airbase and as a plane nut I loved it.

Lived very close to a bombing range on the beaches near a place called Holbeach so used to watch all the cool planes flying low over me on their way to it. You used to be able to go up there when they weren't exercising and would occasionally find used A10 cannon shells and once even got myself the fins of a practice bomb someone dropped. Was pride of place in my bedroom for a long time! Quite often got the binoculars out to watch jets practicing dogfighting over my house, which was pretty cool too.

As for fear? Not really. I remember 'Threads' well (I think everyone in the UK around my age will!) and still shiver at the last scene, but were we thinking about it on a daily basis? No.

One other memory to share. My next door neighbour's son was a Vulcan pilot and when he visited I always pestered him to see if he could invite me to RAF Waddington and actually go inside a Vulcan. He never did, but he put me in touch with someone who flew A10s who invited me down to RAF Bentwaters. Guess the USAF were more into public relations than the RAF! Spent the day poking around the base with him and even getting into the cockpit of an A10! Wasn't allowed to take a photo though. One of the best days of my life!

a reply to: moodygnome

That must have been so cool

Here's a pic of a Vulcan from a couple of years back

I lived through the 50s and 60s but in Oz there wasn't much doomsday preparation going on although we were very concerned about the global effects of a large nuclear war breaking out in the northern hemisphere. Really wasn't much we could do about it so it was just life as usual and if anything happens we'll deal with it when it happens was the general attitude.

The doomsday movies I remember well were 'On the Beach' (set in Melbourne), Failsafe and Dr Strangelove which sort of de-sensitised the population a little to the nuclear threat at the time.

a reply to: Sillyolme

You know what? The ironic part is that "McCarthy" was so wrong that look at what has been happening in the U.S. since then.

Socialism being taught in colleges and universities "as the only system that works and will free people". Heck, these days we have several examples of socialists in colleges, even white socialists, calling for white people to resign from their jobs and successfully getting people fired just for being white as they use the newest form of "class war struggle". Not to mention the implementation of the "socialist rationale" in not only college, and university curriculum, but also forcing "socialist policy" to the point that neither teachers nor students who disagree can fight these socialist policies in most colleges or universities.

Then there are the "revolutionaries" like BLM openly calling for the death of police officers, and white people in general, and if a student dares not to be forced to participate in the "socialist lunacy" they get insulted, yelled at, or attacked, and the "victim" is made out to be the "revolutionaries" in the BLM and other socialist/communist groups...

Then of course we had former President Obama endorse and defend BLM while being President, despite the fact that BLM protesters and their leaders call for the death of police officers and white people, and not once did he apologize and retract his endorsement. But of course, since Obama is "half black" he couldn't be wrong.

But yeah, i guess McCarthy was so wrong...

It has been my childhood, the movement and placement of missiles with nuclear warheads, the protests against these missiles
In the end, the Netherlands is the only country where the missiles were not placed, due to the massive protests from the people.
It was postponed for two years, however, after 3 years the chernobyl disaster happenend and another year later the US and Russia reached an agreement and the INF treaty was signed.

I had a Mutant of Omaha t-shirt in grade school.
SAC was considered ground zero for an attack and Mutual of Omaha is a insurance company made famous by Wild Kingdom.

I wish I still had it.

In South Africa we had a highly militarized society well into the early 1990s.

Now my brother went to a technical high-school and they were supposed to make "faux" bombs.
Little boxes with flashing red lights.
Other schools were supposed to use them to see if anyone would notice, and how observant they were to the "red peril".

So freezing one winter's morning (their legs blue from the wind, in their cadet uniforms), the boys must come before drill and pack chairs in the hall.

And we all notice this light flashing under a teacher's car.
Suddenly it's gone.

Then the patriotic ritual, and then the principal - whoever stole the box with the red light must return it immediately!

Somebody stole the red flashing light!
Some jackass stole "the bomb"!

And the standard 5 boys are going to pack chairs in and out of the hall every break, until somebody delivers the red light and presents his ass for a caning.

They couldn't exactly go to the authorities - those teachers just came back from military stints in Angola, and were supposed to be THE authorities on communist infiltration and terrorism. They actually didn't want anyone to notice.

The punishment carried on for two days - nobody knows who took the red light.
What?
I know nothing.
No I swear, not until this day.

I did but I didn't buy into the whole everyone is an enemy propaganda. Things that happened before someone are born was the previous generations problem. Constantly throwing that BS on the backs of every following generation is nonsense.

People die; it is the inheritance of life... but it doesn't have to be in starvation, poverty and war. But we as a species have been making that a reality for a very very long time.

Being so technologically and skill advanced; to be playing such ignorant games of past... does not do anything for all of humanity, it does something for part of it... the part that wants to own and control; instead of free and liberate to understand and work in co-operation. There are many parts seeking such a thing... our made up ideology is somehow more superior than yours.

But yet make believe none the less; crawling around Plato's cave like infants; grasping at nonsense in the dark and saying a rock bit you.

Sad business one that causes untold suffering... in all of the lives that have no voice; friends and families lost over the ravages of time due to such things when time does that well enough on it's own, without our help. Carrying that rock as one's heart? A heavy burden... one to continually pluck out of emptiness and throw it right back into the chasm of nothing from which it was grasped to begin with.

Best to lay such down, and try paving a way to the future... smooth enough for all life to travel on.

Where I grew up in Michigan, it was believed, but never confirmed, that underground ICBM launch silos were scattered about. Is that possible? If there are thousands of ICBM's in our arsenal, it's unlikely they're all grouped in just 3 or 4 locations. Would make them too vulnerable.

Could we be eating dinner, and an ICBM launches from the middle of the neighborhood, destroying homes and killing anyone in them?