General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm a kid of the early 1980's
You know, video games, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Pepsi Challenge.
While my childhood was reasonably typical back in those days, i was keenly aware that there were forces that could literally blow us the fuck up. To add to the horror the movies "The Day After" and "Threads" made the reality so much worse for me. For a 9 year old kid this was heavy stuff: The creeping though of Mom, Dad, and my brother being killed. The thought of Grandma and Grandpa on the farm and all of the fun memories wiped out in a single instant by a thermonuclear device.
I tell you this to relay something that happened to me on Monday. Going about my day while listening to my fave rock n' roll station, the programming cut off. The emergency alert came up.
For a while i was that fearful kid again. For a moment i was paralyzed in absolute fear.
Those are feelings i thought i would never feel again. I DON'T want to feel this way.
Biden has surrounded himself with smart people. I truly believe that he's making decisions on the best intelligence available.
Let's all hope rational minds prevail.
texasfiddler
(1,986 posts)How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy? I hope the Russians love their children too.
Demovictory9
(32,324 posts)gay texan
(2,405 posts)In my case it wasn't like that at all. Nuclear conflict was welcomed in my school because it was going to be the day the JESUS came back and solved every freaking problem.
Good times.
haele
(12,581 posts)But we still had air raid shelters marked out, and they generally ran the siren once a month.
I suppose the various school districts figured we would either be in the blast zone and vaporized, or would have enough time to get down to the school basement.
We lived in several different military-adjacent cities during that time, there would be a few minutes warning.
Haele
crickets
(25,896 posts)They morphed into relatively useless tornado drills instead. Someone mentioned wearing dog tags - we had those as well, but they weren't required and no one wore them for long. The Fallout Shelter signs were everywhere, though. Those grim things stayed around for years.
Just about the time everyone had relaxed a bit, crazy Ronnie comes along and it's all stirred up again.
Here we are with the third round of real fear of planetary annihilation. I'm so sick of it.
Ocelot II
(115,280 posts)when there were air raid shelters in the basements of schools and office buildings and we did "duck and cover" air raid drills. They sounded the civil defense sirens regularly for practice (we knew what they really were for), and sometimes we heard sonic booms as military planes passed overhead. A neighbor built a fallout shelter in his basement. They were still doing above-ground nuclear bomb testing until the early '60s, when a partial test ban treaty became effective, and they'd report strontium-90 fallout amounts on the radio. And then there was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962; I was in 7th grade and I remember going to school and wondering whether my school would be bombed before I got home and we'd all be dead by the end of the day.
Scary stuff, indeed. I hope Putin can be neutralized before things get worse.
BlackSkimmer
(51,308 posts)Mom used to tell me how she wondered if Id see even childhood. It was terrifying for her. My dad was one of those who built a bomb shelter in the basement. Mom said shed never spend a day in it lol.
Years later he bought land and built an underground bunker. My sis and I spent lots of sleepovers out there.
I inherited all that, but Im like my mom. No thanks to living underground for any length of time.
Dave in VA
(2,034 posts)a child of the '50s and '60s with very similar experiences. Our school ordered dog tags for all of us to wear every day during the missle crisis. We had to show them to our teacher before we entered the class each morning. The teachers and administrators tried to make it out to be some kind of game, but we knew that it was so they could tell our parents that we were dead.
scary times, indeed.
Delmette2.0
(4,143 posts)I remember being afraid during the Cuban missile crisis.
My older brother told me not to be afraid until I saw a bright light in the east. Because 50 miles away was a big AF base and that would be the target. That was no comfort at all.
Deuxcents
(15,785 posts)Under our desks.. Cuban crises w/ Bay of Pigs. My first job downtown Miami was a Civil Defense Shelter. Now Im watching Ukraine getting bombed n cannot imagine..
MustLoveBeagles
(11,563 posts)I had a fear that Reagan would do another "mike test" and we'd get nuked.
gay texan
(2,405 posts)I forgot all about that stupid stunt.....
Jspur
(578 posts)in school. Even though I never experienced that horror I can say in my life I have been through a lot of horrible situations and a few near-death moments where I was close to getting killed. It's because of these experiences I'm not living in fear of the nuclear threat we face. Yes, if it happens it will suck ass but that is why I try to enjoy every day as much as I can.
roamer65
(36,739 posts)VGNonly
(7,431 posts)The Cuban Missile Crisis
themaguffin
(3,805 posts)but better a movie than reality.
mercuryblues
(14,491 posts)Too many people remember the kisss your ass goodbye drills in school and air raid sirens on Saturday AM. For him to pretty much back USSR was stupid politically.
crickets
(25,896 posts)I don't remember air raid siren tests, but the EBS tests were thrilling. These went on for years.
Corgigal
(9,291 posts)Grew up in the 70s, same background.
A few days ago we had an Amber Alert. Now I have dark humor due to my years working 911 and EMS. I screamed incoming. My husband didnt even jump looked down and said Amber Alert.
However my 27 year old son was stopping at the house, and he said he didnt even want to look at it. Just thought, well I dont wanna know.
BannonsLiver
(16,162 posts)And had an interest in geopolitics at an early age. It was ever present in our culture back then, particularly the early to mid 80s. MTV drove some of it.
99 Luftboons by German born Nena, Its a Mistake by Men At Work and Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood were just a few music videos that featured war and nuclear war themes.
Plus as you mentioned films like The Day After, Threads etc. For my money Testament is the most depressing one of all. But I digress. We were bathed in nuclear Armageddon rhetoric.
I think all of that is why when I woke up on Saturday morning to news of Putins nuke threat it didnt rattle me much. Rather, it brought back a sense of nostalgia, that of course I didnt want, but is here nonetheless. Ive been listening to a lot of music from that era, much of it with war/peace themes.
But none of that makes me feel better about what is happening to Ukrainians. They dont deserve this. And I feel powerless to help in any meaningful way.