Like Canada, a NORAD member and location of Cheyenne Mountain’s backup, wouldn’t have been a target. Even if Canada wasn’t attacked there’d still be the matter of millions of refugees wanting to go north.
I’m a few years older than you (born 1975), and I remember feeling less worried than I had before when Gorbachev started talking about glasnost and perestroika. (I did worry briefly when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, because we didn’t know who had the nukes)
Hey, we probably lived near each other as kids (I lived in Bowie, Maryland, which is about 20 miles from DC).
You’re a braver man than I, both of you- I still worried about dying in a first strike.
I’m a coward. Better, I thought, to die instantly than slowly and painfully, watching my family suffer, knowing that survival would bring even more terrors when the zombies started to feed
I don’t know if I was scared of it, more like just resigned to the fact that it was inevitable. It was sad, but it was something that was sure to happen so why not live life now. Of course, at the time, that meant hanging out with my wannabe punk rock friends and dropping acid.
Edit: Born in '67, graduated high school in '85.
Generally fearful … but there was this element of inevitability that kept it in check in a bizarre way. Like being afraid of dying, everyone is going to die eventually, that is a true fact (redundancy intentional). Likewise, we were going to have a global nuclear war in my lifetime, that is also a true fact. So yes, a creeping horror of nuclear war, but also a certain resignation about it.
I’m pretty sure every area had a reason why they were going to be high on the strike list. For me growing up, we were taught in school that we were a primary target, because a strike on the hydroelectric power generations at Niagara Falls would cripple the entire industrial northeast.
We also had to read On the Beach in school, and watching that The Day After when it aired on TV was assigned for class, which looking back on it just seems excessively cruel when I think about what a real fear it was. I think my mom put her foot down on The Day After, she thought it was too panic-mongering.
I was born in '72 and I definitely remember having nightmares about nuclear destruction and being terrified of it. I also grew up in a D.C. suburb and took some comfort in knowing it would be an instantaneous death. Fantastic thoughts for an elementary school kid.
On top of all the news coverage/general vibe, my parents gave me a book when I was about 7 or 8 that was about Nostradamus’ “predictions.” Scared the bejeesus out of me. They really should have censored my reading material a little better (my mom let me read Helter Skelter when I was 10).
Born in 1971. I was never the slightest bit worried about it. It struck me as being an absurd thing to worry about; I didn’t think it was going to happen, and if it did I’d be vaporized before I knew it was a problem; I lived in Kingston, Ontario, which has an armed forces base and therefore would have been nuked for sure in a world war.
Never lost a minute’s sleep over it.
Slightly off topic, but I was a sophomore in high school in 1998. In honors world history, we had been talking about how India and Pakistan were very close to (or had already developed) nukes for the past few class periods.
Near the beginning of class one morning, one of the school secretaries bursted in, looking distraught. She went up to the instructor, and whispered in his ear. He went to the TV, turned it to the side, and began watching it. After about 2 minutes, he shook his head, turned the TV off, and addressed the class. “Packistan has just sent missles with nuclear warheads to India. The US has detected them, and launched their own to try and prevent faurther aggression. Class, I we’ve just started WWIII.”
I don’t remember the exact details, but it began a very serious 30 minute discussion. It was pretty obvious what everybody in the class felt, and some of the gals even started crying.
Right before the bell rang, he said “But there is one good part about all of this. I made it all up. Class dismissed”
Not a single one of us in class thought he had made it up, although it seems obvious in retrospect. I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life, though, as the day WWIII started in Mr. B’s history class.
I wasn’t so terrified of Nuclear War, but I was afraid of Russians. I was convinced that they were evil and didn’t love their children, and I didn’t want them to come over here and take over and make it that way here.
I grew up next to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque NM, a definite prime military target. Though I lived right within the zone that would’ve been the shittiest place to be. Where I was, it was possible I would survive the blast, and die a slow horrible death from radiation. For some reason Nukes didn’t really hit my radar, too abstract or something. I was far more afraid of conventional war.
I’m not a Gen-Xer – baby boomer – but I wasn’t even afraid of a nuclear holocaust when I was a kid in the 1960s. I dunno, it just never occurred to me that it would ever actually happen. I was a helluvalot more afraid of Butchie Miller pounding the snot out of me than I was of Russian missiles.
Everywhere I ever lived, the people took a perverse pride in living in a major nuclear target. No idea if this is really true everywhere, or because my dad was a defense contractor so most of the areas were prime targets.
But yeah, dad was (is) a defense contractor. All my friend’s dad’s were defense contractors. We were all scared, and all resigned. Now is much better. The hope of nstant death didn’t make me feel better because I mourned for the world as much as for myself–I think the death of civilizatoin was easier to grasp than my own possible death.
Growing up between NYC and Philly, with a couple of major military bases within a 20 mile radius, I had no doubt that I’d be gone in a 1st strike. However, I never had any fear of it happening. I took the MAD reasoning – anyone who pushed the button would have to know they were comitting suicide, so why would anyone do it?
Hey, it let me sleep soundly through the 80’s…
I was born in 1971, and picked up Science Fiction in grade 6 which fueled my fear of nuclear war, and as a teen I got into punk music which fueled a fear of Ronald Reagan. I was sure Ronald Reagan would press the button, and we’d be hurled into a nuclear winter! When the Berlin wall fell I still remember laying on my mom’s couch crying tears of joy that the sad era of fear was over, and we’d live in a safer happier world.
Born in 77’. Although I heard much about the cold war during my early childhood, I didn’t actually feel any worry that it would lead to a real war. Only silly puppets in music videos would really push the button and bring oblivion.
I’ll also say this - I’m at an age to clearly recall the collapse of the Soviet Union, but less clearly remember what came before beyond seeing Regan and Gorbachev on tv shaking hands and talking about Perostroika and Glasnost. We watched a lot of movies in history class about how bad things were in Russia, like living 3 families to a two-bedroom apartment and how cars were only manufactured in one color each year. The videos were sad and made us pity them, not fear them. The idea that the Soviet Union was ever of any major consequence strikes me as kind of hard to believe. I know it’s true, but it sounds like a joke leading up to a punch line never delivered.
Born in 1959–when I was growing up, Nuclear War Fear-Mongering was the Cause Du Jour of the Right. (We’re weak! We’re inviting attack!)
Then Reagan was elected, and overnight it became the Cause Du Jour of the Left. (No nukes! He’s the worst, dumbest president ever! Our children are doomed!) It was like Global Warming today–all of a sudden, to be counted as a Concerned Compassionate Citizen of the Planet, you had to express your fear of Nuclear War.
So of course, I never did. And I still won’t, now.
Born in 1966, and not so much afraid, but as others have said, resigned to the fact that it could happen at any moment, and that would really suck.
In college, in Washington DC - one night, a bunch of us sitting in a room, talking, stoned (kids - don’t try this at home), with the TV on but the volume off. We all get quiet at one point, and all are looking at the TV and there’s a news reporter with a mushroom cloud graphic on the screen.
For about 30 seconds, we were all calculating the less than 18 minutes we had left before we were blown to smithereens. Do we call our parents/loved ones? Do we quietly pray? Do we strip down and start the orgy?
The we all came to our senses, turned up the volume and found we weren’t under attack. Too bad - the orgy could have been fun.
Born in 1969 and not at all afraid. I watched *Threads *and The Day After and read Alas, Babylon. I wasn’t afraid at all. When I got to college, I used to laugh when I read ‘academic’ works describing my generation’s actions as being motivated by fear of nuclear war.
I did know enough when I should start getting scared. I paid very careful attention to the news leading to the first Gulf War as well as the Russian coup.
Born in '73. Definitely terrified, to the point of it keeping me awake at night.
Part of my problem was that I listened to the evening news while (not) falling asleep. I remember once asking my mother what AMEX meant. She heard MX, and told me it was a type of missile that carried nuclear warheads. Hearing the nightly financial report was subsequently quite scary; what was especially worrisome was the matter-of-fact tone the newscasters used to discuss what I thought was the number of nuclear warheads hanging out nearby.
To those of you that say you weren’t afraid, were you aware of the policy of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) adopted by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union? It meant that a single confirmed launch by either side would immediately result in the deployment of all designated nuclear warheads to the other side. Nuclear missiles would be launched by the hundreds and most of the catastrophic volley would explode halfway around the world within an hour. The MAD threat itself is the main defense but, once it is initiated, both sides need to take out as many cities and assorted military assets as fast as they can to save whatever they can of their own country. That was the part that always scared me because a rogue military group could kick the whole thing off or it could all be a terrible mistake like the 1983 incident I linked to above.
The threat of nuclear war isn’t totally over. I started a GQ thread about the current state of U.S. policy on MAD and it is still there as far as I know. Soviet nukes are far from accounted for and a suitcase nuke strike is completely plausible on Washington D.C. or Manhattan at any time.
This is an interesting thread.
I was quite concerned by it as a human being wishing to save his own skin, and I was interested in it as a teenage boy looking at all the military toys. So on balance, I was worried to an extent, but it all seemed so surreal and distant. Looking back on it, I should have been scared totally shitless. We all should have been. Forget global warming and the like - humanity dodged one hell of a bullet 1950 - 1990. Every man, woman, and child on the face of the planet should have been fucking scared out of their wits. But somehow we kept drinking, shagging, working, studying, and eating Big Macs. Hindsight actually makes it seem a lot worse.