I spent several of my teenage years in the 80s in a state of nuclear angst, convinced that Brezhnev/Andropov/Chernenko and/or Reagan was going to push the button. My father tells of the absolute terror that gripped the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And now there is significant global insecurity, with bellicose Western leaders pursuing murderous terrorists and barbaric regimes. It’s all pretty frightening, but I cannot believe that anything would have been as terrifying as the Second World War.
So, anyone who has lived through any or all of the above, is the general feeling of security of Westerners now worse than these incidents? Is the world currently less worrying now than during these incidents? Your geographical location would be of interest too.
My mum was born in 1937 and remembers the latter stages of WWII quite well. Nottingham, our hometown was bombed a few times and German fighters would sometimes shoot at people in the street - One incident she remembers quite well is a plane attacking the centre of town (Old Market Square) and people having to hide in shops to avoid being hit by the bullets. I’ve also talked to a few older members of my family and they all said they were expecting an invasion to come. They were prepared to, as Churchill said, “Fight them on the streets…”
The 1980’s, well I just remember being depressed about getting caught in the middle of a USA/USSR pissing contest. Of course, watching the play When the wind blows and the tv show Threads didn’t help much.
My feeling of security at the moment is pretty damn low. Terrorist attacks don’t really bother me so much (Hell I’m British and served in the army, I’m kinda used to terrorism). But it seems to me that the main thing that stopped anybody from pushing the nuclear button was the concept of M.A.D. and that doesn’t exist as much now.
I was just thinking about the old 80’s nuclear angst because it had all but gone away… until a few months ago.
Only this time around I’m feeling a different way. I’m hoping they drop the bomb and I hope they drop it right on my head. I’m SO tired of all these old men fighting about all these stupid things. I’m honestly thinking life is not worth it anymore. You wake up another day to find a NEW group of people you’ve never met who want you dead. What’s the point of it all? People are starving in this world and their leaders are more concerned with the price of oil then feeding their own people.
Is the world always going to be like this? If it is, I give up now.
I spent the years between 1978 and 1980 in complete resignation that the World as I Knew It was going to be annihilated.
Then when the Gulf War started, and just days after I had given up smoking!!, I sat there glued to the telly, fag in mouth, waiting for the bombs to drop on my head…(I figured that if I was going to die anyway, I might as well cark it happy!)
Now there is Bali, and that has unnerved me more than any of the above. Most people I know (myself included) have spent time on that stretch of Kuta/Legian. Whoever is doing this, and I have my reservations/doubts that these are the actions of loony Muslim extremists, had better watch out. We Aussies do not like feeling threatened. And we do bite back.
I well remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and I can’t think of anything since that has had the world on its tippy-toes to that degree. But I do remember thinking, when the Soviet Union collapsed, that we would live in interesting times.
I’m not at all worried about Armegeddon, though. This is all just a little more history.
Why does other peoples’ stupidity make you want to die?
You’re depressed. Get out & exercise. Take a walk in the park. Visit a museum. Do some deep breathing to clear your head, & turn up the lights in you room, so it isn’t gloomy.
E-mail Dopers & exchange gratuitous BS.
Anything to lift your mood.
I too remember the Cuban Missile Crisis very well. I was in the Navy from 1956-1963. I was honorably discharged right before Kennedy was murdured.
Don’t forget before Kennedy Eisenhower was president from 1953 to 1961. He was an Icon if we ever had one for President. He was a fearless leader, one like we have never had since. Before the wife and I moved to New England we had a Bomb Bunker dug out of our back yard. It had a concrete cover over it and went down more than 50 feet. Trust me when my youngest daughter was born in 64 we were still having drills to see how fast we could get into the bunker. When we moved from Virginia we went down there and took out everything that was left, Boy we found some interesting stuff down there. Pickled eggs, peppers, apples all almost 40 years old.
The Cuban Missile Crisis instilled a different kind of fear, Everyone was afraid of Commies, people of Soviet NAtionality were being arrested as being communist – Today we would call it detained – but it is still being arrested and held against you will.
Now though, I am not so much worried about total annihilation as I am about watching another incident like WTC atrocity happen right before my eyes on national television!!
I am barely old enough to remember hiding under the coffee table during the Cuban Missile Crisis . . . I grew up in the early '60s, and I was always told we would get blown to smithereens—it was a question if when, not if. We saw those “duck and cover” civil defense films in school, we had drills, we were told what to do and where to go “when” the bombs hit . . . So this whole thing is rather nostalgic for me!
Things have been MUCH worse from time to time IMHO, and here in the U.S., despite the events of 9-11 and the latest sniper incidents, things are safer than they are in many parts of the world. The previous decade was, most would agree, one of great prosperity and relative peace. But try telling that to the Bosnians and Somalians caught up in their own versions of hell. The point is, even in the best of times, someone is suffering, and in the worst of times (and I would argue that there have been MUCH worse times, globally, ie. the Dark Ages, or in the U.S.,ie. the Civil War), we can take comfort in family and friends. Try reading Candide by Voltaire. It’s a quick, fun read which says a lot about overcoming life’s obstacles and “tending your garden”.
Eve, you are probably about the same age as me. I remember during drills having to run home from grade school as fast as we could during the cold war. Our parents would have to time us to make sure we didn’t dilly-dally. And we had bomb drills in class all the time.
But I think my biggest fear right now has less to do with nuclear annihilation and more to do with the utter distrust I feel for the president and his cronies. There is a lack of national unity that reminds me of the 60s. Race riots, civil rights demonstrations that ended in bloodshed, the Chicago Seven, the Vietnam War…all these things made me feel uneasy and I’m starting to feel that way again. I try to picture this country 10 years down the road, and a sad feeling rushes over me.
I remember the Cuban missile crisis drills in grade school. Most of us took it all as some sort of a game. There was a moment of panic though, when we had been sent home on the “see how quickly you can get home drill” where upon arriving my Mother gathered us in the front room and prayed aloud for God’s mercy as if the bombs were imminent. That was a rather unnerving moment for impressionable children. When Dad came home from work sanity and a sense of security was restored.
As a little kid, my neighbor buddy and I started digging a bomb shelter in the bushes behind his house so we could save our families when “the bomb” hit.
I remember seeing my father look nervous for the first time - he was watching Kennedy speak about Cuba.
I recall the Kennedy assassination and then seeing a live murder (Ruby shoot and kill Oswald) on tv.
I remember watching my friends get dragged off to Vietnam and one of them not returning.
I worked in Munich during the '72 Olympics.
I lived in Berlin while the Wall was up and guards with machine guns would stare at you on your way to work when your subway went through the East part.
Lockerbee.
Iran hostages.
AIDS.
Oklahoma City.
9/11
And although every generation has their horror, let’s look at the glass half full.
Disco is dead.
The Wall came down.
Eastern Europe is on a rebound.
Old enemies are now business and cultural and military allies.
A lot of previously fatal diseases are now easily managed.
Travel has become affordable to countries that could never have imagined their children could see the world.
The internet has been a source of information to the isolated.
Science and technology are, for the most part, bettering the lives of everyone on the planet.
Don’t let the acts of a few ruin the gains of many. That is the goal of terrorism. If I had the money and time, I would go to Bali and help rebuild the Sari Club. I don’t see New Yorkers fleeing the city, and tourists are still hitting the shows on Broadway. I guess what I am trying to say is don’t live your life in fear and worry. Go out and live your life the way you want it to be.
you left out the one, shining moment of Glory that can never die.
The moment that is the pride of the Human species, and the greatest achievement of America.
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind.”
As the filksong goes-
“And the old Earth smiled
At Her childrens’
Reach.
The wave
That Carried us
Up the beach
To reach
For the Shining Sun!
For The Eagle
Has Landed!
Tell Your Children
When!
Time Won’t Drive Us Down To Dust Again!”
No joke–all choked up right now. Always get this way remembering that day.
A few months ago, a coworker of mine got a phone call from a good friend in her hometown, in Africa. Her entire family had just been slaughtered, cut into pieces with knives. Mother, father, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and her grandmother. Fifteen people killed in a “rebel action.” Her next door neighbors were also killed. It didn’t even make the papers here.
Bomb shelter drills in elementary school don’t seem all that frightening to me anymore.
The scary things I know about nuclear war are still scary, but this was not theory, or potential. The woman is an orphan, alone in the world, without family. She sent home a quarter of her paycheck to help them, for years. If they were anything like her, they were kind, gentle, people always willing to give help, or at the very least comfort to those around them. They were butchered like meat animals.
That is scary. And for all that the news says that this war is now over, it doesn’t take away the fear that someone I know might find out their own families were the ones who were chosen to demonstrate the start of a new one.
Buy the way, if you own a diamond, you helped to pay for it.
Tris
“The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” ~ Plato ~
I remember the joke we had even as grade-schoolers: “When you hear the siren, get under your desk, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass good-bye.”
