I'm just curious,How many of you were alive during the cold war......?

Born : 9-21-1941 .... Remember most of it from 1946 until the end ! I remember in the 3rd grade we had a new student come to school . Her name was Melita Paberzs , and her and her family were refugees from Riga , Latvia . I remember she was ask to go to the front of the class one day to give an account of what happened to her and her family in Latvia. She told stories that made our Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey hero's` look unimportant . She told of having to sneak only at night to hide from the Russian/Communist invaders and being shot at by Russian soldiers with machine guns. We were all ears and dumbstruck as we had never heard of anything like that before in our lives ! She was very thankful they made it to America , and found a home in Forest City , NC. They grew up with the rest of us in Forest City , NC , and her and her family became part of our small home town for the rest of their lives ! Seems like yesterday , but Oh so long ago ! I remember moving to Baltimore , MD in 1952 , and Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in Nov. of that year. I remember we were let out of school on inauguration day in Jan, 53`to watch and do a report on the event ! Also , remember all of the following : Russia beating us into space with "sputnik", and I could not put into words the shock that we all felt at that time in the USA ! Then the Russians put a man into orbit , a dog later , and it was really embarrassing to have Russia beat us at anything ! I remember Nikita Kruschev ( Russia leader ) banging his shoe on the table at the UN in NY. ! I really became aware of what we were up against when I heard him talking down to our leaders and telling them on nationwide TV , that they the Russians` would bury the USA ! The Cuban missile crisis was about as close as it gets to a nuclear World War III , that was a time when America was one , and our pride and togetherness was at it`s highest . All because of us taking the time to understand how special America was and still is , and no one , and I mean no one was going to take America away from us because of a so called "Cold War". We beat the Cold War and , It`s a pity to see how far down our great nation has fallen in pride and love for country..We were the best then , and that memory is pretty special , it`s really going to feel great to experience it once again !!!! GOD Bless America ! **** COLD WAR THERORY---- Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender[1], becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only total destruction. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the same weapons. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once armed, has any incentive to disarm.

TheoryThe doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate escalation resulting in both combatants' total and assured destruction. It is now generally hypothesized that the nuclear fallout or nuclear winter resulting from a large scale nuclear war would bring about worldwide devastation, though this was not a critical assumption to the theory of MAD.

The doctrine further assumes that neither side will dare to launch a first strike because the other side will launch on warning (also called fail-deadly) or with secondary forces (second strike) resulting in the destruction of both parties. The payoff of this doctrine is expected to be a tense but stable peace.

The primary application of this doctrine started during the Cold War (1940s to 1990s) in which MAD was seen as helping to prevent any direct full-scale conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union while they engaged in smaller proxy wars around the world. It was also responsible for the arms race, as both nations struggled to keep nuclear parity, or at least retain second-strike capability. Although the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction certainly continues to be in force.

I was a tank hunter in a mechanized Battalion in then West Germany through most of the 1980's.

Remember the Cold War?

I was in it, on the Front Line.

I was in an M113 TOW and later, TOW2 carrier, single launch. Does anyone even remember what they look like?

"Red Dawn" was a good movie at the time, although it was ridiculously unlikely that a group of kids could possibly operate as guerrillas that well.

There were, however, reservists in the US, and Militia soldiers in Canada, that could have, indeed, fought a guerrilla war with the Soviets.

I lived in Canada, but, at the US border. We had the drills in school when I was really young - the "duck and cover" thing, but, that was only in the very early grades. We lived fairly close to the Grand Coulee dam, then the largest reinforced concrete structure ever made. I was surprised to find out it was a bomb shelter, and a big road led to the base of it, and then inside. I had thought it would be a target, but, the builders reckoned that it would actually withstand a blast. My town had one of the old air-raid/attack alarms. They were once common, but, one by one they were dismantled. My town still used it as the fire alarm for the local volunteer fire department, and as far as I know, it still does. It must be one of the very few remaining alarms still in service. As for fear - not really. Being in a rural area in Canada, even though we were next to the USA meant we were probably safe. And, I was pretty young - I was born in 1959. The real threat of nuclear war decreased through the 1960's, so, by the time I was old enough for fear, most of the danger had passed.

I drank three pitchers of beer watching Red Dawn in a drafthouse movie theater in 1985, We all cheered for the insurgents at the end. We did not, however, think the scenario was very likely. We thought that something like "Testament" or "The Day After" or "Threads" was a much greater likelihood.

In 2005, almost no one noticed that "insurgents" was a good word in Red Dawn but a bad word in Iraq.

So much for irony.

I remember the cold war very well, I am 64 and a few mo0nsths shy of 65 I can also remember in school doing th duck and cover drills in case of a nuclear attack

Old enough to remember the air raid drills and going under my desk in grade school. Like a wood and metal desk would do any good if a real nuclear attack had happened.

Born in NYC in '53

Knew as a soon as I was old enough to know, that I was living at ground zero aka the number 1 target for Russian ICBMs.

I assumed that our government knew it too and had plans in place to protect this city from enemy attack

On 9/11/01 I was once again reminded why one should never assume things

I was in Germany as a Border Guard during the Berlin Crisis and Cuban Missile Crisis so the Cold War was upfront and personal for me.

I remember watching The Day After on TV when I was a kid, that scared the bejesus out of me, and was the start of my political journey.

I couldn't understand why my elders, both here in the US and across the world, would support and/or elect people who would bring about such a tragedy. To this day it boggles my mind.

1973.

Red Dawn was awesome when it came out, I watched it on Laser Disc. Yep, a "laser disc". It was about the size of a record and was encased in a square case that you inserted into the player. This....was PRE beta.

Another series that may be hard to find would be Amerika which dealt with the soviet occupation of the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_(TV_miniserie...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laserdisc