I think many Millennials got their solid dose of it on 9/11. Granted, part of my experience was the whole Pentecostal "the end of the world could be FIVE MINUTES FROM NOW SO YOU BETTER BE RIGHT WITH GOD" culture I was raised in, but I seriously thought the Endtimes were beginning.
I remember a conversation, decades ago, with my Law teacher @ College. She was an archetypal high-end Liberal (lovely woman) and for some reason we (during class) were talking about nuclear weapons/war. She wanted to know why we didn't seem particularly worried about it. I said something along the lines that there was nothing we could do about it, that it was always there - hanging over our heads - and that if we worried about it that much we'd all go mad. The possibility of Nuclear War was, I said, nothing to loose a night's sleep over....
Lewis had an essay about that, on living in the age of the atomic bomb. He urged readers to live despite their fear, so that if the bomb ever came it would find them living:
" If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds…"
Indeed. It wasn't exactly the 'Blitz spirit' - nothing quite that... crazy, but you just got on with things - including plans, having kids etc, because what else are you going to do? I was born into the Cold War and lived half of my life in it. We had times (not just the Cuban thing) were we thought things were really close - with alert fighters waiting to intercept bombers... I suppose that you can 'get used to' almost anything if you live long enough. Nuclear annihilation was just background noise [grin]
Interesting!! I wonder if it was because West Germany was effectively the 'front line' so it was more expected that the country would be overrun by tanks so didn't need to fear being nuked? With the UK being 'further back' we were probably primed to be THE platform for the counter-strike (apparently we were regarded as an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier) so had to be 'neutralised' before the Americans could intervene?
Of course a nuclear attack on the UK would mean NATO Article 5 and, therefore, a general war which would've gone nuclear pretty quickly!!
Given the USSR's interests in East Germany, they'd probably reserve nukes for the enemy-far-way (UK, US) instead of "enemy-we-can-annex". Western Europe is worth keeping intact for economic reasons even if you're a puerile soul like Stalin who cares nothing for art, history, humanity, etc.
I heard that, probably false, American commanders complained that German towns were only X megatons apart so that the use of tactical nukes to stop the Russian advance was.... 'difficult'. But I think you're right. Nukes would probably, at least initially, have been used to cut off the possibility of reinforcements rather than destroy the very land/property the Soviets where planning to take over.
It wasn't that nobody was worried about a strike, we just didn't have all those "exercises". In the end, if a nuclear bomb strikes, it doesn't help you at all if you hide under a table.
That always made me laugh - the whole 'duck & cover' thing where you see American school kids hiding under desks. What did they expect was going to happen?
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I think many Millennials got their solid dose of it on 9/11. Granted, part of my experience was the whole Pentecostal "the end of the world could be FIVE MINUTES FROM NOW SO YOU BETTER BE RIGHT WITH GOD" culture I was raised in, but I seriously thought the Endtimes were beginning.
I remember a conversation, decades ago, with my Law teacher @ College. She was an archetypal high-end Liberal (lovely woman) and for some reason we (during class) were talking about nuclear weapons/war. She wanted to know why we didn't seem particularly worried about it. I said something along the lines that there was nothing we could do about it, that it was always there - hanging over our heads - and that if we worried about it that much we'd all go mad. The possibility of Nuclear War was, I said, nothing to loose a night's sleep over....
Lewis had an essay about that, on living in the age of the atomic bomb. He urged readers to live despite their fear, so that if the bomb ever came it would find them living:
" If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds…"
Indeed. It wasn't exactly the 'Blitz spirit' - nothing quite that... crazy, but you just got on with things - including plans, having kids etc, because what else are you going to do? I was born into the Cold War and lived half of my life in it. We had times (not just the Cuban thing) were we thought things were really close - with alert fighters waiting to intercept bombers... I suppose that you can 'get used to' almost anything if you live long enough. Nuclear annihilation was just background noise [grin]
Funnily enough, we were much closer to the real threat and never ever had any of those exercises. Or were even warned in school about anything.
Interesting!! I wonder if it was because West Germany was effectively the 'front line' so it was more expected that the country would be overrun by tanks so didn't need to fear being nuked? With the UK being 'further back' we were probably primed to be THE platform for the counter-strike (apparently we were regarded as an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier) so had to be 'neutralised' before the Americans could intervene?
Of course a nuclear attack on the UK would mean NATO Article 5 and, therefore, a general war which would've gone nuclear pretty quickly!!
Given the USSR's interests in East Germany, they'd probably reserve nukes for the enemy-far-way (UK, US) instead of "enemy-we-can-annex". Western Europe is worth keeping intact for economic reasons even if you're a puerile soul like Stalin who cares nothing for art, history, humanity, etc.
I heard that, probably false, American commanders complained that German towns were only X megatons apart so that the use of tactical nukes to stop the Russian advance was.... 'difficult'. But I think you're right. Nukes would probably, at least initially, have been used to cut off the possibility of reinforcements rather than destroy the very land/property the Soviets where planning to take over.
It wasn't that nobody was worried about a strike, we just didn't have all those "exercises". In the end, if a nuclear bomb strikes, it doesn't help you at all if you hide under a table.
That always made me laugh - the whole 'duck & cover' thing where you see American school kids hiding under desks. What did they expect was going to happen?
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