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The recent post just got me thinking about something. As a child of the 80's, I was acutely aware that someone could push The Button at any time and the world would end. We didn't have the luxury of lies about "duck and cover" or bomb shelters. We all knew quite well that, if a nuclear war happened, we would be vaporized instantly, if we were lucky. Otherwise we would suffer slow, painful deaths from radiation poisoning or starvation during the nuclear winter. We also knew it could happen at any time, with no warning. Every night when we went to bed, there was the little fear that we wouldn't wake up.

My question is for the young'uns around here. How big a fear was nuclear war to kids in the 90's? Is, or was, the nuclear apocalypse a real and present fear in your lives?

I've heard these stories that Americans kids used to cower in fear of nuclear annihiliation all through out the cold war, but I always thought that they were a gross exaggeration or a satire of sorts. Are you telling me that kids in the States really lived in fear of the mean commies nuking them day in day out?

Talk about a culture of fear...

No, not really. It was something we kept in mind, but it wasn't something we lived in fear of. Just something we knew could suddenly happen without notice, but we got on with our lives.

Sir Sirius wrote: I've heard these stories that Americans kids used to cower in fear of nuclear annihiliation all through out the cold war, but I always thought that they were a gross exaggeration or a satire of sorts. Are you telling me that kids in the States really lived in fear of the mean commies nuking them day in day out?

Talk about a culture of fear...

Total Bullshit, at least from 1988 onwards, we never had any such drills. My cousin who began six years prior says the same thing.

Well, you have to keep in mind that the fear of a Soviet nuclear attack began to deminish in the mid 80s due to the gradual collapse of the USSR...

I'm a product of the 80's and I have to say neither I, nor anyone I knew worried about this too much. Yeah, we knew it could happen, Hell Grissom Air Force Base is just outside my home town, but it wasn't anything we thought about for any length of time, we were too busy with Star Wars, G.I.Joe, Transformers, ect. And the only thing I worried about when I went to bed was, that damn tree outside my bedroom window, coming to life, and trying to eat me, like that tree from Poltergeist. Seriously, that damn tree looked like the one in the movie, too much alike if you ask me.

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Sir Sirius wrote: I've heard these stories that Americans kids used to cower in fear of nuclear annihiliation all through out the cold war, but I always thought that they were a gross exaggeration or a satire of sorts. Are you telling me that kids in the States really lived in fear of the mean commies nuking them day in day out?

Talk about a culture of fear...

Total Bullshit, at least from 1988 onwards, we never had any such drills. My cousin who began six years prior says the same thing.

I started school in 81' and we never did those drills.

I never cowered in fear, nor did we do nuke drills. Further, I, personally was never worried about a missile attack, I "knew" the U.S. was indestructible and unbeatable. Plus, the only real concern me and my friends had (Aside from transformers, thundercats and the like) Was who had to be the crappy russians when we played "war". the 80' was pretty much a blissful time for us.

My sister (born in 76) also played "Americans and Communists" on the gradeschool playground.

Hell yeah, man! Them were the days! Damned filthy Soviets... How I miss them... *silently wipes a tear*

So Johonebesus was exaggerating, that is a relief. He really had me going there, I was starting to think that you Americans are totaly insane.

Sir Sirius wrote: I've heard these stories that Americans kids used to cower in fear of nuclear annihiliation all through out the cold war, but I always thought that they were a gross exaggeration or a satire of sorts. Are you telling me that kids in the States really lived in fear of the mean commies nuking them day in day out?

Talk about a culture of fear...

Most of that is bullshit; very few people lived in fear of nuclear war despite what recent movies want you to believe.

Schools did have drills for it into the mid 1960’s. But the fact is those drills would highly effective during the periods in which they existed. The Soviets had few nuclear weapons which could reach the US and the only real threat to the vast majority of the population was flying glass. That’s still largely true but in the 70’s civilians in the western soon became convinced that nuclear war meant nuclear winter so why bother with being prepared?

While we feared those insane Americans would attack us out of their imperialist evilness we never had nuke drills. But I think they had them in that compulsory boot camp everyone in ninth and tenth grade had to go through.

No nuke drills where I lived, and that was right by the USN's nuclear training center in Orlando. Went to school from '86 on, so there haven't been any for 17 years. My parents remember air raid drills, though.

In the 80s, I was aware that it could happen, but I really didn't expect it to. I wasn't afraid.

I remember that I used to watch channel 3 (CBS) early every Saturday morning to see "Grizzly Adams", followed by "Journey to the Center of the Earth", this was about 6:30 in the morning, and the shows would be preceded by the "This is a test of the emergency broadcast signal, had this been a real emergency..." (ie. the nuclear war alert). I don't know if they still do that.

Well, being born in the 70's, I remember in school in the 80's never having to do anything of the sort. I do remember, however, that my parents had the thought in the back of their minds. Probably because they did go through drills in the 50's and 60's but I and my siblings never did.

We did know that there could have been an attack, and my grandfather allways did mention that the Air Force Base near our house would probably be on the 'list', so if it happened, enjoy the show cause it won't last long.

Never a big fear of nuclear war. And we never had drills, except for earthquake and fire drills.

Your grandfather....pessimist, eh?

It didnt loom like a shadow over our lives but it was certainly a real threat. Most people didnt think about it but once in a while when you turned on the news and saw stuff about communists and stuff like that it made you a little uneasy about things...course i was just a kid back then so i was largely unaware of such goingons. I asked my dad about that kinda stuff once during the late 80's when i began to have some sort of comprehensible grasp on the state of the world but by then the whole Soviet thing was pretty much dead.

Kids of the 90's had no such threat posed to them, and the kids of the 80's didnt much understand (or care about) the whole situation anyway. Nowadays i imagine that children growing up in post-9/11 will live in an atmosphere not unlike that of the 60's cold war-- where terrorist attack drills are held in many schools and everyone is afraid of snipers and anthrax and suicide bombers.

I was never afraid of nuclear war. I was born in 1985.

Although other people around me seemed to think that if anyone, anywhere ever shot off even a single nuke, everyone everywhere would launch every nuke they had! Guh.

And I suspect humanity would survive a nuclear war. Wouldn't be pretty, but I think we'd survive.

Chardok wrote:Your grandfather....pessimist, eh?

Realist. You live five miles from a major military target, one that will more than likely get hit by a nuke, your done. Don't pass go, don't collect $200.

I never feared of it because I never even knew the term nuclear weapon to begin with. We do have indoor "fire" drills though. Though staying in a building on fire is beyond me. ~Jason

Well, some of you seemed to have had it lucky. Most of the kids I knew in the mid 80's were quite aware of the nuclear threat. Maybe I should clear something up. "Cower in fear ... day in and day out" is of course an exaggeration. It wasn't something that everyone lost sleep over every night, just once in a while. It was just an ever present knowledge that the world could be destroyed without warning. Most kids didn't worry about it too much, but the threat was always there, in the background, and any time anyone mentioned it, all mirth left the room immediately. And of course there were no drills. Everyone knew that when the missiles came, there was nothing you could do to be safe. We were taught that in the 3rd grade, along with the fact that there were enough missiles to roast the surface of the earth ten times over. It wasn't a constant state of terror, but it was a very present fact of life that the world could end at any moment. For most of us, at least everyone I knew, it wasn't a question of if it would happen, but when.

Having been born shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the crushing US military victory in the Persian Gulf War, I can say that no, in the 90's, no one I knew was worried about impending nuclear war.

Umm.... It can end at any moment now. Solar flares, Asteroids, Calderas, nuclear war. It's all the same, it all scares me, and I didn't start worrying about any of it until I was about 18. I was brought up an Army Brat and everything I saw growing up indicated the U.S was invincible. no slimy communist missile would make it past our defenses! Plus, The COOLEST president EVER had a plan called STAR WARS! (OMFG HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!!?!?) [keep in mind, this is the mindset of a 5-10 year old] which was going to use LASERS!!! (OMFG HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?) and the STAR WARS LASERS would shoot down the slimy communist missiles before they got anywhere near us!


No, for me, the 80's was a time when everything seemed possible! Computers were new and making UNBELIEVEABLE leaps ahead in technology, the Space Shuttle seemed Godlike. and by the time we reached the year 2000, (I was going to be 22!!! OMFG HOW COOL IS THAT?!) we would all have flying cars and shit! WHAT A GREAT TIME TO BE ALIVE was the line permeating my thoughts through most of my childhood. I loved the 80's. Awesome, awesome decade.