Post #130037 by Tiki-bot on Thu, Dec 9, 2004 4:09 PM

When we first moved to OC around 1970, our schoolbus passed by a Nike missile site every day. Sometimes they would conduct drills and the missiles would be out of their underground bunkers and aimed skyward on their lauch rails.

Of course, being 8 years old, seeing Nike Hercules missiles on their launchpads was pretty thrilling. It never seemd to register that they were there to shoot down incoming Russian Bombers, which meant that if they had to be used, it was probably pretty much over by then anyway.

My memories of the "hot" war were far less abstract. Having been born in '63, my only memories of a practical application for mathmatics during my formative years was figuring out how many months, days and hours I had til I got drafted and sent to die in Vietnam. When a war takes place for nearly all of one's childhood, there's no logical reason to think it would ever stop, and it was just a matter of time til I got sent there.

I never saw or entered a real fallout shelter, but I do remember nuke-bomb drills from my first 3 or 4 years of elementary school. Yeah, getting under that desk is really gonna help. I suppose it gave us non-religious folk something to do in our final seconds. They sure made living in a fallout shelter look zaz, though.