The Cold War times...

[mingwin]

one thing is sure, since the cold war ends, Olympic games aren't the same anymore...

it was so cool, when there was that kind of rivality... (who's gonna get the most medals... USA,USSR,DDR?...)

now, it's just a money game....

[Aaronw]

One of the great moments of the Cold war.

According to a TV show on commercials I saw, the Soviets acually filed an official complaint over this commercial. The ad agency asked them to send a representitive to screen the commercial so they could see it was just good natured fun. They said the guy laughed hysterically during the screening, then before leaving replied "not funny" and left with the USSRs complaint still in place with the US State Department.

[Yuri]

Uhm.... cold war...

Having just turned 36 I saw some of it, as a kid and as a teenager...

Can't say I'm really nostalgic about the cold war, but yes from a certain point of view things were much more clear back then. I mean there were limits to what could happen because, even if at least a couple of times (well... more than a couple) we risked to have the war turn really hot, everyone, on both sides of the iron curtain knew that no one could really win a war between the 2 superpowers, it would have been the last war for everyone...

This balance of terror gave a sort of stability to the whole system...

Now things are much more confused...

I remember very well that night in August 1991. The (failed) coup d'etat in Moscow, all the people on the streets talking to the soldiers, trying to convince them they were there for their freedom...

Everyone knew that night would have been crucial.... would the army fire against the moscovites or not? I passed all the night in front of the TV, then by dawn nothing had really happened and we understood it was over... the coup d'etat had failed....

[ron]

Anyone remember those educational films in elementary school (early 70's) teaching you what to do in case of a nuclear attack? Get under the desk, huddle against a building if outside etc....

I remember the periodic testing of the town air raid sirens also....

[RKic]

One of the great moments of the Cold war.

According to a TV show on commercials I saw, the Soviets acually filed an official complaint over this commercial. The ad agency asked them to send a representitive to screen the commercial so they could see it was just good natured fun. They said the guy laughed hysterically during the screening, then before leaving replied "not funny" and left with the USSRs complaint still in place with the US State Department.

LOL!

That's great.

[ikar]

I forgot about that commercial!

I grew up in the 50s and got drafted in 1970 after graduating high school.

I remember: a bombshelter salesman comming to our door and my father turning him away.

the air raid siren being tested every day at 5PM and using it as a signal to head for home.

seeing a low formation of fighters behind a KC-97 fly past my house.

seeing Skycrane helicopters fly over my school as they left Picatinny Arsennal

watching the motor units for the atomic cannon going down the highway

seeing my first nukes and B-52s at my first assignment (Ellsworth) out of tech school

two tours in S.E.A.

Victor Belenko and his Mig 25

Seeing nukes loaded on F-106s at Dover

watching Russian and Chinese military equipment being off loaded from C-5As at Dover

getting a call from the Navy at Kadena as they send out a P-3 to chase Russian subs away form a Pacific fleet as they approached Okinawa

getting a call from Japanese Defense Control warning of a intrusion of a Russian Bear into one of our practice air ranges

Russian subs blowing their reacors as they headed for the open ocean

Russian aircraft from CamRhan Bay doing practice runs on Navy carrier groups

the Walker family spy incident

that's enough for now.

[Horrido]

I kinda witnessed the beginning of the end. I was in Moscow in August 1991

when the last of the hard-line communists tried to overthrow Gorbachev.

It was a few interesting days. After everything got settled, he heard that

Gorby has disolved the Communist Party. Disolved? Really? At the time

I had trouble getting my head around the end of CPSU.

A few pics from the event:

http://www.bubbamoose.com/moscow.html

How did you go from SAC in 1989 to Moscow in 1991?

Just noticed: This is my post count of the Beast.

Edited August 7, 2010 by Horrido

[Kalashnikov-47]

How did you go from SAC in 1989 to Moscow in 1991?

I started at Fairchild AFB (SAC) in 1980 and ended my time in SAC at March

AFB in 1989. I was in the B-52 business at Fairchild and at March it was KC-10's.

From there I was sent to a place called Balikesir in Turkey under USAFE command.

In 1990, I was transferred to another USAFE base in England (RAF Alconbury). When

Desert Storm came in 1991, instead of deploying with Alconbury's A-10's, I was sent

to a provisional B-52 wing under SAC command. That was my last hurrah in SAC. I

returned from Desert Storm in March of 1991, and happened upon an opportunity

to travel to Moscow in August. It wasn't anything to do with the Air Force, it was

an off-duty sort of thing. I always wanted to travel there. So, I paid for the trip and

off to Moscow I went.

I was in the Air Force for 21 years and moved 11 times. That does not include

contingency deployments. Since retiring in 2001, I've lived in the same place and

have no desire to move again!

[ikar]

I know how you feel. I moved 10 times myself and now I hardly ever leave town. Between the stateside and overseas assignments, I've traveled enough.

[Wayne S]

Funny I rarely worried about the Cold War actually turning hot.

For some of us, with the things that went on, we did not know if things already went hot or not. Thinking about it back as a child, the hardest part was looking at the adults and they had the same clueless expression that I felt.

With Military life you try to live life with A Sense Of Normalcy and what this means is you are not truly living a normal life.

At any giving time there were people ready for the order to be giving.

For Instance, There was B-52s sitting over the Mediterranean Sea armed with nukes. If the order did not come they came back home, to them and people on the base that knew what was going on, they left hot and came home cold.

My Father was a Generals aid, there was times when he would be gone for 3 days or even a week and had to take off in the night time, some times I only knew things were ok when he got back. At times we were lucky to know what base or country he was in and sometimes that even made matters/thoughts worse.

-------------

Younger crowed might not understand some things since this day and age we are all tied together with the internet, cable/satellite TV networks and cell phones. I would say living on bases up to at least the 80s in other countries even if you had a TV it was pretty much useless possibly along with the phone and the radio.

Heck late 70s I still recall getting/hearing most of the news through news real at the base movie theater.

Edited August 7, 2010 by Wayne S

[strikeeagle801]

I started at Fairchild AFB (SAC) in 1980

I was just at Fairchild a few weeks ago for an airshow. I was born and raised in Ellensburg, so I've been over there quite a few times.

Now, onto the OP. I was born in '81, and there is not too much I really remember about the Cold War. Although we had a bomb shelter in the auditorium at the middle school (it's still there actually) we never did air raid drills or anything like that. Being 100+ miles away from Seattle/Whidbey Island/Bangor/Ft. Lewis or any other of the coastal military installations and having the Cascades between us and them, and being 175 miles away from Fairchild, I guess everyone figured we were pretty safe here. I remember hearing about the Berlin Wall falling, I remember hearing about the coup in Russia, but the thing I remember the most from that time period was the Gulf War...sitting in front of the TV all day long (I was homeschooled in 4th grade during DS) and seeing all of the news coverage from it, pretty much from beginning to end. I distinctly remember 7 C-5's flying in 30 second intervals down Manitoba Ave at about 1000 feet (back when they had the gray bellies and white tops, and I could clearly read Military Airlift Command under the noses), and Apaches coming over town on the way to the Yakima Training Center.

Growing up in the 80's was a good time for me. I got into planes when I was about 3, and have been into them ever since. I grew up with the Teen series fighters, and the B-1B, which reached IOC the day before my 5th B-day. The planes coming out now-a-days are cool, but I find that I just don't have the personal connection that I do with the planes from Desert Storm. It seems you could not flip through a single channel during the war without seeing an A-10 or F-16 blazing across the screen, or video from targeting pods as LGB's rained down on an HAS or bridge. Now, even though we have two wars raging in two different countries, you have to actually go looking, whether it be on TV or the net, to find anything about the wars and the equipment used.

I think it was a little more "heated" for my dad, who was stationed at Ellsworth from '72-'79. He talks a lot about the BUFF's and KC-135's doing alert drills all of the time. He was a transportation Sgt, so his job was to get the flight crews to the aircraft ASAP when the alarms went off.

Aaron

Edited August 7, 2010 by strikeeagle801

[wh1skea]

And then there is this Wendy's commercial.............

[johnny_7713]

As I was only 2 when the wall came down the only thing in these stories I can really relate to is the 'air raid' sirens, as they still test them once a month over here. Of course calling them air raid sirens is a bit misleading as they are meant to warn the population of any kind of large scale accident / disaster.

Thanks to everyone who has posted their memories, I'm finding it fascinating reading.

[Phantom ordie]

I remember people digging in thier backyards to construct bomb shelters. The fear of nuclear war. After Pearl Harbor people were still traumatized up until the 60's and the younger generation begin to lose that fear and trepidation.

[Horrido]

What really got me was I was in high school sophomore world history class in 1992 when my teacher, a Lt. or Lt. Commander in the Navy Reserves, noted to my friend and I that the Strategic Air Command had been basically ordered to "Stand down". Our reaction was,"W-T-F? We keep those things up and airborne for a REASON!" That, to me, pretty much said the Cold War was over.

[Von_L]

I find it quite hard to grasp that young ppl today hardly know about the cold war and it´s repercussions on world politics...

My experience was similar to "AK-47's", having been on alert with BUFFs and then with BONEs as the end game played out, 1988-92. One thing that's been lost (or deliberately obfuscated) is the comprehensive nature of the communist threat across military, diplomatic and global propaganda venues. Have since met our Soviet/Russian counterparts and still respect those guys far more than the terrorist low-lifes that we fight today.

It did turn very hot: Korea and Vietnam, etc, were the larger instances, considered 'proxy wars' between the Free World and the communist sphere. The effects are significant and long lasting: There are still 're-education camps' in Vietnam containing prisoners taken since 1975, AFAIK. I can name several friends killed during operational Cold War missions over the years. Likewise I have a serious axe to grind concerning western academic, media and the so-called arts community's deliberate, consistent revisionism of the Cold War and its component issues. FWIW, I respect Soviet soldiers more than reporters, too. Look up "MiG Diplomacy" and the Soviet GRU "Active Measures" program and see what you find. Lethal stuff. A lot of that is still out there in some form, if you know what to look for.

Time to go cheer up and build a model-!

[afspret]

I was a SAC trained killer stationed at Grand Forks AFB, ND in '79-'80 and one little acronym we had was if ever the baloon should go up, we would go ROTC-Right On To Canada! I was standing in line at the SP Armory waiting to get my M16 the night they had one of those computer glitches that gave everyone a heart attack. I was also there when a BUFF on alert status had an engine catch fire during a pratice scramble (you know the standard line, "We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of....").

Ya' know, I miss SAC, things were so much better in those Cold War days.

[ikar]

Just before I got to Ellsworth in 1971 they had a BUFF comming back from a fail safe flight make a second pass at the runway. As he got low all engines on one wing went dead. As he came down the length of the flight line he took out a couple pump houses and a tanker. After the whole thing was over the only one hurt was the tail gunner who had a broken leg. They put the wreckage of the BUFF on a hill overlooking the alert pad. When I get them tcopied into photos from my disc I'll post them..

[Wayne S]

I was a SAC trained killer stationed at Grand Forks AFB, ND in '79-'80 and one little acronym we had was if ever the baloon should go up, we would go ROTC-Right On To Canada! I was standing in line at the SP Armory waiting to get my M16 the night they had one of those computer glitches that gave everyone a heart attack. I was also there when a BUFF on alert status had an engine catch fire during a pratice scramble (you know the standard line, "We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of....").

Ya' know, I miss SAC, things were so much better in those Cold War days.

I think we were at Grand Forks 73-76 not sure on the 76 part cannot recall when my Dad went to the Pentagon.

Only happy memory I have of that place was seeing the Streak Eagle fly.

[Julien (UK)]

Old memories good and bad.

My Dad was stationed in the Army in Germany in the early 80's, they used to joke it was 30 mins from the border by Hind!

I remember the massive Crusader Exersice (also called re-forger? ? by the US) British and other NATO allies mobilised Territorials and elements fo the National Guard were delpyed from the US. Tank battalions charging through the german countryside, whole regiments of para's being dropped and more combat aircraft in the skies of Germany in those 2 weeks than we probably have got in the UK/US in total today.

Certainly interesting times. Also fairly deadly for some as there were a lot of people lost to accidents etc back then.

I sometimes feel they are forgotton in the grand scheme of things.

Julien

[Wayne S]

Old memories good and bad.

My Dad was stationed in the Army in Germany in the early 80's, they used to joke it was 30 mins from the border by Hind!

I remember the massive Crusader Exersice (also called re-forger? ? by the US) British and other NATO allies mobilised Territorials and elements fo the National Guard were delpyed from the US. Tank battalions charging through the german countryside, whole regiments of para's being dropped and more combat aircraft in the skies of Germany in those 2 weeks than we probably have got in the UK/US in total today.

Certainly interesting times. Also fairly deadly for some as there were a lot of people lost to accidents etc back then.

I sometimes feel they are forgotton in the grand scheme of things.

Julien

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

Edited August 10, 2010 by Wayne S