I know where I was fifty years ago

Back to the cuban crisis, my own memories less, now.

I was still in school, but we knew what time it was. We bahaved nearly hysterically when away from the supervision of adults, we cracked jokes and pretended we didn't care, that we weren't scared. Good thing we didn't know just how bad it was.

Getting the B52s combat ready meant loading them with nuclear weapons and keeping a percentage of those loaded planes in the air. The normal mission for our base was to keep one nuclear loaded plane always in the air. During the crisis the number on airborne alert was increased significantly.

I was in the Student Assignment Office of the Southeastern Signal Corps School at Ft. Gordon, GA at the time. All of a sudden, student assignments became extremely confidential, though not classified Secret or above. I heard they were stringing barb wire on the beaches at Key West. Really! My family lived in Miami at the time.

I just remember that my father suddenly got the rank of a captain surgeon (reserve) then ... from one day to the other.

I bet you were more worried than I was, which is a lot.

I had not thought much about other nations' response. I always thought of it purely in American and Soviet terms.

I've read some reports about the situation in Germany:
- within hours, all grocery stores in Bonn were nearly sold out, in other towns and cities the situation was the same the following day (they weren't completely sold out, because it was before pay-day)
- banks sold on one day five times more gold than usually ... in one week,
- millions and millions of Marks were transferred to Switzerland,
- headlines were "War can start on Monday", "Russians will occupy [West-] Berlin" ... ...

After 48 hours, normal live re-started.

I don't recall being worried. As I was 21 at the time I don't think I fully realized the gravity of the situation.

I too was twenty. Perhaps it was just that as a sonar man in port I had more time on my hands than you.

If you'd have joined the air force, Ed,
with a bit of luck you could have been
aboard one of these:.



photo links to a wikipedia article.

I think I prefer my chances right where I was, neko.