I was 12 years old at the time and didn’t really realize what was going on, but I do remember going to church that Friday at school to recite the rosary and to pray for peace. What was going on was a mystery to us out in Hawaii in those pre-satellite TV feeds days but there was a feeling something was up looking at my parents at dinner t…
I was 12 years old at the time and didn’t really realize what was going on, but I do remember going to church that Friday at school to recite the rosary and to pray for peace. What was going on was a mystery to us out in Hawaii in those pre-satellite TV feeds days but there was a feeling something was up looking at my parents at dinner that night. Only later in college when one of the professors went through the details of that critical week did I realize how close we got to full out nuclear war and my home in Pearl City was only a few miles away from Pearl Harbor and Subase, prime targets for a nuclear strike if the ICBMs started launching…not cool…if a ten megaton thermonuclear nuke hit Oahu, most of it would have pbecome a smoking hole in the ocean.
The Guy was at Schofield Barracks at the time, and that crisis extended his enlistment. His outfit remained on high alert for several months afterward. The episode had our college dorm doing drills involving closing the drapes on our windows (Can't remember if we were to do it before or after seeing the bright flash of light. Ha!). As a late teen during the Cold War I did a year and a half in the Civil Air Patrol watching the skies for Russian Migs which we were sure would hit the Detroit area because a lot of war materiel was made here. Those times gave rise to a lot of fatalism more so than fear because there were so many men around who'd been in WWII and Korea.
I was 12 years old at the time and didn’t really realize what was going on, but I do remember going to church that Friday at school to recite the rosary and to pray for peace. What was going on was a mystery to us out in Hawaii in those pre-satellite TV feeds days but there was a feeling something was up looking at my parents at dinner that night. Only later in college when one of the professors went through the details of that critical week did I realize how close we got to full out nuclear war and my home in Pearl City was only a few miles away from Pearl Harbor and Subase, prime targets for a nuclear strike if the ICBMs started launching…not cool…if a ten megaton thermonuclear nuke hit Oahu, most of it would have pbecome a smoking hole in the ocean.
The Guy was at Schofield Barracks at the time, and that crisis extended his enlistment. His outfit remained on high alert for several months afterward. The episode had our college dorm doing drills involving closing the drapes on our windows (Can't remember if we were to do it before or after seeing the bright flash of light. Ha!). As a late teen during the Cold War I did a year and a half in the Civil Air Patrol watching the skies for Russian Migs which we were sure would hit the Detroit area because a lot of war materiel was made here. Those times gave rise to a lot of fatalism more so than fear because there were so many men around who'd been in WWII and Korea.