Share Your Cold War Memories

[Brutus57]

I hate to say it but the Russian's are the good guy's now and we are the one's F'n Up the world.

Apparently you didn't pay any attention to what the Russians did in Ukraine and the Crimea. Ask a Belorussian, a Latvian, an Estonian or Finn what good guys the Russians are. Take a quick look at the number of dissident journalists murdered in Russia in the past decade.... Don't buy the garbage that the Russians (their government is what I am talking about, not the average citizen) are good guys. The Russian government has been a force of evil since before the 1917 revolution. They are only for one thing, and that is the expansion of power. They are cowed by real power, and not tough words which is why the Assad regime is still in power and they have beaten Obama on the diplomatic stage at every turn.

Brutus Out

 

[Who The F R U]

#1 Russia gave Ukraine Crimea,They voted to return to Russia.
#2 There was a coup de tat in Ukraine and the government is illegal according to their own constitution.

U.S. has 662 overseas bases in 38 foreign countries.

Russia has 10 military bases in 10 foreign countries.

If Russia wants to arm Russian people to fight the illegal government and the right sector Nazi's.
More power to them.

 

[The Nothing]

I helped my grandfather pour the concrete that you now see as the roof of this house. After we were done, it was covered by earth. At some point, it has been uncovered. Only the gazebo in the center was normally visible, as well as the 3-6 o'clock area as the "front of the house." Running from about 12 and back to 7 was a long hallway, all food storage. The northeast part was the garage (2 car), munitions, and boiler (all divided by concrete walls, as were ALL the walls in the house, IIRC). There was also a couple stationary bikes rigged up as generators. In the shed at the bottom was a Cat D9 (and a lot of other heavy equipment on site). My grandfather knew how much time he had if the Russians nuked Spokane to weld up a couple plates that he had for the front of the house, cover doze it all up with earth and get back into the house through the "dog house tunnel" in time. (yes, I know where that is, no I won't post that info)

 

[3MTA3]

Civil Defense shelters in every school and most public buildings.
Drills where we hid under our desks.
Air raid sirens.
Films and study courses on how to deal with fallout in grade school and Junior High.
Knowing that you were only a few minutes away from a nuclear strike and thinking about it nightly before you were ten years old.
The space race and doing amazing things without calculators and computers - orbiting the Earth to lunar landing in less than 10 years.
Being UNITED as a people.
Watching people getting killed in Vietnam every day on the evening news and knowing you were going to fight in a war and probably with the Russians when you graduate high school in ten years or so.
Reagan calling a spade a spade and putting an end to it.
Piss poor politicians destroying what Reagan achieved and realizing that our kids were back in the hot seat and it might be a good time to relocate away from target cities once again.

 

[Who The F R U]

All Governments use patriotism against citizens as a weapon of control.
Who funded the Bolshevik revolution and started this whole us against them BS in the first place.

 

[PiratePast40]

For some of us the Cold War wasn't all that cold... that's all I got to say about that.

There were real casualties.

 

[etrain16]

Growing up in the 70's, I had real fears that we would get into a nuclear war with the commies. I didn't start paying much attention to politics until Reagan, and I saw a man stand up for his country and stand up against our most deadly enemy. I remember some drills under the desk very early on, but those stopped before I got out of grade school. I remember wondering if the day would come that I would be drafted into service to fight against the Russians - and the day I turned 18, I dutifully registered for that draft. Though I never served in any of the armed forces, I was ready and willing to go if called. Yes, there were days of fear when the news would come on and it sounded, to a child's ears, like the end was about to arrive, but it never did.

These days it feels, in some ways, like it did back then. Fear of the unknown future, but the enemy I worry about isn't on the other side of the planet, the enemy is here, in our midst, changing hearts and minds and trying to turn us into the enemy we stood off against during the cold war. The days of being a "proud American" have been replaced by a damn president who bows to other leaders while apologizing for our country even existing. To be honest, I'd take the fear of the cold war days when it was still okay to be a proud American over the days of the whimpering safe-space pansy-a$$ morons that are disassembling us from the inside out

Many thanks to all who did serve, both here and with our allies across the way, especially in the face of some very dark enemies.

On the lighter side, movies like Red Dawn, the Hunt for Red October, The Day After and others really help to somewhat capture the flavor of those times, if not with a bit of Hollywood in the mix.

 

[ChiefStealth]

Then, in the Seventies, I was with an armor battalion in Germany; Our mission was to hold the Fulda Gap until reinforcements arrived.

I was with ya! Field Artillery 3AD. Hung out a lot around Hunfeld.

 

[Goosebrown]

Apparently you didn't pay any attention to what the Russians did in Ukraine and the Crimea. Ask a Belorussian, a Latvian, an Estonian or Finn what good guys the Russians are. Take a quick look at the number of dissident journalists murdered in Russia in the past decade.... Don't buy the garbage that the Russians (their government is what I am talking about, not the average citizen) are good guys. The Russian government has been a force of evil since before the 1917 revolution. They are only for one thing, and that is the expansion of power. They are cowed by real power, and not tough words which is why the Assad regime is still in power and they have beaten Obama on the diplomatic stage at every turn.

Brutus Out

The Russians are not the good guys. Not now. Not then.

 

[3MTA3]

All Governments use patriotism against citizens as a weapon of control.
Who funded the Bolshevik revolution and started this whole us against them BS in the first place.

Now THAT made me nostalgic. I haven't seen such well produced anti west/anti capitalism propaganda since the early 1980's. Thought provoking and entertaining with just enough truth (spun just so), gets you riled up about the "unfairness" of "the system" then leaves without offering a solution - just you, spun up and feeling used. Watch this three times in a row and you will want to go join the local commune to "free" yourself.

You didn't buy into this, did you? We saw weaksauce mindbubblegumming bullbubblegum like this all the time.

Are there elements out there controlling you who seek even more control? Yes there are. By being uninformed voters we have allowed a political upper class to form that is doing everything it can to take your freedoms away. That's what makes the video so entertaining - it's premise is that freedoms make you a slave is repeated several times.

 

[uscsoldier]

I was an stationed at Downs Barracks, Fulda with the 11th ACR. I've spent plenty of time in Observation Post Alpha and as others have already stated it wasn't a Cold War for some of us. Anyone else have to sign a classified information nondisclosure agreement upon PCS

 

[Stomper]

Some of us signed those before certain deployments...

 

[maddog]

I was an stationed at Downs Barracks, Fulda with the 11th ACR. I've spent plenty of time in Observation Post Alpha and as others have already stated it wasn't a Cold War for some of us. Anyone else have to sign a classified information nondisclosure agreement upon PCS

There was a wooded hill near you across from the fence and concertina wire, the mine field, and the machine gun on the nearest building to the right. We watched the commies haul the villagers out to the fields in the mornings. Nobody deserves to live that way. I don't know where that hill was (is) specifically because the OP location was mobile and classified. I see that yet today in my minds eye just as clearly as I did then.

 

[JRuby]

Some of us signed those before certain deployments...

and had our wills made out and power of attorney given to our spouses because you just never knew.

 

[Cameron72]

and had our wills made out and power of attorney given to our spouses because you just never knew.

That was a standard policy for any deployment during my time in the 70's.

 

[Stomper]

There was a wooded hill near you across from the fence and concertina wire, the mine field, and the machine gun on the nearest building to the right. We watched the commies haul the villagers out to the fields in the mornings. Nobody deserves to live that way. I don't know where that hill was (is) specifically because the OP location was mobile and classified. I see that yet today in my minds eye just as clearly as I did then.

I get so infuriated at forced labor like that! The only ones who deserve to live like that are the sorry-arsed SOB's selling us out to a system like that!

and had our wills made out and power of attorney given to our spouses because you just never knew.

True that, it was quite a sobering time in those days.

 

[Stomper]

Another memory. During a REFORGER, three of our tanks blocked in a SMLM (Soviet Military Liason Mission) vehicle on the side of the road; Colonel Ivan wasn't going anywhere until all the required circus act was completed. Everyone knew SMLM were spies but, by treaty, we couldn't do anything to them.

Those SMLM weasels had some HUGE BOLLAHS.... one time I actually had them attempt to bluff their way through the main gate at USAREUR/7th Army/NATO CENTAG HQ in Heidelberg... in a 40' SEMI TRACTOR-TRAILER RIG!!

I shut that down quick-smart when I gandered their SMLM plates... I made them back that thing up out onto the street, and they were whining that it would be easier if they could just drive through and turn around inside the courtyard area... I replied, "yeah I bet it would be, too bubblegumming bad..... ROUST, SCHNELL!!"

We wanted to so badly apprehend them, tear the truck apart and look for goodies... God only knows what electronic snooping crap was in that trailer, but they had diplomatic immunity and we couldn't so much as detain them as they backed out... crazy sheite.

 

[Diamondback]

@Stomper After the first incident of that, I'd have been tempted to build some kind of EMP or other whizbang electronics-cooker and fire it up when they came back... or even some kind of high-powered ECM transmitter designed to overpower their SIGINT gear with white noise.

 

[Stomper]

@Stomper After the first incident of that, I'd have been tempted to build some kind of EMP or other whizbang electronics-cooker and fire it up when they came back... or even some kind of high-powered ECM transmitter designed to overpower their SIGINT gear with white noise.

LOL.... I was just a "young & simple grunt" back then, and my only skills with electronics (back then) was to keep whacking and kicking the equipment's cabinet until it started working right.

 

[Diamondback]

Or create a pirate radio station and blow out their audio-dorks' ears with full-blast Metallica, Iron Maiden or similar Death-To-Eardrums metal...

I'm not much of an e-geek myself... but the game isn't just what you know but who you know too, and I'm sure I coulda found some ham-radio or MacGyver type who'd be able to figure out how to break Ivan's toys Real Good.