re: Cuban Missile Crisis

That was my junior year at LSU - most of us drank a lot of beer to get through the crisis. It helped.

I recall this was about the time of the homecoming football game - the Dekes put up a sign, something like:

"Homecoming Decorations Hell, We're Building a Bomb Shelter."

Was born in January of 1959, and I don't remember it, but I do remember the chlorine barge that sunk in the Mississippi at Natchez around the same time, being a big deal. My dad worked at the mill in Natchez. I remember IP issuing gas masks to him, and my uncle. He left it on the seat of his 51' Chevy truck.

On TV and the radio, they advised the wearing of gas masks for anyone going outside. Pretty sure we stayed in for a couple of days.

The barge is still on the bottom of the river (2012 Natchez Democrat article)

ETA:

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While it was the National Guard that was preparing people to evacuate in 1962, Owens said under the county’s plan now in place, Durham School Services — the company contracted to provide school bus services the Natchez public schools — and the Natchez Transit System would take the lead on an evacuation because those entities have the busses to do it.

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Sounds like one of those jobs Halliburton should be getting paid for.

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the US removed its missiles from Turkey which was what Russia wanted all along.

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Now we have lots of armed drones watching them, and everyone else.

since the op and most posters were too young to feel the bite of near nuclear war, i offer perspective.

1. when i was 10, CBS carried live tv of nuclear tests in the west before nukes were only tested underground. i saw that with my breakfast cereal.

2. Local newspaper ran a feature when i was 12 of the kinds of damage that would happen in concentric circles from city center if a hydrogen bomb.
your house here ==> x.

3. my dad was a pilot. first in army during ww2. then drafted for korea stayed in. when i was in high school and college he was in a usaf unit that had small nuclear bombers in lake charles. tactical it was called.
the point of it seemed to me to be able to nuke cuba.

then the missile crisis happened.

you should really listen to Dan Carlin's "destroyer of worlds" about the Cuban Missile crisis.

Its fantastic

LINK

I was too young to know what was going on.

That said, my dad, who was in his late 20's, said those few days were the most nervous he has even been in his life. Before or after.

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One guy on a Russian sub in a vote basically saved us from war.

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Saw that in a documentary a while back. Thank God this guy had a cool hand. We may not be typing this.

If he's still around, I'd love to buy him a beer or two and hear his story again.

I was 10 when it was going on and I remember a step-up in those silly "Duck & Cover" drills they did in the classrooms.

Like hiding under a flimsy wooden desk would actually save your arse in the event an atomic bomb went off in your vicinity-----and believe me, N.O. would have been a primary target with out port being one of the biggest in the States at that time.

I do remember the adults being very concerned because it was more or less a game of "Chicken and Who's Going To Blink First" to see how it unfolded. Luckily, Russia blinked and pulled out.

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I do remember the adults being very concerned because it was more or less a game of "Chicken and Who's Going To Blink First" to see how it unfolded. Luckily, Russia blinked and pulled out.

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You remember very well. "Who's Going To Blink First" was exactly what we who were deployed in Korea wondered. Or what if nobody blinked?

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The narrative at the time was that the Russians blinked. But some months later the US removed its missiles from Turkey which was what Russia wanted all along.

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The Jupiter missiles in Turkey were outdated and scheduled for removal anyway.