How Did You Cope With Fear About Nuclear War?

[Untitled]

I’m too young to remember the cold war! But I have felt a lot of dread since february about the chances of nuclear armageddon…. not just over ukraine but taiwan too… the risk seemed to go up very very quickly

It made me think that if it isn’t this or that particular crisis then it will just be another one that causes someone to push the button, then that’s it… we had a near-miss in 1962 and another in the 1980s and these weapons have only existed for 80 years… if we keep having “near misses” every 30-40 years then eventually one will go badly wrong and that’s it…

If you remember the cold war how did you cope with fear of nuclear war?

[jourdain2]

Well we just lived with it. That is how life was, I was born at the end of the 1940s and t.b.h. no-one spoke much about WW2, especially my parents. Mr. J2 was born 1933 and was an evacuee and watched bombs coming down and then did Nat. Service marching up and down the Iron Curtain, but that's just how life was. I saw the Iron Curtain in 1964 and that was scary, but, again, we just got on with living.

Yes, the Cuba crisis was worrying, but there was nothing we could do about it so we were all at school as usual during that day.

Really, I can't say much more, it was there and we knew that, but we got on with living and didn't think about it really. no point.

When the Berlin Wall came down I kept my young daughters up to watch the process on TV and, yes, I cried with relief, but that's about it.

Putin is a new threat and more uncertain.
You cope by more or less ignoring it. Is that any help?

[237SJ]

I wouldn't worry about it - same as my attitude to risk in my job. When your number's up, your number's up and there isn't much you can do about it. My Gran lived in London through two world wars and she lived to be 97

[cashier]

We didn't worry about it, there's no point. We just got on with growing up, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. Nothing we can do about it.

[DTCwordfan]

if it happens, it happens - personally, my thinking is that one of his generals/insiders would take him out if Putain ordered the attack, the common-sense telling him 'we'll be nuclear ash if we go ahead with this.'

I would be more worried about what Xi Jin Ping could get up to over Taiwan or wherever... I have met him twice when he was Party sec for Zhejiang and, never mind the surprise that he went on to the top job impressive that he was, I wouldn't have thought that he could press the big red button or turn the key..... However, all is possible.

[bednobs]

“You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.”

[Canary42]

We could do nothing about it (specifically the Cuba crisis I'm talking about) so we just tried to ignore the threat, but it was very frightening at the time.

[douglas9401]

We were lucky that, at the time the Americans were the goodies and the Russians the baddies.

Nowadays it's not always that black and white.

I don't think we whined quite as much about every little thing too, that helped.

[Bobbisox1]

I remember watching the News about the Cuban missile crisis , I was 16 yrs old, my dread feeling was Nooo this can’t be happening , me and teens like me were having such a wonderful life, it blew over just as this one will Untitled, try not to worry

[vulcan42]

As others have said there's nothing we can do so we ignored it. I was in the RAF during the sixties, serving on a station that operated squadrons of the nuclear deterrent, the V bomber force. Because of this we knew our station was a target. There was only one way to deal with it and that was to carry on doing what we were paid to do, our job.

[jno]

the Americans were the goodies and the Russians the baddies

or so the media claimed. As I recall, the Russians installed missiles in Cuba because the Americans had installed some in Turkey. Part of the final deal was that the US missles would go too, but Kennedy kept that bit quiet.

[Hymie]

In the event of nuclear war, the actions to be taken by the general population today are the same as advised in the 1960s – place your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

[douglas9401]

Ah, but who knows what would have been revealed had he been allowed to keep his brain within his skull.

[237SJ]

I remember hearing 'Saigon' mentioned on the radio. I was very young at the time but it was just something that we grew up with.

[Ellipsis]

It's a good maxim in life to not worry about things that you can do nothing about. Worrying about such things only harms you and the people who care about you.

[Untitled]

It makes absolute sense... i do find myself dwelling on it though even though we are all powerless

Perhaps it's "new" for me... the chances of them being used seemed very remote to young me as the CW had just ended... it seems almost inevitable now!

the quote about the tightrope is chilling bednobs... where is it from?

[Old_Geezer]

Don't recall any fear as such. Such things are a continuous possibility but one knows no one wants to start such a thing so it just gets slung into the vast pile of other low risk things that aren't worth worrying about. Life is too short to spend on cowering from things that don't occur.

[fiveleaves]

In 1980 my English teacher told the class if Ronald Reagan won the election there would be nuclear war. First half of the 80's I was pretty scared. Ended up joining CND (Do they still exist?) and wearing some badges

[ichkeria]

Re Reagan, yes that feels a bit silly now.

At the moment, we have a world where terrorists have, actually, got their finger on the nuclear button. So instrad of MAD we have the potential for blackmail instrad.