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Am I just getting nostalgic or does anyone else miss the days of the Cold War? Nice budgets, knew your enemy, plenty of manning, plenty of warbirds, not to mention the variety, no 'Grace School', plenty of bases cause BRAC wasn't an issue. Ahhh, the good old days!

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I remember when I was a young buck back in the late '60s-early '70s the older guys lamenting about the "good old days" which were the Brown Shoe days. Now, the "good old days" means the late '60-70s. Does that mean I'm getting old??

No, it means yo're PAST getting old, but I think its called 'Well Respected' now Poke

Elite Joined: Jan 14, 2004 Posts: 2454 Status: Offline

I was talking with this retiree at the Club one night, drinking a couple beers and swapping stories. I remember he said "Back in my day, I think we had it easier than you young guys do today." "Really Sir? How so?" The old man said, "When I was in your shoes, you could tell the bad guys by what uniforms they were wearing. Now, it's not so simple."

Not that I want to see us and the Russkies pointing missiles at each other again, but that man DID bring up a good point. Interesting perspective he had. Makes you think.

EXACTLY why I find it rather nostalgic. While war isn't fun nor do I wish it I will say that knowing your enemy was better. Also the cold war always had a kinda romantic nostalia to it. Made for better movies, stories, and suspense.

Elite Joined: Jan 14, 2004 Posts: 2454 Status: Offline

I dunno. Landing in Baghdad in the middle of the night definitely had some suspense to it! Laughing

But I know what you mean. The Cold War had everything from "Dr. Strangelove" and "Gathering of Eagles" to "By Dawn's Early Light" and "The Hunt for Red October". I don't think I'd make nearly as much money for making a story about landing a cargo plane "Downtown". Wink

Yeah I hear ya. I know "Red Dawn" and "War Games" will top sales of present movies about the conflict there in the sandbox.

Elite Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 663 Status: Offline

SixerViper wrote:

I remember when I was a young buck back in the late '60s-early '70s the older guys lamenting about the "good old days" which were the Brown Shoe days. Now, the "good old days" means the late '60-70s. Does that mean I'm getting old??

Personally, I refuse to act my age and I can still open my own prunes damitt !!!. Thank goodness for liquid Geritol.

Seriously, the good old days were when you were young, and long enough ago that you forget or fade out the pain and frustrations.

I don't think I'd wish to go back to that situation. Yeah, the current situation sucks, but during the cold war and with a father in SAC, the CONSTANT reminders that death was only 30 minutes away does wear down on people, especially families. Granted, it also keeps the rust off.

I can't tell you how many times, during a movie at the base theater that they stopped it, brought up the house lights and sounded the alert force klaxon. Every day driving right by the alert pad on the way to school and knowing there's that much potential destructive power 500yds away was sobering. Looking back, I know now that for a 10 year old, ignorance of that kind of thing really was bliss.

Don't even get me started on the nightmares I had after watching "The Day After" for the first time.

Elite Joined: Jan 14, 2004 Posts: 2454 Status: Offline

Lightndattic wrote:

Don't even get me started on the nightmares I had after watching "The Day After" for the first time.

Am I wrong for saying that the only parts of that movie that I liked were the stock footage scenes of actual AF personnel working? Everything up to the attack was pretty good. I didn't really care for the rest of the film. Best scene in the film: The Klaxon sounds, and the crew buses show up to the BUFFs. They do the alert 8 engine start and you get a great view of the tell-tale water injection smoke as they pull off the runway for the "one way ride".

On the subject of B-52s, "By Dawn's Early Light", with Powers Boothe was pretty good.

Nothing tops "Dr. Strangelove", though. Slim Pickens riding the nuke down like a rodeo cowboy was one of the iconical images of the entire Cold War. A lot of symbolism too. If the nukes were going to drop, one might as well be standing at the impact point, because in WWIII, being dead would be preferable to surviving.

Glad we never got that far into it with the Russkies.

TC wrote:

Lightndattic wrote:

Don't even get me started on the nightmares I had after watching "The Day After" for the first time.

Am I wrong for saying that the only parts of that movie that I liked were the stock footage scenes of actual AF personnel working? Everything up to the attack was pretty good. I didn't really care for the rest of the film. Best scene in the film: The Klaxon sounds, and the crew buses show up to the BUFFs. They do the alert 8 engine start and you get a great view of the tell-tale water injection smoke as they pull off the runway for the "one way ride".

On the subject of B-52s, "By Dawn's Early Light", with Powers Boothe was pretty good.

Nothing tops "Dr. Strangelove", though. Slim Pickens riding the nuke down like a rodeo cowboy was one of the iconical images of the entire Cold War. A lot of symbolism too. If the nukes were going to drop, one might as well be standing at the impact point, because in WWIII, being dead would be preferable to surviving.

Glad we never got that far into it with the Russkies.

I was watching that with my dad who was a B-52 crew chief at the time. He kept commenting on how that was authentic, etc. The stock footage was great, but the whole package, especially the scene where the high altitude airburst goes off above Kansas City and all the electronics die were moving. The missile tech who was trying to get home knew exactly what is was a hauled a$$ for cover. Everyone else got out of their cars and was standing around when the other warheads hit. The flash and their bodies turning transparent from it are the images that stand out in my mind. That and the "walking dead" afterwards. for the next few months after that, every time the klaxon sounded or the horn sounded at noon, I got a little pit in my stomach. I made it a point to watch every ORI practice scramble after that. In real life it was exactly like the scene in the movie, especially with the old G models.

By Dawn's Early Light was okay. I liked the scene where they shoot down a Mig with the tail guns, but dropping a nuke on a ridge line to take out the other one was too much. That and the female copilot.

I remember the fast pace in which every few years a new aircraft was introduced. When Nikita Kruschev said, "we will bury you," the articles that showed how strong the USAF and USN really were.
To me it lost some glamor during the Cuban Missile Crisis. My girlfriend having to take a suitcase with a couple changes of clothing, the fire department making arrangements with my school to park their fire trucks on the south side of our new gymnasium (away from San Francisco) built with reinforced concrete. My friends from the previous year's senior class being sent to the southern states by the Marine Corp for a possible invasion of Cuba, etc. Realizing that if war broke my girlfriend, my family and hers could disappear in a bright flash made an impression, for it no longer was a subject debating.

Adrian

We were sitting Victor Alert one evening, several pilots and crew chiefs watching "The Day After" on tape. In an unbelievable coincidence, just as the nudets were happening in the movie, higher HQ decided to give us a practice "smoke", (cranking the aircraft but not leaving the TAB V). Scared the piss out of us. I remember looking at my crew chief pulling the pins as the shelter doors came open, and thought that his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

None of us could get to sleep that night. We burned the VCR tape the next day so that we wouldn't make that mistake again. It took me three days to get the adrenaline out of my system, and a bit longer to get the smell out of my flight suit.

Elite Joined: May 10, 2005 Posts: 1082 Status: Offline

I was in Jr. High, and one of my teachers recorded it, and they made my Texas History class watch it over 2 periods. At the end of it, we recieved a wonderful lecture about how this was the course we were headed down if Ronald Reagan continued to be president. The Russians weren't really a threat and if we didn't want to get nuked, we HAD to go home and tell our parents to vote democrat.

Omg I can't believe they would do that. Thats just screwed up!

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