07-08-2024, 07:31 AM
The Cold War has been a chilling enigma of sorts to me since I really started to become aware of the outside world in any context. For me, this started in about the 5th or 6th grade. Ever since then there have been a never ending stream of reminders (revelations really) of what the Cold War really was. So, what was the Cold War?
In basic terms, I think we all know what the Cold War was about, and who the players were, but few (I don't think) realize how deep it went. And one of the most amazing things to me is how much of it went on right in front of so many of us without realizing it.
In an effort to frame this a little, I will cite a personal experience. I remember once as a kid in about 1968-69 my parents had a piece of property in southern Florida on the Gulf coast. Back then the area was basically mangroves and unpopulated. The property they'd bought was the classic speculative property which was rife at the time. Kind of a ..."Develop it and they will come"... sort of thing, only their property wasn't developed (yet). It was the kind of thing you saw in the back of a magazine. (Fortunately they didn't get burned on it like so many others did, but I digress). The island where this property was is now known as Marco Island which is a thriving paradise of the wealthy, but it wasn't back then. At the southwest tip of the island was an old radar tracking station. By the late 60's it had been abandoned by the US military.
I knew this place well because it was a good place to fish; it sat right at the confluence of a river and the Gulf, and when the tide would change it was great fishing. But it was also kind of spooky. Abandoned buildings are always kind of spooky, but this one had extra spook-factor to it because real "spooks" had worked there. But what did they do? I wondered. Well, the easy answer was, they monitored Cuba for early warning missile launches. I tried to picture what life must have been like at that remote outpost just north of the Ten Thousand Islands (as it is called). Every night and day sitting there staring at some radar scope waiting for the end of the World. As an 8 year old, that was a pretty hard concept to wrap my head around...the end of the World. As the sun would set it felt like ghosts were staring out the darkened windows at me...and maybe they were.
Multi-million dollar condominiums occupy that spot now, and all traces of that radar tracking station have been erased. As the years wore on I would see literally hundreds of the same types of things all over the country. For some reason I was drawn to them like a magnet. Abandoned missile silo complexes, abandoned bases of one form or another...all over Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota, Alaska, Nevada and so many others. I've probably researched or seen hundreds if not thousands now. At one point when I was about 18-20 something hit me like a brick to the forehead..."WOW! These people actually believed that sh!t was really gonna' happen!!! How could I have missed this?" Prior to that point it had all been some distant reality, the "Duck & Cover" drills long past, but even from under my desk in 4th grade...it wasn't real. But it WAS real.
Nuclear submarines playing cat & mouse, bombers encroaching on borders, spies, missiles, distant places always on alert. It was ALL REAL!
Then one in June 1987 some guy named Ronald Reagan came on TV and said it was all over. He said..."Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Though some had said the actual Cold War had been over for more than a decade, in reality it hadn't been. Another even colder war started after 1975, one far more dangerous. But it wasn't until that day in 1987 that we could really come out from under our desks.
One wrong move (and there were many opportunities) and humanity likely would have been extinguished in large part, vaporized. Now, trillions upon trillions of dollars lies abandoned, only to be replaced by trillions more in new things.
Looking back, it all happened right in front of us, but few saw it even though it was right in front of our eyes the entire time. But did it ever really end? Or, was it all just some crazy, spooky, bad dream with ghosts looking out of the windows in some remote abandoned radar tracking station in southern Florida?
At least it had an appropriate name "The Cold War", very chilling indeed.
In basic terms, I think we all know what the Cold War was about, and who the players were, but few (I don't think) realize how deep it went. And one of the most amazing things to me is how much of it went on right in front of so many of us without realizing it.
In an effort to frame this a little, I will cite a personal experience. I remember once as a kid in about 1968-69 my parents had a piece of property in southern Florida on the Gulf coast. Back then the area was basically mangroves and unpopulated. The property they'd bought was the classic speculative property which was rife at the time. Kind of a ..."Develop it and they will come"... sort of thing, only their property wasn't developed (yet). It was the kind of thing you saw in the back of a magazine. (Fortunately they didn't get burned on it like so many others did, but I digress). The island where this property was is now known as Marco Island which is a thriving paradise of the wealthy, but it wasn't back then. At the southwest tip of the island was an old radar tracking station. By the late 60's it had been abandoned by the US military.
I knew this place well because it was a good place to fish; it sat right at the confluence of a river and the Gulf, and when the tide would change it was great fishing. But it was also kind of spooky. Abandoned buildings are always kind of spooky, but this one had extra spook-factor to it because real "spooks" had worked there. But what did they do? I wondered. Well, the easy answer was, they monitored Cuba for early warning missile launches. I tried to picture what life must have been like at that remote outpost just north of the Ten Thousand Islands (as it is called). Every night and day sitting there staring at some radar scope waiting for the end of the World. As an 8 year old, that was a pretty hard concept to wrap my head around...the end of the World. As the sun would set it felt like ghosts were staring out the darkened windows at me...and maybe they were.
Multi-million dollar condominiums occupy that spot now, and all traces of that radar tracking station have been erased. As the years wore on I would see literally hundreds of the same types of things all over the country. For some reason I was drawn to them like a magnet. Abandoned missile silo complexes, abandoned bases of one form or another...all over Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota, Alaska, Nevada and so many others. I've probably researched or seen hundreds if not thousands now. At one point when I was about 18-20 something hit me like a brick to the forehead..."WOW! These people actually believed that sh!t was really gonna' happen!!! How could I have missed this?" Prior to that point it had all been some distant reality, the "Duck & Cover" drills long past, but even from under my desk in 4th grade...it wasn't real. But it WAS real.
Nuclear submarines playing cat & mouse, bombers encroaching on borders, spies, missiles, distant places always on alert. It was ALL REAL!
Then one in June 1987 some guy named Ronald Reagan came on TV and said it was all over. He said..."Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Though some had said the actual Cold War had been over for more than a decade, in reality it hadn't been. Another even colder war started after 1975, one far more dangerous. But it wasn't until that day in 1987 that we could really come out from under our desks.
One wrong move (and there were many opportunities) and humanity likely would have been extinguished in large part, vaporized. Now, trillions upon trillions of dollars lies abandoned, only to be replaced by trillions more in new things.
Looking back, it all happened right in front of us, but few saw it even though it was right in front of our eyes the entire time. But did it ever really end? Or, was it all just some crazy, spooky, bad dream with ghosts looking out of the windows in some remote abandoned radar tracking station in southern Florida?
At least it had an appropriate name "The Cold War", very chilling indeed.
