To those who lived during the crisis

I was 11. I was scared sh*tless for days; (I hope the admin doesn't ban my term, because it is the most accurate one I can think of.) I was sick; scared; we went to church every day; my parents - to their credit - didn't try to hide the fact that something very scary was happening. They somehow correctly assessed just what might have happened - life itself was hanging in the balance and there was no way to hide that and die peacefully.

It made me anti-war very solidly and against the Vietnam war. Funny how little is said about that, as I type this. So many of the war protesters of the 60s were probably influenced by the knowledge that government was capable of screwing things so bad that we'd all be dead in a literal flash.

I was watching the movie this weekend, and while I am not old enough to remember it, my Mom is and while we were watching it I asked her about it and she said that they had drills in school and were told to stay away from the windows.

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I was in Junior High in San Diego, which was a prime target. Home of the Pacific Fleet and General Dynamics, which made our ICBM's. Plus during that time my dad was in the Navy and was overseas at the time. Talk about scary.
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I was 17 at the time. Like everyone else, I was scared--really scared. I remember watching Adlai Stevenson's meticulously prepared presentation at the UN. That was the day I began to question my Republican upbringing.

I'm coming to this thread late, but here are my thoughts.

I live in Canada and I was almost 7 years old then. We had the ridiculous 'duck and cover' drills in school and every once in awhile the air raid sirens would go off for testing, but most of all I remember how scared my parents were during that time period. They did a great job of not letting us worry, but I was old enough to know that they were scared so I was too. I didn't really understand why, i just knew that they were terrified.

My mother was crying when we were watching the TV and were being told that the crisis was over and all the missiles were being sent back to Russia. She hugged us and then made hot chocolate. It was a normal day after that and I didn't really think anything more about it until we learned more about it in school in years to come. The next time I saw my mother cry like that was when JFK was killed. She adored him and thought he saved us all.

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