(If you are reading this on the day it was dispatched, Oct. 16, 2022, it is exactly sixty years to the day from the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those of us who lived through the 13 tense days, even as children, wondered if civilization was about to be rendered non-existent through the deployment and use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R. had begun emplacement of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silos on the island of Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida’s coastline. President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation on my tenth birthday, and I watched on TV and wondered if I was to ever live to adulthood. This newsletter addresses that experience, and how the threat of those days has never ended. Thanks for reading, sharing, and subscribing. If you haven’t, please consider a paid subscription, or free. Readers are life to a writer. - JM)
Nice essay. Made me walk down memory lane as your essays often do. My father was stationed at Guantanamo Bay Cuba at this time, and we lived on base. The navy eventually transferred the families of servicemen back to Norfolk, Va. Much later in their retirement, and my parents wrote a short joint memoir about that time in our lives which they titled: Cuban Memories, Our Brush with History 1960-1962. I have it on my lap right now, inspired by your essay to re-read it. This piece of history is not well taught, if taught at all, in high school history and yet seems so pertinent every few years.
Another great piece, Jim. As you described the rationale for destruction of existing nuclear weapons and an embargo on production of new ones, I couldn’t help but think of the micro version of that argument, which, of course, relates to individual ownership of assault-style weapons, or even on a more granular level, guns in general. Yes, in the greatest country on earth, we all live with some level of fear generated by the folly of our fellow humans.
The discussions surrounding "Will Putin Use Them" have become innumerable. Sages of every stripe weigh in. A recent piece of wisdom pronounced a loss of only 90 million lives if a full scale exchange takes place and most of America would be unharmed while Western Europe would bear the brunt of such brutality. How comforting. The fact is that no one knows what He'll do and what We'll do. Yes, it feels eerily similar to that feeling I had 60 years ago. Only now I know that a desk to hide under won't protect me from the consequences.
I was a third grader in San Antonio at the time. Our school was about two miles from Fort Sam Houston. I don't know that I fully processed the Cuban missile crisis at the time, but I do know that by the time I graduated from grade school I understood that, in a nuclear attack, Fort Sam would be a priority target and I might as well go stand in the schoolyard and watch the show when the sirens went off.
I have a Civil Defense manual published c. 1963. One of its many comical suggestions for shelter during a nuclear attack while, say, visiting the beach, is to overturn a rowboat and hide underneath for protection. You can’t make this stuff up.
Such vivid memories. Drop, roll, curl … and the unmentioned … kiss your a** goodbye.
I’d not thought about the more ominous definition for us “Boomers” until now, but that captures the stressful undercurrent of our generation’s 70+ years.
Meanwhile, we and our allies remain hypocritical and sanctimonious about whom may have nuclear weapons, knowing full well that nuke countries rarely, if ever get invaded. Why wouldn’t North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, et al, be pursuing the same deterrent?
I was 13 and vividly remember sitting in the car with my mother and 2 siblings. We were listening to the radio. It was the first time in my life I remember feeling fear. Consider that prior to that I had had 2 life threatening illnesses and two additional surgeries but that was the first time I felt the bone chilling fear. I'm not sure anyone who wasn't in Japan in 1945 or here during the missiles on October appreciates where we sit at this moment in history. Jim, I share your fear.
Nice essay. Made me walk down memory lane as your essays often do. My father was stationed at Guantanamo Bay Cuba at this time, and we lived on base. The navy eventually transferred the families of servicemen back to Norfolk, Va. Much later in their retirement, and my parents wrote a short joint memoir about that time in our lives which they titled: Cuban Memories, Our Brush with History 1960-1962. I have it on my lap right now, inspired by your essay to re-read it. This piece of history is not well taught, if taught at all, in high school history and yet seems so pertinent every few years.
Another great piece, Jim. As you described the rationale for destruction of existing nuclear weapons and an embargo on production of new ones, I couldn’t help but think of the micro version of that argument, which, of course, relates to individual ownership of assault-style weapons, or even on a more granular level, guns in general. Yes, in the greatest country on earth, we all live with some level of fear generated by the folly of our fellow humans.
The discussions surrounding "Will Putin Use Them" have become innumerable. Sages of every stripe weigh in. A recent piece of wisdom pronounced a loss of only 90 million lives if a full scale exchange takes place and most of America would be unharmed while Western Europe would bear the brunt of such brutality. How comforting. The fact is that no one knows what He'll do and what We'll do. Yes, it feels eerily similar to that feeling I had 60 years ago. Only now I know that a desk to hide under won't protect me from the consequences.
I was a third grader in San Antonio at the time. Our school was about two miles from Fort Sam Houston. I don't know that I fully processed the Cuban missile crisis at the time, but I do know that by the time I graduated from grade school I understood that, in a nuclear attack, Fort Sam would be a priority target and I might as well go stand in the schoolyard and watch the show when the sirens went off.
I have a Civil Defense manual published c. 1963. One of its many comical suggestions for shelter during a nuclear attack while, say, visiting the beach, is to overturn a rowboat and hide underneath for protection. You can’t make this stuff up.
Such vivid memories. Drop, roll, curl … and the unmentioned … kiss your a** goodbye.
I’d not thought about the more ominous definition for us “Boomers” until now, but that captures the stressful undercurrent of our generation’s 70+ years.
Meanwhile, we and our allies remain hypocritical and sanctimonious about whom may have nuclear weapons, knowing full well that nuke countries rarely, if ever get invaded. Why wouldn’t North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, et al, be pursuing the same deterrent?
Scary times indeed.
I was 13 and vividly remember sitting in the car with my mother and 2 siblings. We were listening to the radio. It was the first time in my life I remember feeling fear. Consider that prior to that I had had 2 life threatening illnesses and two additional surgeries but that was the first time I felt the bone chilling fear. I'm not sure anyone who wasn't in Japan in 1945 or here during the missiles on October appreciates where we sit at this moment in history. Jim, I share your fear.