Being born in the early 70's, and living my tween and teen years in the 80's, I remember what it was like to live during the Cold War. I remember those phony "tornado drills" in school...they weren't tornado drills. We believed they were back then, but as we got older, we realized that going into the hallways and lining up against the wall in what any of us who have done yoga know as "child's pose" wasn't the way you respond to a tornado in the area. No, this was the "kiss your ass goodbye" drill in case of a nuclear launch! They called it a "tornado drill" as to not freak out a bunch of children.
On the radio, we would hear songs from artists singing about how much they hoped both sides would realize that a nuclear war was one that was not winnable. We saw movies such as Red Dawn, and the potential of nuclear war was the topic of many a TV story line. When the Cold War was over, we breathed a sigh of relief. We saw the Berlin Wall come down. The USSR was dissolved, and the country once again became known as simply Russia. Or focus then turned on the Middle East...a war that was far less scary as there was little chance of that causing the annihilation of an entire planet.
But we fast forward to today. This back and forth exchange of words between our President and the leader of North Korea...a nation who has been doing more and more testing of missiles that could be fitted with nuclear warheads. We again see news headlines that elude to the threat of WWIII...a nuclear war that will only destroy earth with no real winner. We have to unstable people with itchy trigger fingers, and we are closer to nuclear war now than we ever were in the 80's. I wonder if school children are again having to do "tornado drills" in schools as the threat becomes more and more real. "It could be...the calm, the calm before the storm." These are the cryptic words recently spoken by our President. North Korea has already stated that previous tweets would be construed as a declaration of war by our country. We have the Secretary of State trying to calm things down, and our President saying it is a waste of time.
I again feel that fear in my heart...like in the 80's...replace "Russians" with "North Koreans" in this song (yeah, I know...we already know the answer...he doesn't).