I miss the Cold War

By Bill Springer

This mess we've gotten into in Iraq has made me nostalgic. I know, many old folks say that things in their past were better, and usually they are applying the old saw about hindsight being 20/20.

I was born on the cusp of the baby boom in 1944 and began school in 1950 just when Truman went to Korea.

There was a massive ice storm that blanketed the South in 1951. It was cold. We were without power for weeks, out of school, and my daddy had to used a blowtorch to keep the water running. We had a gas floor furnace and cooked with gas, so we were snug. I remember folks saying that it was going to be like that if we didn't do something about the damngodlessrussians. It was cold, and I thought the damngodlessrussians were responsible. I was only in first grade, but everybody knew that the doomsday clock was ticking, and ticking fast.

I soon learned that the cold wasn't about ice storms. It was about bad Red guys who wanted to kill us. I could see their pictures in Time, Look and Life. They were the bogeyman, and I was afraid. They had uniforms and big guns. For a while I was confused with the red savages that John Wayne killed by the pound.

My teachers taught me that once I saw the flash, I should duck and cover and wait for the all clear, and it would be over. I asked my mama why we didn't have school desks at home for protection. (And get a really big one for Daddy, because he was fat.) She told me the kitchen table would work at home and not to worry.

Other folks dug fallout shelters. When a neighbor was preparing to build one, my daddy ask if there would be room for us. He said no, we would have to build our own. Daddy said that when he saw the flash he would stick rotten potatoes down the air hole and then run for the kitchen table. The shelter was never built.

Seeing the Civil Defense shelters in school and public buildings sent a chill through me. I never saw the inside of one, but I imagined it to be full of desks. Sometime during the 1970s, I unloaded one in the basement of a school and found large tins full of crackers, water and soap. I realized that I sure didn't want to be stuck in there for a 100 years.

In the movie "Mrs. Miniver" the family had to hunker down in shelters when the Nazis bombed London. I think I thought the same would happen here until I realized that these were atomic bombs. Kerbango! Radiation. I looked at the Hiroshima picture books and knew that it could reduce me to a shadow frozen in time on the pavement.

Scared? Nervous? Right. Seeing one of those porkish Commie leaders made me realize that they were serious. When Nikita beat his shoe on the lectern of the United Nations screaming "We will bury you," I knew that he was mean and all his armies and ships and planes were just waiting to kill all of us. In a flash.

In World War I and World War II, all the soldiers, sailors and airmen wore uniforms. They had their countries' symbols on their shoulders and a distinctive cap or helmet that said "I am the bad guy." We knew where they were in the atlas. Right there. The atlas told us if we wanted to find them they were on page 26-27. On the world map the evil empire was a large pink mass at the top of the world map of Europe and Asia. I always thought it should have been red.

Now I look at the atlas and see countries, but the enemy or whatever can be anywhere. Blowing up a train in Spain or flying airliners into New York. It's really hard to get a handle on. Did we go to Iraq because it was in the atlas and they had spiffy uniforms? Perhaps if they all wore uniforms it would help us know who the enemy is. A terrorist uniform. Interesting.

According to media, the terrorist are everywhere. They could be living next door and planting petunias.

Tailgunner Joe thought the Commies were everywhere but was such a lying lump of pomposity that he made a mockery of the idea. In the television show "I Led Three Lives," Richard Carlson was a secret agent trying to bust the Reds. I greatly admired him until I realized he was a B-movie actor.

We called it "the cold" because it could ignite into hot at any time. In the surrogate wars in Korea and Vietnam, at least we knew where we were and who the enemy was. I wonder if Kim Il Jong will make all his soldiers wear uniforms if we go back to Korea. They look pretty snazzy when they do the goose-stepping march. He wears a uniform but looks like he has his mama's pajamas on. I think he would be more sinister if he had a better haircut.

Our old enemies are now our friends. Japan, Germany, Russia, Vietnam. Trading partners. WWII vets resent all of the Japanese goods we buy and sell. One vet told me he tried to never buy "Jap stuff," but he had to when his TV quit because they're not made anywhere else. You never know.

Perhaps as a nation we need time to reflect. We have an enemy whose mission is to destroy western civilization. Or culture is abhorrent. Sinful. Immoral. There is no irony to be missed when we learned that the boys from 9-11 went to strip clubs and bought lap dances and drank alcohol before they attacked.

We can't find Osama. I think he is clean shaven, walking a beach in Florida, picking up shells and drinking a Bud long neck. He's hiding as a conch, and we're looking in caves.

Despite all, life is good. I don't know who the enemy is.

I don't know where the enemy is. I don't know what they will do next. But I do know my country. Despite some missteps here and there. we are Superman. Truth, justice and the American way.

Bill Springer of Cape Girardeau is a teacher.