War Games(Ed Derousse) War Games

I was ten years old in 1960. The world, then, was facing a period of heightened international tension and competition.
That’s what everyone was told to believe.
International tension and competition? I had no idea what that meant. The only world I knew about was what I could see in front of me. And that's all that was important to me and to most kids my age.
It was John Wayne, cowboys and Indians, the neighbor kids, and my school buddies. It was riding bikes, and building forts. It was swimming in the community pool, and playing little league ball. It was Roy Rogers, Sky King, and Saturday morning serials.

The adults felt nervous. They tried to hide it. There were signs that told us they were nervous, if we paid attention. They tried not to pass it on to us. But deep down, we could tell something was wrong. They didn't talk about it at home. Yet they prepared us for it.
We were given some facts about it in the guise of an educational atmosphere. Fear of it caused teachers to teach us how to take cover. So we practiced hiding under our school desks. The faster the better. Whatever we were doing had to be stopped at that exact instant. No delay. Delay would be deadly. Something about a blinding light, a mushroom cloud, and a gigantic wave of energy.
Funny thing, though, I can only remember being told to take cover under my desk. What if that blinding light happened while I was out on the playground?
Thinking back on that light and gigantic energy wave now, I guess that meant that stuff was only going to happen when we were in our classrooms. Those guys who made the blinding light happen must have been geniuses in order to time its appearance in such a way.

What is “It”? you ask? There was a name for all that worldly tension. “They” called it the “Cold War”.
“Cold War”? That was a peculiar name. A ten year old doesn't understand things the way adults do. When I heard that term back then, I envisioned men fighting in Canada or some other place very cold. I was vaguely aware that some big war had recently ended. A lot of countries were involved. My neighbor, who walked around on crutches, said the plane he flew was shot down in some place he called Korea.
It was during that “Cold War” time that my neighbor shared his war story with me. I don't remember too much anymore about how it happened. He really didn't share that much about it because he probably thought I was too young to understand the severity of his difficult situation. Or perhaps he thought a real life story like that should have come from my parents.
I do remember him saying something about strafing the ground. On his final mission, he said a stray bullet fired at him from the ground somehow disabled his jet. He flew an F-4 Corsair. The bad guy’s lucky shot hit the part of his plane which controlled landing. Because of that he didn't have enough control of his plane to land it on the aircraft carrier without crashing. As a result of the crash he broke some vertebrae in his back. He never made a big deal out of it. My neighbor was a real live hero to me.

WWII, the war to end all wars, was over. So was the skirmish, as some people called it, in Korea. That conflict between democracy and the spread of communism ended in a stalemate. The same conflict, though, was now developing in Southeast Asia.
Fortunately, all that conflict occurred on foreign soil. But by the sixties, America was beginning to worry it would have to defend its own turf. Many were convinced Communism, Russia in particular, was about to attack America. We had to be prepared to defend our own soil. The cost was most likely going to be great. We were led to believe most people on Earth were going to die.
Atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945 by the US. Russia had the same technology except that both the US and Russia by 1960 could now land those bombs on each other’s country mounted on guided missiles. Each country told the other that they would send them over if they felt the need to defend territory. Each country had more guided missiles than required to totally destroy each other’s country.

“What would be the THING to happen which would require the US and Russia to defend its territory by use of missile?” “Who would be the first to push the button?“ “How much of the earth would actually survive the nuclear holocaust?” These were questions on every American citizen’s mind.
We all learned about nuclear fallout; the result of radioactive dust which was created when nuclear weapons detonated. The explosion created a massive fireball, possibly several miles wide. Everything within it vaporized. The stuff inside the cloud would turn to dust and that dust became radioactive. If you weren’t on ground zero, which was certain death, the dust most likely would kill you.

The US government felt responsible for responding to heightened public anxiety. The Federal government distributed information to instruct the public on how to protect itself in case of a nuclear attack. The thinking was, its citizens could survive an atomic bomb and consequently avoid wholesale death and destruction such as occurred on the scale of Hiroshima.
The School also did its part to try to train all the kids on how to prepare for the inevitable. That horrible stuff could happen at any moment. That evil country, they told us, was Russia. It may drop a bomb on us and then we would have to drop our bombs on them. Thus the total annihilation of the world.
I seem to remember thinking there were a couple of guys in military uniforms working for the good guys and the bad guys, each sitting in a chair, hand hovering over a big red button, and waiting for the order to push it. Once pushed that would be the end of everything. Then nothing would matter anymore.

To add to the adult tensions, square yellow signs with yellow and gray triangles painted inside them started appearing around town. The signs were posted outside what was called a fallout shelter. We were told the places where they appeared were safe places to go when that bright light and gigantic energy wave showed up. Those places were mostly in schools and some public places.
My dad had a shelter built at our house. It, like much of the country, had also fallen prey to the fears of that “Cold War”.
Dad hired a bunch of men to dig a large rectangular hole under the house. It was deep, wide and long. I bet I could have stood on my Dad’s shoulder and still not see out of the hole. I thought he was building some kind of underground fort. He said he was in a way.
After the hole was dug, twelve inch thick concrete walls were poured around the hole. The entrance to the hole was through the basement. That entrance, I remember was gray in color and looked very heavy. Kind of like a bank vault door. Supposedly, the intent was to withstand the gamma rays emanating from the bomb.
I didn't understand what gamma rays were, but they sure sounded scary. After Dad tried to describe them, I had visions of my skin falling off my body and my eyes plopping out of my head. Dad didn't tell me that. My imagination took a few liberties. So if Dad said it was time to go to the fallout shelter, you bet I would go there without hesitation.
The shelter was also stocked with several months of nonperishable foods. An emergency air and lighting system was installed. Those systems and the food would sustain our family in that shelter for several months. Dad made sure the proper air filter which detected poison outside air was in working order.
Being forced to stay within the confines of those four walls, for who knows how long, was terrifying. If the bomb dropped and Dad sent his family to the shelter, that meant I was going to be living in very close quarters with my family. I didn't like my little sister very much back then. That obviously was a bigger problem than the reason we were in there in the first place. So an escape plan was necessary.
Escape, of course, meant running the risk of experiencing my skin falling off and my eyes plopping out. And, somehow, I had to accomplish “the great escape” without the knowledge of my always vigilant parents.
Or perhaps it would have been worse being cooped up in that small room with my entire family because all escape attempts would ultimately fail. I knew any family member at any given time and without a good reason as far as I was concerned was going to have a tirade. It would only be a matter of time. That would be really unpleasant too. Especially if it was my youngest sister who had the tirade.
After it was built, though, the only time I was in it was the day after Dad deemed it completed and the day, years later, we threw all the stuff in it away.
I never ever explored that room. What that room implied was just too scary. Besides, if I did decide to explore the room without anyone knowing, that bank vault door might accidentally close behind me sealing me in it forever. Never mind the fact that Dad had the ability to get me out as soon as he knew I was there.

Yet, for me, I wasn't really concerned about the so called Cold War. There was no war going on around me. At least not one that I could see.
Well. That wasn't exactly true. I and my neighbor, Bill, were most likely at war with the bank robbers and practicing our dying moves. Sometimes we thought we could have won Oscars for our portrayals of death scenes. Actually, they would have been the Rotten Tomato award. Kids’ wars, as you know, are not very realistic.
We never gave it any thought how many times we could shoot our six guns without reloading, or how many times or how many different places in the yard we could die. Or how many times the other guy could be standing a couple of feet in front of you and shoot you in the chest and hear these words “Ya missed me!”
When we got tired of fighting bank robbers, we would change our pretend cowboy costumes for Calvary uniforms and go after Geronimo or Sitting Bull or some evil band of Indians. That exercise required the participation of a few more people, though. So we would have to recruit more soldiers. In our minds, Indians always seemed to far out number the Calvary.
Bill and I were very seldom Indians. Drawing a six gun out of a holster or grabbing a rifle off your pretend horse was a lot cooler looking than shooting a bow and arrow. Besides it took too long to put that arrow in the bow and then let it fly. Cowboys and Calvary officers also had cool hats. Indians had those feathers.

I was too busy clearing the West of the bad elements to be much aware of the tensions felt by my parents and the other adults around me. But I am also sure my childhood must have unconsciously become extremely important. Yet with all that scary stuff being presented to the world, I don't really remember feeling scared. I was just too busy being a kid. Besides my kind of war was much more fun and my buddy, Bill, and I were pretty sure we would never actually see a real dead person.

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