Question for the old-timers concerning 25 Dec 1991

[MKSheppard]

On 12/13/2006, MKSheppard posted the following thread titled "Question for the old-timers concerning 25 Dec 1991.."

Since I was only 10 years old at the time, and I was more shocked by the Persian Gulf War "My god, we're at war!" when I saw the first images of Baghdad under attack; I sort of completely missed the entire shock concerning the dissolution of the USSR completely that christmas.

For you old timers who grew up with the evil empire as a ever present menace, what was it like that Christmas?

Don't remember that one so much. November 1989 and the wall coming down is one of those moments when I can tell you exactly where I was. My wife called at work to tell me, and I thought she was pulling my leg.

I don't know whether I would have considered myself to be a paid up member of the "old timers" club at the time, being 27, but the lifting of the ever present dark threat of nuclear obliteration ( there were plenty of warheads available for use on Australia and Sydney would have been a prime target ) was for me a great relief. People hacking into the Berlin Wall was something that I had NOT thought I would see in my lifetime.

The bombing of Baghdad was a different issue. I was working in the SW of Sydney where most of the Arabs live and the streets were empty and still, full of tension. Nothing was likely to or did happen, of course. The Police were everywhere and the Arab gangs had to watch their backs otherwisee the Islanders and Vietnamese would have sorted them out. Later that night I sat down with some mates and a case of Coopers and watched the endless TV reports and video of the start of the air campaign. Got rather drunk, I must admit.

Born in 1964 and I grew up with the fear of a Soviet attack. The Soviets were also funding far-left political parties and infiltrating the the Labour party. A lot of people on the UK left wanted basically to surrender, better red than dead.

The warmongers were of course Thatcher and Reagan, that is if you read the Guardian. In the late 70's the UK was on a knife-edge, they could have voted for a uni-lateral disarmament andti-NATO, Anti-US labour party or for the Conservatives. They went with Thatcher. In her first term she was very unpopular, her real power and the changes she inacted actually occured when she was returned with a massive majority for her second term. This was only possible because 1) the sucess of the Falklands war 2) The split in the Labour party and the formation of the SDP. This latter point allowed the soft-left votes to be cleaved from the Labour-body.

The whole of the UK could have gone the way of the British car industry. The real battle against the Soviets in the 80's in Britian was between Arthur Scargill, leader of the miner union and Thatcher. Thatcher had prepared the ground, by stockpiling coal at the power stations and Scargill was getting ready for a rerun of 73-74.

Born in 1960. In the late 1980s the U.S. Navy was in an undeclared war with Iran, followed by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. I think that got a lot more attention then the U.S.S.R. break up.

Let me Geeze up to the Podium....Back in my day.... cough... gasp...

I was born in 1969 so I was an adult at the time when the USSR became the FUSSR. I remember the posturing of various Soviet personages. I remember the Baltics breaking away and becoming their own countries again. It was a fairly peaceful event all things considered. I also remember the coup in the USSR and Boris Yeltsin sitting there with a bull horn making his noise

Hmmm...

In December of 1991 I was getting ready to go on a deployment to the Western Pacific. In December of 1989, I was getting ready to go on a Deployment to the Western Pacific. In between, I had been on a little side trip to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Prior to 1989, I had been on another side trip to the North Arabian Sea. Though I had grown up during the height of the Cold War, was in the service during the end game, and was very much a Cold Warrior in some ways -- those who recognize terms like "two-man rule", "exclusion area", and "Broken Arrow" know exactly what I was doing for several years -- the whole end of the Cold War thing was really peripheral to what was going on in my life.

Mark,
I was defending my desk in Akron OH when the word came down, and nobody was realy sure what to do next. The first person I thought to call was my brother in law at Wurtsmith, and he said that they had already been told that there was a very good chance they'd generate the force that afternoon, peace be damned - SAC wasn't going to back off until it was clear everything wouldn't come apart and catch us in the backblast.

I do remember saying this to SWMBO, and I will say that I've been proven right:

"Someday we're gonna miss them."

You are a horible person...for calling me an "old timer".

OK reflex reaction to your headline out of the way...

Since the decline and fall of the USSR was in obvious excellerated progress since 1989 the final end date was more a period on the sentense, than an exclamation point for me.

The real milestones were the fall of the Berlin wall and the last gasp attempted military coup and showdown at the President's residence defused by Yeltsin earlier in 1991. After that it was clear the Russian people had spoken and the threat of the USSR was over... for a while.

I do remember saying this to SWMBO, and I will say that I've been proven right:

"Someday we're gonna miss them."

I had the same opinion at the time, and retain it. Best enemy we ever had.

"We will look back with nostalgia, on the Pax Russiana."

Born in '72 and had just had my birthday. I was 19 years old and the break up of the Soviet Union was quite monumental in my life. My family fled the USSR in the aftermath of WW2, from Estonia to be specific. As Estonia led the way, it was a rather confusing time.

There was a great deal of worry and concern: It was a real worry that the Russians would ponder this for a moment or six months, then crush Estonia.

The opinion in the community was sort of in two schools of thought: Either go back and fortify Estonia by both treaty and actual effort to ensure that nobody ever walked over us again or get everybody out that could walk or be carried. I remember standing in Tallin with my Dad and both of us shaking our heads with amazement. We both agreed that we figured that we'd only ever have seen it if we were carrying a rifle and watching for mushroom clouds.

It was also a confusing time, as we had been raised with a reality of the USSR and the threat that it was. It was like finding out that the moon was gone: You just always assumed it would be there.

Terrorism and counterterrorism were pretty much considered a joke, unless you were travelling to/from/in the ME as an individual, or were stationed in an embassy.

Having begun my service in the 60s, I suppose I qualify as an "old timer". I managed to be in some "interesting" places for a while.

I clearly remember coming down to the Mess for breakfast - to the news that John F Kennedy had been shot. The immediate (and quite reasonable) assumption was that the communists were directly involved - and we all wondered where we would be sent/what we would be doing - pretty well the next day. The increase in U2 activity from our neighbouring American guests was very noticeable. We were very young and impressionable (excitable?) in those days.

The whole end of the Berlin wall thing for me is seen within the context of the Red Army Faction - the Frei Universitat - and all those characters that we knew and loved. Back when we were reading Konkret and desperately trying to work out who was doing what to whom - the Red Army Faction tying links to the PLO etc., for a while it looked as though the communists were going to make it in western Europe. These little home-grown intellectuals/ terrorists who had a penchant for setting off bombs in department stores and suchlike - I tend to look back on them with almost wistfulness - getting to know them and their foibles at the time. That all led into the widespread student riots of '68 in Germany and France - which made us think back to 1848 - which is where they (and their Moscow financiers) wanted them to go. All the time the CND in England was a major source of problems - the whole Greenham Common thing - these people made it very easy for the communists to infiltrate .... the road to possible defeat was paved with good intentions.

Then with the repeated Red intelligence successes - from Kristine Keeler-John Profumo through the Cambridge three - four - five - eight, to the Otto John affair - it seemed as though they were winning all the tricks.

When visiting America, the air raid sirens/drills were very noticeable and tended to really impress on people that this was serious.

To be honest, the Arthur Scargill affair was not quite so important from a defence-intelligence point of view - at least not in the immediate future - it was the long term political result that was a worry. But the fact was that they never really had the numbers when faced with a Margaret Thatcher.

The path from that height-of-the-Cold-War era to '89 was interesting, at times very worrying and by no means assured.

By '89-91, my interests had moved somewhat. We had the Geoffrey Prime affair in England and beyond that the Iraq-Iran war in which I took an interest.

Just before the Gulf Campaign, I had the fun of flying over many of the friendly military installations (and being annoyed at the unpreparedness of some of them) and doing a little assessment of the Russian-designed defences that Iraq had (remember the Egyptians Russian-designed defences that failed so spectacularly in the face of the Israeli army?)

Agreed. I've said in several conversations that I miss the Cold War. At least we knew who our enemies were and there were rules to the game.

I had just left active duty after eight years....my entire adult life at that point....and was having my first Christmas in my own place. I watched on TV as the Hammer & Sickle flag was hauled down from over the Kremlin and the Russian flag was hoisted in its place. After having pointed nukes at the Soviets and having operated against them, it gave me a warm feeling to know that it wasn't in vain, it was all worthwhile.

I hated those F@#$%^*'s and was happy to see them fall. My submarines made patrols out of Guam (76-82). The last thing I would see before the hatch was shut and we were off on another long patrol, was a Soviet trawler sitting right outside the harbor in international waters. It was a rust streaked POS loaded with every hi-tech antenna and mast imaginable. Of course, they were alerting their fast attack boats that were lurking about, that we were outbound. We could always get away clean after a little hide and seek, but it always reminded me, it wasn't a game. Nothing would make them happier than sinking my boat and killing us. I am gratified that I had a very small part in helping bring about their collapse.

Life in the shadow of . . .

Y'know, I was born in 1940, into a family with a long military and naval tradition. We lived in the usual subculture of the Regulars, ill - paid, long overseas deployments, generally despised by the townies and so forth.

But the point is, I don't know anyone of my generation who actually lost any sleep over "The Bomb". Military brats or townies, just went on with the business of living. Sputnik came along and generated a burst of interest in technology, but no one I was in school with, wrung their hands and hid under Dad's old Studebaker.

It was a kick to see a formation of B-36's drone past, way up high, then the B-47 and the B-52, or say, F104's but that was in the nature of NASCAR - Baaaad mochines!

When it came to actually being 'on the line' and watching the hapless E. German Border Guards slog through the snow, one thought a bit about the vast Soviet tank parks and such, but then it dawned that, if it came to it, your ass was grass, because the real line to be held was several km in the rear, so life became easier.

In general, it was a good thing to have a stolid, reliable old enemy you could count on - Best of enemies sort of thing.

But the point is, I don't know anyone of my generation who actually lost any sleep over "The Bomb".

I've noted a lot of noise in the Enemy Press, the media in general, about how much angst there was during th Cold War. That would usually be followed by a film clip of elementary school kids hiding under their desks, and bomb test houses being blown to shreds.

But like you, I never worried a moment about Russia nuking us, even though my dad built a fallout shelter in the basement. It was eventually converted to a darkroom. And I don't know anyone else who worried. Where areall those worry warts, other than in the fevered minds of the Enemy Press?

OTOH, I believe we are in significant danger now, of taking nuclear casualties. I felt this danger go up the moment the USSR ceased to be a restraining hand on their minions. It's greater now. I'm actually considering burying a 40 foot container in the back yard, for use as a fallout shelter. (And also an indoor pistol range )

Well, lessee you young wipper-snapper! Desert Shield was well under way in December 1990 with Desert Storm just a few weeks off. If that's what you're interested in, I had just come bace to the states from Okinawa on leave primarily to return my first ex-wife to her parents. I was releaved about that being over. I was part of the only F-15 unit in PACAF (at the time Alaska was it's own command), Baguio, in the Philippines had just had a major earthquake 6.5 or better major damage and death. Kadena was "ops normal" but we were ready to do whatever was required of us. The Soviet Union was falling apart and Mike has expressed the opinon shared there...better the enemy you know and all that. The guys in the 67th shared essentially the same attitude about the coming war, "let's get it done". Most were leaning forward and some had volunteered to go and help out...this appeared to be the big game and guys didn't want to be left out. When the war did break Kadena was still "ops normal", the 67th was taking it's turn serving alert at Osan AB, Korea. I spent the last 2/3 of Desert Storm on alert. At some very high level there was at least mild concern that "Uncle Kim" might try something stupid while we were busy handing "Sadly Insane's" @$$ back to him skewered on an M1. It was fun watching T72 turrets doing back flips on CNN.

If however you asking about after the fact 1991 Kadena was still ops normal. Mt Pinatubo had closed the Philippines down in June taking our favorite party place down from official rotational TDY. the 67th was again on alert at Osan (our turn again), and I was busy tying the knot around my throat again with the new to be ex-Mrs Dedmon. We were still looking at Korea as a potential hot spot but were not very worried about it. Iraq was still spinning down but the main view shared on Okinawa was that we didn't finish it, though no one was really sure of what finishing it would end up being like, kinda like now. Again this was kind of "keep the enemy that is known rather than the one you don't know".

I spent Christmas on the America right before we left for the gulf. The USSR falling was greeted with cool pass the turkey!

I was four months out of the Marine Corps, and I watched the news on television as the hammer and sickle flag came down.

I spiked a Nerf football and did an end-zone victory dance. My father--a retired Navy vet--joined in (had to teach him how to high-five and fist-bump; God, I miss Dad).

Cold War 1945-1991: We came, we saw, we pwned!

On duty in Cheyenne Mountain where we all watched with great interest what the Soviets/Russians did with their nukes!

I remember watching it on TV, and feeling relieved and elated. Finally, the Cold War was done. Perhaps now we could do something to lift the millions of former kulaks from the depths of their downtrodden state and peace (for the most part) would reign. How utterly naive.

I was stationed at NESU Portsmouth (Naval Engineering Support Unit, in the Weapons Div., we were the USCG version of the USN SIMA) and when Desert Storm/Shield started off, I called in every single favor I had coming to me to get over there. No Joy. We only sent BT's (Boarding Teams) to do the interdiction work, and I figured "Hell I can do hostile boardings any time down in the Gulf, and ended up doing so, again shortly thereafter, but thats another story) and PSU's, or Port Security Units. PSU's at the time were all reservists, no Active Duty personnel were attached. Bad, bad choice. In any event, after the folly of HQ's decision to only have reservists in the PSU's, they decided to send one good, known GM over to straighten the weapons divs. up in the three PSU's. They made a shortlist, I was #3, and one of my buddies (actually the top three of us were all close friends) #2 took the job. Ironically, I later became the first full time ACDU Cadre for the new PSU's that were commissioned.

As to the Soviets, they scared the hell out of us. But, we knew who they were, and dealt with it. I wasn't prescient enough to know we would miss them, but now, man. If I ever get a chance to meet some of them, we are heading to a bar.

My father was watching the news, I was sitting on the floor. It is my second memory.

Hmmm, 25th Dec '91

probably in a befuddled haze after excessive turkey and fizzy vino I should think. The end of the USSR was more of a symbolic thing - 'the end of the end'. The start of the end in '89 was far more enthralling.

At the time I was a student living in a rickety shared house in Bath - I remember we watched the fall of the Berlin Wall on a dodgy portable TV with a coat hanger stuck in the back as an aerial, so just about got the gist in between the 'snow'. Later on we found that we did have a proper TV aerial but the connection had been hidden in shrubbery and was revealed after the great storm.

As soon as Gorbachev came in you could see that things were looking up. 83-4 was a little worrying as with those scary looking geriatrics in charge - Chernyenko, Andropov - they reminded one of Bond villains, who as everyone knows, are just as likely to push the self-destruct button as to quietly shuffle off their mortal coil. Gorbachev at least appeared sane, which was re-assuring. In retrospect I think he might be the most important world leader of the second half of the 20th century, not saying he was an angel of course.

Mid 80s I do remember having 'nuclear nightmares' as a teenager. Was always interested in this sort of thing, and morbidly fascinated with any nuclear items on TV, also bought Hackett's Third World War at a young age. The dreams were more terror of impending doom then distant flashes, rather than graphic horror, I still get them occasionally - dream nostalgia?

By '90 with the Warsaw Pact in bits, I went inter-railing around Europe. Berlin was amazing - a mix of Trabants and Audis, the Wall in the process of being torn down, Mercedes signs rotating on the sniper towers, British Army lads on the lash in one street then Soviet officers with big hats stalking around with rather glazed expressions a coupls of streets over. East German guards on the Unter den Linden and the crazy market at Checkpoint Charlie, could have bought a Gaz jeep but could only afford a Soviet cap-badge and obligatory fragment of Wall. The U-Bahn was like Vienna in the Third Man - dark, dingy, bullet-marked and loads of Ossies selling nylons or cigarettes from little trays, anywhere you went in the East the bullet holes still pock-marked the walls, apart from the showcase bits by the main drag.

Prague was an extremely happy city, no sign of Russians there and Vaclav Havel's podium was still up and covered in flowers. Beers were still between 8 and 3 pence each, no vegetables at all but a choice between meat and dumplings or spectacular cream cakes suited me, even made a pilgramage to Pilsen, the birthplace of lager - and good stuff it was too! The optimism in the East was fantastic, of course the honeymoon period wore off and it was a long hard slog in the end to rebuild their countries. And of course in some places it went bad, Yugoslavia was on the way down. We ran into an American-Croatian on that trip, he was off to volunteer for the war, always wondered what happened to him, probably best not to know.

So '91, the Gulf War consumed everyone's attention, then the brief Russian coup sent a shiver up the spine - desperate men and thernonuclear weapons being a worrying combination after all. But the Russian people eventually had their say, and the army backed the people instead of shooting them, so it ended without major disaster.

All in all, the world dodged some major bullets during those years. The Fall of the Soviet Empire could have been very very different.....

I was born in 1969. I remember the event in stages.

I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down in 1989 and I thought that was the major milestone. I figured the Soviet Union wasn't going to collapse but that it was going to pull back a bit. It was still going to be the "EVIL EMPIRE" from the Reagan days that ended not long before then. Nuclear annihilation was still on the table. Nonetheless, I saw the Baltic Republics and some 'Stans break away. The Soviet Bear growled but didn't attack.

In 1991 I was going to college and getting serious with the girl who was to be my wife. I remember being in a military history class with a real Jackass of a professor named Jon Sumida. Fine thinker and writer. Very poor teacher and arrogant as could be. He brought up a point during the spring of 1991 that I thought was poignant. He asked the question thusly:

"Would you rather have the Soviet Union with it's ailing economy and large stockpile of weapons or a new "Resurgent Russia" with the same stockpile and an economy that wasn't stagnant? Expansionist Russia would not necessarily be our friend and the Communist menace was a known and somewhat stable enemy."

We also talked about the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan and we were cheering the Mudji's who had smacked the Soviet Bear's paws. We didn't know what sort of pestilence was going from that area of the world some years later...

Finally, came the coup and the dissolution. Gorby was gone and this guy named Yeltsin was standing on top of tanks. My Dad declared that he never thought that he would have lived long enough to see the day when the "whole Rotten house of cards collapsed." A good Christmas was had by all in my house for reasons totally unrelated to the events of the world.

In December of 91, I was about 10 months away from entering the world.

It's weird to see how I view the Cold War, how my peers view it, and how people like you view it.

My main memories of that period.

Watching 'Threads' when it was first shown, not sleeping that night.

At the same time, completely disagreeing with CND and all their fellow travellers.

Generally, the eighties were a time for reading lots of books written by General Hackett and others in a similar vein.

The most dramatic moment for me, was the Romanian uprising which was Xmas '89. There were a few days where it really loooked as though it could go either way. I saw the news report with the footage of Ceauceszcu and his lovely wife getting offed, before that was deemed too upsetting and it got pulled.

Of course the 1991 coup attempt was a real hold yer breath moment.

Don't think I'd miss the Soviets as an enemy though. We had a sharp reminder of just how fuckwitted many of the fellow travellers were with the post-mortem shenanigans after Maggie T's death this week.

First time I watched Threads it was on BBC4 back to back with The War Game. Slept soundly that night.

I remember the INF Treaty being signed and the events of 1989/90. The August '91 coup did look like someone was trying to re-set the clock for a few days. I also remember the '84-85 Miner's Strike, some of the riots and the music of the '80s.

[OtisRNeedleman]

At that time was a USAF signals intelligence officer working at a major command headquarters. The end of the Soviet Union was the culmination of six amazing years, where we watched Gorbachev come into power, major changes hit the USSR, and Communism die a well-deserved death throughout the old Warsaw Pact. Never thought any of those things would have happened without a World War III.

These turbulent times had an impact on my job. Was command acquisition manager for four large-scale computer-based intelligence training systems. The largest system was 460 workstations, expandable to 550. We'd convinced some command high-rollers, none of whom were intel types, to fund the expansion. After the Berlin Wall came down, and things progressed, we saw no need to go through with the expansion. There was plenty enough to do anyway. All four systems were in different stages of development/deployment.

Grew up during the 60's, and the Soviet nukes were often on my mind. With the raising of the Russian tricolor in Moscow, I was grateful that my children, 8 and 4 at the time, wouldn't need to live with that nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over their little heads. Russia had found its' soul again.

Now the threats are different, more diversified, less predictable.

[Zen9]

What was it like.....

I was 16/17 and the Threat was something that barely intruded into a young lads mind, what with girls, hayfeaver, the need to be ready to fight to the death every second you were in 'prison' (school), exams and the realisation 'prison' was finally over. The latter a much more momentous event personally.

But weirdo that I am, I had paid some attention to events and of the Polish Solidarność movement's success as I had a certain Gorbachev and Reagan. Something had changed. You could feel it.

I guess not being interested in sport, and having little success with girls, left me with time to have other interests.
So the events of 1989 to 1992 had a air of unreality to it, like a TV series played out by less attractive people spouting mostly boring dialogue. With only a vague sense that this was actually real.
Older folks seemed very worried, especiallythose who rememberedthe 40's and 50's, though those who had lived mostly through the Cold War stalemate seemed as if in a daze and couldn't grasp that things were changing.
A lot of Lefties seemed very down. Their totemic idol had fallen.

The Coup was the moment everything took on a frightening air. Suddenly hardliners were trying to turn the clock back and then a remarkable thing happened.
Boris Yeltsin stood on a tank and didn't knuckle down but asked Russians to stop the Coup.....and for a moment it seemed like WWIII was about to start.

Only it didn't, and then the Coup failed, and before you really get your head around it. There was Yeltsin telling Gorbachev what to do.
And USSR Suddenly wasn't there.
No more Gorbachev.
No more Shevadnadze.
It dawned on me later that this was actually the real danger moment. As no one was quite sure who had what nuclear weapons under what control.....
But at the time it was this weird sense oif relief and seeing images of people partying in Prague live on TV as we counted down to New Years Day.

[jediacademy2000]

15 at the time. Seemed surreal, especially with GW1 still present in everyone's psyche. My uncle was in the Navy and for a while was convinced it was a prelude to a civil war of sorts between the former Soviet bloc members.