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In reply to the discussion: Who is old enough to remember the "under the desk" [View all]enlightenment
(8,830 posts)frightened by it. Maybe because my old man was SAC - and that was a job, it was a lifestyle that included the whole family. Maybe because I was pretty young.
I wrote my undergrad senior thesis on one of my dad's commands, the 34th ARS - the original "Looking Glass" squadron. He was Ops Commander there. I wanted to write the story from the perspective of the men and the families who lived that life, so I interviewed as many as I could get hold of, including my dad of course - and my mom and older siblings.
The one thing that has stuck in my head all those years was a comment made by one of the pilots. He said that the hardest part of going up for the rotation was knowing that if the button was pushed, Omaha would be one of the first targets. "I knew I'd be up in the sky, safe from all that - but my family was down below. So every time I left, it was like I might be saying goodbye forever."
He said that - but the wives and the kids showed a lot more sangfroid than he did. Always found that interesting.