Cuban Missile Crisis

[o b juan]

was in baton rouge just about 1 and half years 1st child about 2 months before.
Was discharged from the army May 61.
Had been an MP in us and germay.
late 58' assigned to 504th MP Batallion a STRAC unit at Fort Gordon. all Prior servicemen.
Being a teen at the time I am not sure if it was Dec 58 or Jan 59' we went on alert and moved out on the runway where a bunch of those Guppy looking planes were setting there running.
All our gear and ammo Issued.
A sergeant said we were going to Cuba; something was going on.
then were sent back to the Barracks..

Later in the early 70's I saw a Godfather movie and it showed the Takeover by Castro it seems it was around newyears as portrayed in the movie.

I can say that at that time I was more concered than I ever was with the Missle Crisis
That was about 56 years ago and somtimes I get the dates a little off.

Where are you Thaxton

[chasfm11]

My Dad had just left the military. He had been stationed at Sandia base in Albuquerque and part of an Army group that monitored the US nuclear testing. We had moved from Hawaii to NM and Dad wasn't there more than a couple of weeks before they sent him to the South Pacific for 6 months to monitor that testing. I spent 4 years there with him running back and forth to Nevada. They made all of the women and children evacuate Sandia periodically and drive East next to the mountains. We stayed there most of the day. I later was told that those mountains were where part of the US nuclear material was stored and it likely would have been one of the Russian targets. So much for the value of that evacuation.

I can remember the nightly news during the Cuban crisis and talking with Dad about the possibility of a nuclear war with Russia. I was 14. He had seen first hand what the bombs could do (my son still has one of the pictures of a blast that Dad got) and he told us not to worry about it - if it did happen we'd never know it. By then we lived in Enola, Pa, the major train hub for all of the East coast traffic.

I've often wondered what would have happened if the Kennedy/Nixon election had gone the other way.

[BigGuy]

I was a 6-year-old military dependent living in Zweibruken Germany. Dad was a Green Beret, and for reasons I’ve never understood, he was stationed at Zweibruken Air base. We lived off base in a building that also had three or four other military families. (Army I think)
We got the call that Sargent Wheatley would be CQ. This meant that we wouldn’t see him for a while. Days? Weeks? We’d know when he got back.
At first, mom said we might have to go stay with people on base. I knew that we had to keep a case of K-rations, and a packed suitcase. (This was for the duration of our stay overseas.) Those were pulled out a placed by the door.
The next morning, mom told us we wouldn’t have to go on base after all. She showed us the two army trucks parked out on the street and told us that we might have to get our suitcase and take a ride in them.
It didn’t happen though. Seems like it was just a few until days we put the suitcases up, the k-rations away, and the trucks left. Dad came back home and life carried on pretty much as it had for a 6-year-old SF dependent. I didn’t know (until I grew up) what all the excitement was about. I experienced no real stress or fear. What ever the problem was, I knew dad and his buddies would take care of it.

Things got a little exciting again in November of 1963. By that time, dad being on CQ was old hat and hardly registered on the excitement scale. We were living on base in Oberammergau. But this was different. I remember mom and dad coming back home crying. They had just left shortly before to go to their square-dancing class/club. We hadn’t gotten settled in good with the baby sitter when they were back. I heard folks talking and knew the President had been killed. Dad went to work that night and the suitcases and k-rations went back by the front door.
I was scared this time. I knew that the bad guys (Russians) might be coming. I knew enough about nuclear bombs to be afraid of them, and that dad and his friends expected the Russians to use them. We got ready for possible evacuation. I was surprised a few days later the discover that few of my friends had been prepped for evac. The only other one was a kid who's dad also belonged to the exclusive ski-club that dad was in.
The Adults stayed pretty tense for a few days, but dad came back home after just a day. We were also on base surrounded by Americans, so my stress level dropped off pretty quick. By the next day mom let us go out and play again. I don’t remember when mom put the food and suitcases away. I don’t think I noticed. We didn't even miss school.

[Bvhawk]

My dad was a SAC Missile Man outside of Little Rock at the time. His stories were hair raising about that short few days. During the height of tensions someone at NASA launched a primitive satellite going up the east coast. He said we almost did ourselves in on that one considering it looked as if this thing was heading toward DC. He also said they were constantly receiving spool up codes and then having to "Stand Down" orders. He told me that he was never so glad to get out of a hole in his whole life.

[stash]

During the run up to the missile crisis I was stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C. We had all our equipment, generators, water buffalo's and such on the flight line ready to be loaded onto cargo planes for the trip south. We were mostly a bunch of young studs (or thought we were) and the ones who could not grow a mustache were putting Kiwi black shoe polish above their upper lip to get the look. There was some disappointment when we were told to stand down.