CNN iReport

I was brought up living the Cold War since I was a child in New York City. When I was ten years old, I remember practicing the "attack drills in school" where the siren would go off and we would have to hide under our classroom desks (like that would really help). I remember watching a television show hosted by Walter Cronkite titled, "Danger on your Doorstep, Castro, Cuba and Communism", right before the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Yes, I remember it all too well, folks building Bomb Shelters in their backyards, stocking up on food and water, just in case...

Then enlisting in the USAF in 1969 at 18 years old, I became an Air Force Mechanic (Crew Chief as there are called). First stop (assignment was the Philippine Islands) then Vietnam, "Crewing F4 Phantoms".

A year later (after being hurt in Nam) I was reassigned to RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, England, right in the middle of the Cold War and all the efforts to prepare for it, training, exercising, deploying all over Europe, flying and practicing to fight and kill the Russians, hell'va time in Europe in the seventies, eighties, and nineties.

We would load up our aircraft with all sorts of weapons, yea, (the ones that glow in the dark too, if you believe that tale). Ever mission flown was practice to engage the Russian Air Force and go into the heart of mother Russia. Many encounters, we faced off more times that the world ever knew, aerial engagements that were never reported, it was scary and amazing times all at once.

Still with all those "sorties and exercises preparing for war" we managed to have some fun times (adventures) in Europe (even with the bombing by terrorist organizations of that time period) and I managed to be assigned to some rather exciting locations throughout Europe, some sixty countries later collectively, I had a great Air Force experience. I still remember looking under my vehicle every morning before getting in it, ensuring no bomb was placed there, far too much of that activity took place all over Europe too, you just got used to it (even if you hated it).

The whole series of events taught me to appreciate our "Freedoms", I still do not take them for granted, nor do I trust the Russians (old habits die hard I guess0 but my gut feeling is proving correct as we see in recent events.

Yea, I am well aware of the Cold War and the sacrifices made by so many thousands of us (military and civil service workers over the years) but we "beat them" without firing a single shot (officially) J