Growing Up as Cold War Kid

This picture was taken moments before President Kennedy was assassinated.

By the time I had begun middle school, my worldview and innocence was slowly being disrupted.

Growing up, the threat of war with the Soviet Union loomed over everyone’s head. I remember running duck and cover drills throughout my elementary, middle, and high school because the adults wanted us to know how to be safe if enemy planes arrived to drop an atomic bomb. I hated getting more math and science homework after Sputnik was put into orbit, but my father always insisted it was important for American children to be able to compete with the enemy. When the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out, I remember feeling so much fear all of the time. After all, if a missile was fired, then that was the end of the world as I or anyone else knew it, and the missiles were so close to home. I was scared that I would die and wondered why adults would let something like this happen. Luckily the crisis did not amount to nuclear warfare, and I slowly returned to my middle school life, reading books, doing homework, going to the zoo, exploring the city’s museums, attending church services, and having sleepovers at my best friend Alice’s house. But even then, war was still a possibility at all times.

I also became aware of domestic tensions and issues too. I’ll never forget the day JFK died. I was in school in my math class, when a teacher named Mrs. Marks walked into the room and said, “P-P-President Kennedy has been shot and killed.” I began to cry for his kids and Jackie, and other people were crying too, though we tried to hide our tears. When I came home, my mom was crying and my dad was trying to comfort her. I did not understand how the President could just die; that did not make sense because I saw the President as a powerful, young leader and Lydia and John both looked up to him. It’s often depressing to have your country’s leader be killed by another person, especially when people around me placed a lot of hope in him.