BS: Curious About Mudcat Veterans

Subject: RE: BS: Curious About Mudcat Veterans
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 12:25 PM

I think the "cold war" while obviously a very stressful time in the lives of all Americans, has been recently over glorified simply because Ronald Reagan called on the Soviets to tear down the wall. It did come down and then the Soviet Union crumbled soon after during George the 1sts presidency. Most of the changes didn't come about because of ideological change or any real battles aside from the arms race ending in the bankruptcy of the Soviets. Given a few more years of high levels of military spending I'm pretty sure it was only a matter of time before we wnet bankrupt. I have never heard a vet refer to himself as a "cold warrior" or any such description.

Subject: RE: BS: Curious About Mudcat Veterans
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 01:09 PM

Right, history will show the Cold War bankrupted the Soviets, and the War on Terror bankrupted the US.

And of course, the idea that Ronald Reagan was responsible for the wall coming down, or killing off the Soviet empire, is laughable.

Subject: RE: BS: Curious About Mudcat Veterans
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 07:26 PM

The 'Cold War' was not just something that affected the US. All of the NATO countries were involved in it in some way. And being on any ops during that period was stressfull for all involved.

The USN and RN ran regular probes into Russian water using their submarines. The Norwegians did a lot of obs on Russai too.

Most of the NATO airforces where either chasing Russian aircraft out of NATO countries airspace or doing their own covert overlooks on Russian ports and military instalations.

In 1979 Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, who was skipper on HMSm Dreadnought (the first nuclear powere boat in the RN) visited a submarine I was serving on and said that he thought that the next big conflict would not be started by Soviet Russia but would start in the Middle East. How true he was.