BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?

Subject: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Nov 14 - 03:08 PM

November 4th, 1979?

Blicky for those who don't remember the beginning of World War III.

November 2nd, my eldest sister eloped with an embassy communicator who took a week's time off for the wedding or else he would have been on TDY there, then. That should have warned us all... but noooo.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Nov 14 - 03:52 PM

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the most liberal members of Congress, said of Jimmie Carter's foreign policy:

       "he's rewarding our enemies and punishing our friends!".

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Nov 14 - 08:24 PM

I was living outside of Kent, Ohio.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 02 Nov 14 - 08:28 PM

I was in the 6th grade.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Firecat
Date: 02 Nov 14 - 08:41 PM

I was wherever unconceived babies exist (born January 5, 1984).

My 4 year old future husband was in Canley, Coventry.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Nov 14 - 10:28 PM

The phrase "unconceived babies" wrinkles my brain.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Nov 14 - 11:51 PM

not sure where I was on that actual day, but one evening at midnight while the hostages were still in the Embassy, I received a call from a heavily accented-operator who asked if I would accept a Reverse-charge call from Iran!

While I was stammering No, no, another heavily accented voice was telling the operator he had the wrong number!

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 05:33 AM

I was in Bournemouth,Southern England, aged 32 .

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Charmion
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 04:19 PM

I was a freshman at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, having just baled out of the Canadian Forces and returned to Canada from West Germany (as it was then).

I remember reading the coverage of the events in Tehran in the Toronto Globe & Mail (as it was then). Like everyone else, I had no clue -- although I should have.

In December 1978, most of the staff of the Canadian embassy in Tehran, and all of their dependants, were ordered home, travelling by Canadian Forces airlift. As a result, I found myself bumped off a CF Boeing 707 in Gatwick Airport on my way home for Christmas, and had to make the rest of the trip by Laker SkyTrain.bthe last-minute air fare literally took my last dime.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 04:48 PM

I was reading about it in the Washington Post and shaking my head sadly at the implications.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Jeri
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 05:54 PM

Upper Heyford, UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 05:57 PM

Wow, Sandra in Sydney, wish there had been caller ID back then!

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 06:04 PM

I was living near Bury st Edmunds.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 08:17 PM

I was in a commune in Virginia. Subsequently, the kids learned that they could annoy the grownups by yelling "Ronald Reagan".

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Janie
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 08:30 PM

I don't recall exactly where I was or what I was doing when the news broke. Id remember being suddenly startled to feel a sense of unity with a lot of people that generally I was at political and social odds.

Retrospective

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Nov 14 - 08:49 PM

Living in Smarts Lane, Loughton, just by Epping Forest. Coming up for eight months' pregnant, we were, with our first. We're taking her out to the Eden Project tomorrow, our lovely 34-year-old daughter, for a spot of lunch. I vaguely remember Jimmy Carter getting into a spot of bother he didn't really deserve. It seemed to be the undoing of him which meant we entered the worst phase of US foreign policy, under that trashy ex-film star, of the century. I mean, how bloody stupid was it to elect him. Never mind. We managed to get bloody Thatcher even before you got him. Dark days. Were I Christian I might be tempted to say God rot both of 'em, but instead I'll just wish that history judges them just as harshly as they deserve.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 12:20 AM

Joe_F, where you at Twin Oaks, perchance?

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 01:55 AM

"November 4th, 1979?......... The beginning of World War III." - Mrrzy

WW III started long before that Mrrzy - try this as the start point courtesy of Yasser Arafat:

Dawson's Field Hijacking

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 09:16 AM

I was just preparing for my wedding - on the 10th. I was back in Southsea, Hampshire then, having just moved from near Leicester, and so glad to be back near the sea again.

I'd have been 28 years old, I had my Suzuki motorbike then, I think, was trying to get back into the folk scene around Portsmouth.

The attack on the embassy didn't really register as anything important, just one more thing in a whole line of events which seemed to be leading to an inevitable catastrophe. That it hasn't happened yet seems fairly inexplicable. Just thumps and bumps but no big bang.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 02:09 PM

I guess it was bigger for me because of being an embassy brat. Planes being hijacked were old news, and were filled with people from everywhere and all airlines so yes, world war indeed, Teribus is right. Today-35 years was (merely?) the first attack on what was supposed to be a protected space (planes are in public, like banks; embassies are not). Startled the something out of me. Should have warned me about what was coming. Should have warned everybody. But nope.
Actually, I think there was an attack on an embassy in the US that was about the same kind of barbarism, in the late 70's but before the Teheran one.
But it is stuff like this that makes me seethe when people refer to 9-11 as the beginning of "them" killing "us" where "us" are Americans in particular and the West in general, and "them" is the islamoterrorists. Not islam, and not other terrorists, like ETA and the IRA who carefully, mostly, killed the French/Spanish and British, respectively, and not even all Europeans, let alone all Westerners.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: GUEST,Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 03:53 PM

I was commanding a troop of about 32 men on United Nations duties in Nicosia, Cyprus. The U.S. embassy was not far from my part of the Green Line, and we had to know routes to and from, as well as where its diplomats lived. Cyprus was low-risk for any violations of the Vienna Convention such as happened in Tehran, but we had to be ready to evacutate the diplomatic corps in the event the cease-fire fell apart. After the story of the exfiltration of the six U.S. diplomats by Ken Taylor et al. broke in the press, the U.S. military attaché had a barbecue to mark the occasion. He said in jest that it was not in gratitude for what had just gone down in Iran, he just wanted to make damn sure we all knew where he lived in case anything happened on Cyprus.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 07:52 PM

I actually like that logic.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 07:54 PM

Watching television in Cape Porpoise, Maine in the last days of my first marriage.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Nov 14 - 09:10 PM

Mrrzy: Yes. 1972-1981.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Sean Belt
Date: 05 Nov 14 - 09:40 AM

I was here in St. Louis, MO taking care of my toddler daughter. And now, I'm still here, my daughter is grown up with her own toddler to look after and the world is still a wonderful and messed up place.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: GUEST,Padre
Date: 05 Nov 14 - 09:37 PM

In full 782 gear, waiting for a C-130 to take us to Camp Lejeune, NC on standby.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Nov 14 - 10:48 PM

Joe_F, what did the commune think about the embassy takeover, do you remember? Yelling Ronald Reagan to annoy the grownups would have been later, maybe the Embassy bombing in Beirut in 1983? But what smart kids anyway...

I would be interested in details from you and from the Padre above... comparing ends of a spectrum. Ish.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: LadyJean
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 01:58 AM

Home, in Pittsburgh, partly employed and struggling. I knew Iranians in college and liked them. They liked to party. I never have understood why they let a bunch of crazy Mullahs run their country.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: GUEST,Manuel
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 04:27 PM

While I can definitely say where I was living and working in November 1979, I have to point out that 4 November 1979 neither carries nor has ever carried any particular significance for me. In contrast, when it comes to 22 Nov 1963, I can tell you where I was and what I was doing when I first heard of the assassination of the US president.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: gnu
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 05:16 PM

Scouting (no hunting on Sundays back then) the woods to put food on the table.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 06:59 PM

1975. 26 years old. I'd been teaching four years, my second promotion . i was scale 3. I was teaching in Birmingham - remedial dept in a big comprehensive school. hated the job, because my head of dept. hated me. Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger published one of my first songs in New City Songster. I had started doing floorspots, and running folk clubs and desperately wanted to get a gig in a folk club. but folk clubs were either for entertainers like Jasper Carrot or traddies like Martin Carthy. I was neither.

I   wanted my life to change. A year later my wife was hit with full force with rheumatoid arthritis in all her joints. i became her full time carer. Still am. my life changed.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 10:31 PM

Mrrzy: I can't recall offhand any discussion of the embassy takeover at Twin Oaks. For Reagan's name to have become a curse word, it was sufficient for him to have been elected.

Subject: RE: BS: Almost 35 years ago - where were you?
From: GUEST,Padre - still forgetting to re-arm his cooki
Date: 07 Nov 14 - 12:44 AM

Our Marine Reserve unit (Combat Engineer Battalion) was alerted and sent to Camp Lejeune to augment 2nd Marine Division, if they were sent over. We were there for about a week, drawing gear and doing training, and then stood down and went home. Not much compared to Desert Storm when our Medical Battalion deployed to Saudi Arabia.

Padre