• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

What was scarier: 9/11 or Cuban Missile Crisis

Emos

Emos

Golden Member
Just to get my mind off the usual election rhetoric I was thinking about these two events and for those who are actually old enough to remember both events as they happened in real time: what was the more traumatic experience as it happened?

I am a child of the 80s Cold War so I only know of the Missile Crisis by secondhand sources and being a history buff. That said, I do remember "The Day After" and having the threat of 10,000+ Soviet ICBMs pointed at you every day.

Trying to insert myself into the Cuban Missile Crisis I think I would be scared shitless as events were unfolding, all that it would take is one govt misstep or miscalculation on either side to bring about incredible devastation or even a Dr Strangelove style civilization ending event. In the end a peaceful resolution was reached and no lives were lost.

Having gone through 9/11 I remember being horrified as it was happening but I never really felt in fear of my life at that moment (being 1200 miles away from the events helps I guess). It was more of an anger and sadness at the lives lost and destruction wreaked and the feeling that nothing was going to be the same again, for better or worse.

Perhaps I'll pick my moms brain whenever appropriate to get her input, she would have been a young teen during the CMC and in her 50s during 9/11. Just throwing this historical question out to see what the peanut gallery thinks and to get input from those who lived thru both events.
 
9/11 was not 'scary'. It was a despicable act of cowardice.

The Cuban Missile crisis put the world on the edge of World War III with the realistic possibility of a nuclear exchange.

Edit: I was born in 69 for whatever difference that makes...
 
One is a terrorist act - with global consequences to be sure! - but limited to a single spot.

The other one is the prospect of global thermonuclear war.

I think there's no contest.
 
I believe we were closer to war during the 1983 scare than during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

9/11 was more revolting and shocking to me than scary. Not sure about Cuban Missile crisis, I wasn't even a zygote yet so it didn't bother me at all!
 
The Missile Crisis was far, far worse. Hell, Castro actually encouraged the Russians to start the nuke war.
 
I'd have to have been an adult to make a qualitative comparison between the two, but I do recall 9/11 and while I experienced a range of feelings at no time did I feel threatened for the safety of myself or my family. I was around during "duck and cover", when we hid under the desks at school and the teachers looked troubled and never said why we were doing it. That had me more concerned, that an adult could or would not explain something that was of great concern to them.

I won't minimize 9/11 but the potential of it compared to the wholesale slaughter of millions upon millions in just a part of a day strikes me as a far graver thing. Consider the damage a couple airplanes did, and then if a nuke were dropped on them. It seems that there's no comparison, and the latter would have been repeated over and over and over again.
 
<--- Lived through both, but was in tlhird or fourth grade during the missle crisis. Also lived a long distance from Cuba, roughly a hundred miles from NYC.

9/11 was initially more scary when we had no idea what was happening, how many more planes would fall. The missle crisis built slower. But the missle crisis was much more scary in that (a) it was open-ended, (b) Kruschev (think having the equivalent of a crazy teabagger in charge of USSR) and (c) the very real possibility of the nukes starting to fly. The missle crisis went on for days and much, much more was at stake.

Edit-what 1983 scare? Don't even remember it.
 
Last edited:
Thump553 said:
<--- Lived through both, but was in tlhird or fourth grade during the missle crisis. Also lived a long distance from Cuba, roughly a hundred miles from NYC.

9/11 was initially more scary when we had no idea what was happening, how many more planes would fall. The missle crisis built slower. But the missle crisis was much more scary in that (a) it was open-ended, (b) Kruschev (think having the equivalent of a crazy teabagger in charge of USSR) and (c) the very real possibility of the nukes starting to fly. The missle crisis went on for days and much, much more was at stake.

Edit-what 1983 scare? Don't even remember it.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Nuclear_War_Scare

said to be the closest we came to a nuclear war.
 
woolfe9999 said:
From your link:



Nonetheless, I'm glad it was mentioned since it curiously had escaped my attention even though I was in high school at the time. Pretty scary.
Click to expand...

I've read from other sources that it was much worse than what wiki states.
 
Cuban Missile Crisis hands down. Did not see any duck and cover drills after 9/11. It was so nice realizing at the age of 6 that I could be vaporized. Especially, being across the Potomac from DC.
 
Global nuclear war... or.. wait, what?

Helps when you frame it in context. There is no question. 1 nuke would destroy ALL of NYC, not a few buildings. There are thousands of nukes....

How can you even ask?
 
Cuban Missile Crisis. People ACTUALLY thought that air raid sirens would go off and the world would be obliterated at any moment.

And the truth is that, it was pretty close to happening.
 
Born in 74 but the thought of the Cuban crisis terrifies me to think about even now. Can't imagine living through that time and not being terrified.
 
For the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were long lines outside every supermarket as people tried to stock up on non-perishable items. I was in one of those lines, and the sense of worry and unreality ("Is this really happening?") was palpable as I waited with my mother and sister.

No other event in my memory - or even that I've read about - comes remotely close to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
 
hal2kilo said:
Cuban Missile Crisis hands down. Did not see any duck and cover drills after 9/11. It was so nice realizing at the age of 6 that I could be vaporized. Especially, being across the Potomac from DC.
Click to expand...

I was 6 years old in Alexandria then so yeah it was pretty much certain we would be toast if it happened. I'm not sure if I really grasped exactly what being vaporized meant but to my parents credit they went about life as normal and it was my older brother and his friends talking about it that was really scary. I do remember doing the duck and cover drills multiple times while that was going on. 9/11 on the other hand made me angry more than anything else, much like a more intense anger similar to what I felt watching the Iranian hostage crisis play out.
 
Jaskalas said:
Global nuclear war... or.. wait, what?

Helps when you frame it in context. There is no question. 1 nuke would destroy ALL of NYC, not a few buildings. There are thousands of nukes....

How can you even ask?
Click to expand...

Was just mulling over the question, I figured most people would choose the CMC. I am slightly surprised that it's 100% though, many people tend to have very short term memories.
 
9/11 was not scary. I know it was tragic, but we were confused and like wtf at that time. Also I think we were in a frenzy trying to figure out what happened because things were going by so quickly in an era with TV and internet. I think it would've been scary if you were in Manhattan at that time and working near the WTC. That would've been utter chaos.
 
DLeRium said:
9/11 was not scary. I know it was tragic, but we were confused and like wtf at that time. Also I think we were in a frenzy trying to figure out what happened because things were going by so quickly in an era with TV and internet. I think it would've been scary if you were in Manhattan at that time and working near the WTC. That would've been utter chaos.
Click to expand...

You are correct. I was 13 during the Cuban missile crisis. That was scary.

Viewed from any distance at all, 9/11 was a tragedy. The fearmongering by the Bushistas & their allies afterward was the scary part, intentionally so. They used it as a bludgeon against all enemies, foreign & domestic.

It will take a very long time for America to come to grips with just how shamefully we were exploited at the time.
 
spacejamz said:
9/11 was not 'scary'. It was a despicable act of cowardice.
Click to expand...
On the contrary. It was the bravest act I ever saw. Imagine convincing yourself that killing yourself is a good thing and actually going through with it without hesitation. The hijackers were certainly not cowards.

Stupid, sure. Deluded and misguided, yes. Cowards, not in the least.
 
In the 50s and early 60s, WWIII was a topic everybody was familiar with and the reminders were everywhere. There were fallout shelter signs everywhere, frequent reminders to tune to the CONALRAD radio stations - 640 and 1240 on your radio dial (with special indicators on the dial), Popular Mechanics printing detailed plans for home built fallout shelters, swimming pool installation companies advertising that they were adding fallout shelters to their line, etc.. I was even on the team at my school that regularly inventoried our Civil Defense supplies for the fallout shelter at our school. I learned how to use a Geiger counter at school. Popular science fiction was a flood of stories about the subject. Parents felt that the Boy Scouts would provide valuable survival training. A lot of us at school felt that we were probably going to be nuked one day. Once we knew what sex was, we even discussed whether we would all get laid before that day happened, and how much it would suck if we didn't.

The CMC ratcheted it up a few notches because it really got our parents talking about it too much.

So yes, the CMC was the scarier time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top