Cuban Missile Crisis + 50 years

I've never been much of a history buff, but now that so much of my life is history, I've become more interested!

Russian submarine B-59          US Navy photo

I was 10 years old, beginning 5th grade, when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in late October 1962.  I don't remember it as a specific event or President Kennedy's address to the nation, but I sure remember practicing "duck and cover" at school.  The fire alarm would sound, but not the solid drone that meant to line up in silence and proceed from the building.  No, it would go off in short bursts of horribly loud noise, and we climbed under our desks, sat crosslegged with our head in our lap and our hands over our heads.  Nobody told us that this would do absolutely nothing to protect us from the expected fireball or radiation poisoning from a nuclear bomb.  I suppose it made the adults and children alike feel like we were doing something to protect ourselves.

It was 50 years ago this week that things were coming to a head.  I didn't know that we were one action away from nuclear annihilation numerous times that week.  I didn't know the US had maddened the Soviets by putting missiles in Turkey.  I didn't know what it meant for Cuba to be a pawn to both Russia and the US.  But I do wonder how those events shaped my psyche.  How much of my attitude toward life and death and what I can and cannot control was formed under that desk at school?  What feeling sense did I absorb from the adults who knew more about what was happening?

I am grateful to 3 men and countless other unnamed men and women for saving my life that week and life as we know it on this planet.  President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev each listened to the meaning under the others' the words.  Each said "no" to their respective military advisers when told repeatedly that this incident or that action demanded that they release a nuclear warhead.  And a third man also "saved the world" that week.  The commander of the flotilla of 4 submarines from Russia, Vasili Arkhipov, prevented the launch of a nuclear tipped torpedo from submarine B-59 by refusing his consent even though two other officers were in agreement to fire it.  He knew the power and destruction he was being asked to release.  He had been exposed in an earlier submarine nuclear accident that killed many of his comrades.  He also would eventually die of complications of radiation poisoning from that accident.

The farsighted, sober "no"s of these three was a more powerful action than unleashing nuclear bombs one country upon another to the ultimate destruction of all.  I am grateful to be reminded of the power of "no" when it comes from the deepest part of my soul.  Thank you John, Nikita, Vasili and others.  I'm grateful for these extra 50 years.

I'd love to hear from those older than I as to what they remember and how it affected them.