We're you around during the Cuban Missle Crisis? If so can you share your experience with me?

Question

I have to write a report on what it was like during the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you lived through it can you tell me what it was like.
Where were you when you heard?
How did you feel when you heard the news?
What did you think was going to happen?

Please tell me everything you remeber, it will help A LOT.
Thanks.

Everything in these answers helps so much. Thanks so much for sharing.
Please tell me as much as you can.

Answer 1

I was 6 years old. I remember watching Walter Cronkike on TV, because my regular Sunday Night show "The Wonderful World Of Disney" was being pre-empted and I was not happy.
I remember my parents watching intently, and looking nervous. They wouldn't even sit down, they just stood up behind me, and talked quietly to each other. My mom never watched TV, she was always busy doing things around the house. I remember thinking this was really important, not serious, but significant. I wasn't scared, just curious. It went on for a long time.
Then my dad started to explain that another country was aiming missles at us, but that we were warning them to stop. Nobody knew if they were going to attack us or not. Then they showed a map of the United States on TV with a bunch of rings eminating out from Cuba, and covering large parts of the country. These rings were illustrating the maximum range of each particular missle type and how far into the US they could reach. When my mom saw that none missles had the range to reach us (in Chicago), she was visibly relieved and told us to go to bed, and that everything was going to be OK. It was all kind of surreal. It was also one of the only times I ever saw my mom clearly rattled.

Answer 2

During those days, in school we had regular drills, just like fire drills, when we had to crawl under our desks and stay there. It seemed like almost a daily occurrence that they would test the air raid sirens that were up on the telephone poles ( I remember thinking that if the Russians attacked at noon, we were sunk because we just ignored the siren) and many public buildings had signs on them that they were to be used as shelter during a nuclear attack.
I can still remember the sense of anticipation that was in the air during the missile crisis, but I was probably to young to realize that I was also in direct danger. As a youngster, it seemed like it was far away and happening to somebody else. But the fact that we were practicing for war gave everything a kind of surreal nature that made me (and everybody else ) quite uneasy. When I came home from school it was blaring on the news and my mother was trying to stay busy in the kitchen. Somehow, with me and my brother and friends it was another good guy/bad guy story on the television, and nothing exciting ever happened in our neighborhood, and in the innocence of youth we were safe at home. My teacher at school used to talk about Kruschev as if he were the devil, and I think she was the one to first tell us about what was happening in Cuba that day.
I wonder what happens now. Did elementary school kids know what was happening the day of 9/11 ?
It is pretty understandable how all of this fueled McCarthyism.
People became tired of living with these things and wanted to lash out at the enemy. Today, we have the fear of terrorism that is letting the government slide into a new kind of McCarthyism, and whether one can see it or not we are loosing freedoms that Kennedy and the American people stood up for.

Answer 3

I wasn't born then, but my teacher said a lot went through her mind. She was terrified. She was 16 when the whole thing happened. The reason why it was brought up was because it was during the 9/11 attacks and we were talking to her about how scary it is. She said "I remember walking to my locker during the missile crisis I was really scared thinking 'omg is this the last day we are going to die." she also said when Kennedy was assassinated she was really terrified. If you want I can ask my grandparents how they felt and message you.

Answer 4

I had recently joined the RAF at a very lowly rank and we were really scared that WWlll was about to start. There was this dreadful heart sinking moment that, at last it was about to happen, quite unlike what we worry about now, however bad that is. President Kennedy,stood firm, the Russians backed off, we all breathed a sigh of relief and life carried on until the next crisis.