Oral+History

The Cold War Oral History
** 1.what was it like to be a student in USM during the cold war. ** ** Every day life for a student at USM during the cold war was some what different than the student life today. once or twice a year we would have nucular bomb drills that were very simular to tornado drills. when the school alarms went off we all had to run downstares and follow the yellow fallout shelter signs to the basement, were we would sit against the wall untill the all clear signs. ** ** Another thing that was differnet about being a student at the river hills campus was every day when we took the bus to school we would drive past the old NIKE missle base. You could see from the road dozens of old missle silos and you could see the old guard building. ** ** When growing up in my neighborhood next to school a big house at the end of the street had it own bomb shelter full of food and water. It had enough beds for the whole family and big crates full of summer and winter cloathing. **

** 2. what was it like in wisconsin during the cold war. **

** Not many people relized how important Wisconsin was during the cold war. Wisconsin had some of the biggest manufacturing bases in the US if America ever went to war the factories in wisconsin would be called upon to manufacture weapons and machinery. Also northern wisconsin was home to the ELF radio station. The ELF radio station produced Extreamly long Frequency radio waves used to communicate with nucular submarines deep in the ocean and was an important tactical target for the Russians. **

** 3. was your every day life changed during the cold war.? ** ** yes, every evening when my family watched the national news there was always a news story on the communest russian threat, also the movies and music when i was in high school often times were about the human rights and how unfair they were in communest countries. **

** 4. How old were you at the time and what impression did the cold war have on your life? ** ** my childhood and my early adult years were during the cold war. Growing up as a kid during the cold war had several effects on my life. As kids we all belived that the russians/communists were evil war mongers. And that the goverment there put themselfs befor there people, and we always wondered how people could live like that. **

** 5. what do you remember about the berlin wall coming down? ** ** What i remeber about the berlin wall coming down in june 1987 was watching on MTV the images of people using slege hammers on the wall, and the moment when a crane lifted a narrow section of the wall in the air covered in spray paint high into the air and people walked through both sides. **

** 6. what do you think is special about the afgan war? ** ** I remember the afgan war as the first visible crack in the soviet goverments powerful position in the world. The afgan war was russias vietnam, it showed to the world that the great russian army could be beaten by a small nation. At the end of the war russian citizens began to relize that there goverment wasn’t to be feared. **