Some thoughts about “Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War.”

Did you begin attending a public elementary school in the early 1950’s? Included in the curriculum were periodic Civil Defense drills intended to ensure we young kiddos (at least some of us?) would survive a nuclear missile attack. Harken back with me to David Lubin Elementary School in Sacramento California. It’s 1954, Kindergarten, and just three months prior you looked to the classroom doorway to see your mother “drop” you off at school for the first time. Now, seasoned veterans of the classroom, we’re lined up along the interior hallways of the school and told to get on the floor while placing our head on one elbow and putting our other hand over the back of our necks while assuming a kneeling position. Little did we know that had the worst occurred, this position would have been the best approximate position to kiss our ass goodbye!

Netflix aired this multi-part series that begins with the United States’ development of the first nuclear device and the zeitgeist of the times prompting it. This series goes on to explain subsequent geo-political pressures that resulted in a handful of wars the United States has been involved in since. The chronology includes testing and development of “the bomb” from its initial use in wartime to where we are to date - threatened of annihilation by posturing nations holding or developing nuclear warheads attached to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Scary. Informative. A nuclear device IS going to be used again in wartime. No one knows when, but the likelihood is increasing every day that a thermonuclear warhead will be launched and retaliated for. Factors heavily in the conduct / support / strategy of the current war in Ukraine.