Growing up in Alaska in the 80's I genuinely thought I had a 50/50 chances of dying in a nuclear war

May 16, 2026 5:49 AM

IHurtPeopleForFun

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Red Dawn felt like a thing that would actually happen to me. At least once a week Russian nuclear bombers would violate Alaskan airspace. The local airbases had a 24 hour rotation of fighters going up and flying wingtip to wingtip with Russian bombers just to keep them honest about staying out of American airspace. At least once a week Russian bombers would fly over Alaska or Canada or Greenland with what was assumed to be at least one nuke. And Russia would be like "we have proven we can deliver nukes and you have proven you won't pull the trigger"

Thirty years later and my sixty year old mother is asking me to take her shopping for a pump action 12 gauge. She lives up near the big mountains and knows how to survive. Knows how to live off the land and build a shelter from scratch. She is terrified her MAGA neighbors will swarm down on her and strip her homestead like locusts. She is rightously worried that living in the middle of MAGA country men will feel like they are owed the things show owns. And that she is not owed the things she owns because she is not a white man

Related. Alaskans crying about the federal ownership of most of the state. Well, boo fvcking hoo. The American taxpayer paid for the state, so every American owns those federal lands. Get Over It.

2 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

There's still time.

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

Everything old is NEW again

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Get her some pulleys. After she raises the third body on a pike maga will get the hint.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Pistol grip pump on my lap at all times

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

"so I contributed to the gun violence epidemic by putting yet another gun on the streets. This is very smart and everyone is now safer."

MAGA ass logic

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 9

"The entire country is armed, but not me! I'm safe."

2 months ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 1

please someone define to me the difference of capitalism and communism, its the same but with extra steps? oh and rapists, cant forget those fks

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 2

All RepubliKKKan voters must be held responsible by any means.

2 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

til there's nobody left but the rich and the white megachurch christians and their stepford wives, and everyone else is going to die - that is the goal of Project 2025.

2 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

The ending of the movie "Civil War" needs to become a reality before it's too late.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 3

It's the far right that started the idea of the Boogaloo, where they just rob people.

2 months ago | Likes 48 Dislikes 1

The legions of preppers who think just owning a bunch of guns is all it takes.

2 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Something about the overt brinksmanship with nuclear weapons feels safe now compared to having an unhinged lunatic with no understanding at the helm. Not saying the situation was great before, but at least the previous US presidents could be persuaded to avoid near-instant apocalypse.

2 months ago | Likes 18 Dislikes 1

I love Red Dawn.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

So you remember that "first live action tv movie" with George Clooney that was based on Anchorage and was basically about nuclear war in Anchorage? Yeah. I think about that every time the 22s depart elmendorf.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

That's why they're gun nuts. They believe that with guns, they can take what they want.

We have two choices when the shit hits the fan. We either sit back and prove them right, or we step up and prove them wrong.

2 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 1

2 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

Only one shotgun?

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Doomsday clock is still a thing.

Even in the early 90s it was still a thing, it was way we had so many post apocalypse movies....

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Maga white men see the not so white Israeli "settlers" taking land of Palestinians by force and it makes them salivate. If things continue; they absolutely will believe they can do the same here in the US.

2 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 1

2 months ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 2

"Red (baseball cap) Dawn" ?

2 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 1

Orange Dawn.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

To be fair, there *was* a 50/50 chance of nuclear war in the 80s.

2 months ago | Likes 47 Dislikes 3

We're not far off now... Or basically ever.

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

And we all knew it, and it colored our lives.

Quite an experience to live in fear…

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

In 1983, a situation arose in which a single man decided whether or not the apocalypse would take place. He had twenty minutes to make this decision. The man’s name was Stanislav Petrov, and he decided against the prescribed protocol.

2 months ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 0

Wasn't it a flock of geese or something else benign?

2 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

High altitude clouds reflecting sunlight weirdly and a satellite with a particularly eccentric orbit. Just a bit of unlucky glare on an old, distant lens that just happened to read as 5 rocket engines.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

She may be better off with a handgun than a 12 gauge, depending on how fit she is at her age. 00 buckshot kicks hard and long guns are heavy. A 9mm pistol or small carbine is easy to use, lighter, and has much more manageable recoil. Then again I don't know what the firearms laws in Alaska are like, so a long gun may be her only option.

2 months ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 3

Mossberg Persuader is fairly light and dumb easy to tear down and put back together or repair. Could probably do reloads with homemade black powder if you had to. Can turn birdshot into ring or wax loads. Pump works through mud and ice. She carried a Colt Python in Alaska as a noisemaker to scare grizzlies. She has no desire to shoot a human but sending a lot of buckshot in their direction to keep them honest is a thing. And she knows how to lean into a long gun kicking her shoulder

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I be fair, you don't have to have the same accuracy with a shotgun that you do with a pistol or rifle. A near miss with a shotgun is certain to do some damage to a White Man...no matter they are all thick headed and several inches of fat for shot to go through before pentrating a vital structure...

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

In any case, avoid pump action when you can. It's no joke on the arms and seriously affects your RoF. Too high a price for intimidating people with the initial pump.
If she's outnumbered a crowd might try and encircle her knowing that she won't take her only shot. A semi-auto has no such weaknesses.
If you can get your hands on a Saiga or a replica even better- that thing uses magazines, even if you go with shells.

2 months ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 1

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Nobody is John Wick-ing their way out of some kind of doomsday scenario kill mob. Realistically, you want a firearm you're comfortable with, know how to handle, and can access in an emergency if someone's trying to break in, because of any worst case scenario, that's actually possible.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

To be fair my mom used to wear a 357 on her hip to pick berries. And for myself in a world without spare parts or machine tools I don't want an AR/AK. One apocalypse gun? Shotgun. Scout rifle would be nice but you can fix a pump shotgun with a pair of pliers and a file. KSG I can switch between tubes with my thumb without losing sight picture and cycles as clean as a Mossberg. Dream gun

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I grew up in New York City in the '50s, and the frequent air raid siren tests, coupled with the Duck and Cover drills, made all of us keenly aware that we might be vaporized tomorrow. That was not a fun part of growing up.

2 months ago | Likes 30 Dislikes 1

Now we do hide on place drill.

2 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 2

I'll take those drills over active shooter drills any day. We grew up with a little fear and little scrutiny, while these generations get to grow up with real terror and constant surveillance.

2 months ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 0

Yeah, we all thought we would die in a thermonuclear war in the 1980s.

2 months ago | Likes 112 Dislikes 2

I’m kinda wishing we did

2 months ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 11

However, we should not forget that, on several occasions, we were mere minutes away from a nuclear apocalypse.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

From the other side of Iron Curtain, can confirm.
Not that I was constantly trembling in fear as a kid growing up in USSR, but the thought that the americans can lanuch the nukes was very real back in 1980s.

2 months ago | Likes 28 Dislikes 0

Y'all had aerial delivery ala DrStrangelove? We had the mystery train rotating war heads between launch bases throughout the central US. MAD games.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Hell of a thing, wasn’t it.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Still do!

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I'm honestly surprised every day that we didn't.

2 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Yet

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

2 months ago | Likes 43 Dislikes 0

Sadly, right now we have one demented player just itching to use his slug to play the game.

2 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Just watched this again last Friday

2 months ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 0

Truth. When i hear the (now tornado) siren test, I still look up and check the sky. But I think the odds are higher now even than they were then. The sanity has gone.

2 months ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

This is why whenever anyone says "This is the worst timeline.", I go "Yeah, it has lots that sucks mightily, but there's a lot WORSE timelines."

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

It’s not the worst, but it might be the stupidest.

2 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

And the 50s and the 60s and the 70s... could happen tomorrow.

2 months ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

And Reagan was orders of magnitude smarter and saner than Trump

2 months ago | Likes 40 Dislikes 2

2 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Reagan "hit his marks and said his lines", he was an opportunist, not a rocket scientist, but he was predictable. Trump however thrives on chaos, so alas, anything might happen.

2 months ago | Likes 26 Dislikes 0

And we all thought Reagan was a lunatic!

2 months ago | Likes 17 Dislikes 1

He was one. But no one knew that the bar could be set so much lower.

2 months ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

The current bar is basically at the bottom of Mariana's Trench...

The only way America pulls out of its death throes will be to clean house. Remove any/all politicians who support and endorse this, and put in guard rails to ensure it can't happen again.

Additionally, the courts have to have teeth and be able to enforce law that is bipartisan and not beholden to any political party.

2 months ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0