24 Aug 2023 10:21 am
On the night of October 24, 1973, came the dreaded words: Assume Defcon 3.
On bases and ships around the world, U.S. forces went to Defense Condition 3. As paratroopers prepared to deploy, B-52 nuclear bombers on Guam returned to bases in the United States in preparation for launch. On another October day eleven years before, the United States had gone to the next highest alert, Defcon 2, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
——
Our phone started ringing late that night and by morning my father finished milking, and headed to the church where all those women had gathered for their last day on earth.
But like a miracle, Thursday October 25 brought peace.
That ugly old Golda took the entire world up to the edge of nuclear war, but she saved her people.
It’s one of the damnedest forgotten stories in America.
On bases and ships around the world, U.S. forces went to Defense Condition 3. As paratroopers prepared to deploy, B-52 nuclear bombers on Guam returned to bases in the United States in preparation for launch. On another October day eleven years before, the United States had gone to the next highest alert, Defcon 2, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
——
Our phone started ringing late that night and by morning my father finished milking, and headed to the church where all those women had gathered for their last day on earth.
But like a miracle, Thursday October 25 brought peace.
That ugly old Golda took the entire world up to the edge of nuclear war, but she saved her people.
It’s one of the damnedest forgotten stories in America.