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Mar. 19th, 2003 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ocelotEveryone else is writing warthoughts, so I may as well, too.
I was in 5th grade when the first Gulf War broke out.
The day it started, I remember going home from school and watching the bombs fall on TV. I remember it being earlier than usual - was it a half day? Did that have anything to do with the war, or was it scheduled ahead of time? Or am I misremembering entirely?
We went to a Cub Scout function that night. I didn't want to go. I wanted to keep watching the war, and Cub Scout functions were always terribly boring.
I wrote my first entry in a diary that I was going to keep through the whole war, like Anne Frank. Except I only wrote that one entry, and the war wasn't really that exciting on my end anyways.
I was much more scared for my own safety then than I am now. We were warned about possible terrorist attacks against the bridge or military bases. All adult visitors to campus had to get special badges to show they were authorized. My mom made arrangements with the parents of friends who lived on the bases so that the kids could stay with us if the threat level got high enough to close the bases, which it never did.
Megan, do you remember Abby, Justine and Kathy having air raid drills at their boarding schools? My only exposure to war up till the Gulf War was an excessive amount of historical fiction about WWII, and they always had air raids, or at least the drills, back then. So it seemed that air raids are what happens during war. But that's only for the people being attacked, really.
Is my lack of personal fear this time because I'm older and have more perspective? Or is it simply because I'm not living in a target area? Would I feel different if I were living in a large city or other potential target?
At some point in 4th or 5th grade, I developed a fear of/fascination with nuclear bombs. Was that related to the Gulf War? I can't remember.
I don't remember what my actual opinions were about the first Gulf War. It just was. Ms. Beatty, my math teacher, was anti-war, and had posters up on her wall of soldiers not willing to die for oil, or something like that. This time around, I read about anti-war teachers in Maine who were making life miserable for students whose parents had been deployed, and thought of her. I wonder how the military kids (about half the school) felt about her, though I can't imagine her being insensitive about it.
I remember that Saddam was Bad, and that's about all that mattered. I heard a joke on the radio that I found hilarious - that Saddam backwards is Mad Ass. Which, of course, it isn't really, but oh well. I repeated the joke to someone, who rolled his eyes and said it was old. I had a pretty crappy sense of humor as a kid. I hope it's improved since.
The war really brought me into popular culture. Or music, anyways. Before the war, I listened mainly to tapes of kids songs, musicals, stuff like that. During the war, I started listening to talk radio. That quickly got boring, so I switched to music.
And of course, there were yellow ribbons everywhere, even tied around the Hotel Del. Why aren't there any this time?
I was upset about the war. I remember writing in my social studies book, which stated something about current peace in the Middle East, that they were wrong, and that there was another war. A pointless effort, it turned out, since they replaced all the social studies books the next year.
I don't know what upset me about it, except that it was war.
And I guess that's still what upsets me about it.
And that's about all I remember.
I was in 5th grade when the first Gulf War broke out.
The day it started, I remember going home from school and watching the bombs fall on TV. I remember it being earlier than usual - was it a half day? Did that have anything to do with the war, or was it scheduled ahead of time? Or am I misremembering entirely?
We went to a Cub Scout function that night. I didn't want to go. I wanted to keep watching the war, and Cub Scout functions were always terribly boring.
I wrote my first entry in a diary that I was going to keep through the whole war, like Anne Frank. Except I only wrote that one entry, and the war wasn't really that exciting on my end anyways.
I was much more scared for my own safety then than I am now. We were warned about possible terrorist attacks against the bridge or military bases. All adult visitors to campus had to get special badges to show they were authorized. My mom made arrangements with the parents of friends who lived on the bases so that the kids could stay with us if the threat level got high enough to close the bases, which it never did.
Megan, do you remember Abby, Justine and Kathy having air raid drills at their boarding schools? My only exposure to war up till the Gulf War was an excessive amount of historical fiction about WWII, and they always had air raids, or at least the drills, back then. So it seemed that air raids are what happens during war. But that's only for the people being attacked, really.
Is my lack of personal fear this time because I'm older and have more perspective? Or is it simply because I'm not living in a target area? Would I feel different if I were living in a large city or other potential target?
At some point in 4th or 5th grade, I developed a fear of/fascination with nuclear bombs. Was that related to the Gulf War? I can't remember.
I don't remember what my actual opinions were about the first Gulf War. It just was. Ms. Beatty, my math teacher, was anti-war, and had posters up on her wall of soldiers not willing to die for oil, or something like that. This time around, I read about anti-war teachers in Maine who were making life miserable for students whose parents had been deployed, and thought of her. I wonder how the military kids (about half the school) felt about her, though I can't imagine her being insensitive about it.
I remember that Saddam was Bad, and that's about all that mattered. I heard a joke on the radio that I found hilarious - that Saddam backwards is Mad Ass. Which, of course, it isn't really, but oh well. I repeated the joke to someone, who rolled his eyes and said it was old. I had a pretty crappy sense of humor as a kid. I hope it's improved since.
The war really brought me into popular culture. Or music, anyways. Before the war, I listened mainly to tapes of kids songs, musicals, stuff like that. During the war, I started listening to talk radio. That quickly got boring, so I switched to music.
And of course, there were yellow ribbons everywhere, even tied around the Hotel Del. Why aren't there any this time?
I was upset about the war. I remember writing in my social studies book, which stated something about current peace in the Middle East, that they were wrong, and that there was another war. A pointless effort, it turned out, since they replaced all the social studies books the next year.
I don't know what upset me about it, except that it was war.
And I guess that's still what upsets me about it.
And that's about all I remember.
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no subject
Date: 2003-03-20 05:05 am (UTC)Other than that, I can't remember a thing about the first Gulf War except a lot of 'peace in the Middle East' said half-jokingly by the rest of the kids at my school. I feel like I already can't remember this war, either. No fear, hardly any concern; this whole thing is such a media fiasco and I've disparaged it so much from the start that I feel very, very detached about it. At the most I could say I'm 'annoyed' when I know damn well that 'annoyed' is an inappropriate wartime emotion.