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The Russians Are Coming?

I wasn’t around during World War II, but I am a product of the post-war baby boomer generation. I heard plenty about the conflict that claimed the lives of American troops “across the pond” and in the Pacific.

As an eight-year-old Catholic school student in the mid-1960s, my fellow students and I were taught to pray a lot for peace.

Like many school students of that time, we were duped into believing that closing the classroom windows and crawling under our tiny wooden desks would keep us safe in the event of a Russian invasion/nuclear war.

I can recall vividly having such drills. Much like a fire drill, a buzzer type bell would ring throughout the school. Our nun teacher would instruct students to turn off the overhead fluorescent lights, close the windows if they were open, and then we would get under our desks in silence. And then we would pray.

Sometimes I questioned why we didn’t hide in the cloakroom where we hung our coats and stored our rubber boots, rather than under our desks, but I was only told to be quiet. Building underground bomb shelters became a real thing for a while.

As such threats seemed to wane, our drills ceased, and we went on with life in America, the strongest, richest country in the world. Thoughts of Nazi invasions or Russians storm troopers marching across National Road diminished as well. We began living in an unrealistic utopia that would, in later years, be consumed once again with wars across the world.

Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and so on became front-page news once again. And when Sept. 11, 2001 brought Americans face-to-face with war on our own turf, many of us thought about those bomb shelters and air raid drills.

Although I am long past crawling under desks for safety, I sometimes wonder what I would do if such all-consuming nuclear threats came to fruition. As I write this column, there is just such talk as Russian troops invade Ukraine in an all-out ground and air war.

Each new report from Ukraine brings the threat against our own country and other NATO members. It’s hard to digest such actions in 2022. Yet another madman is bringing us to our knees as we pray for peace and the innocent victims.

As the news unfolds, I will tell you that I’m beginning to feel like that frightened 8-year-old kid crouched under a desk in a darkened classroom. And I’m still praying. I hope you are, too.

Heather Ziegler can be reached via email at hziegler@theintelligencer.net.

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