Francis, I lived in Germany as a kid as neighbors to the Yeager's while Capt Yeager was in F 86's at Ramstein. His son and I are the same age and Yeager used to throw footballs for us kids.

Re Japan, now countries are smarter about conquering. They just buy the US, like China has been buying our government bonds, because we need more and more money for social services. They will be in a position to dictate to us soon.

That great WW11 aircraft- the P-51-- my "fave"
 

Sure have read many stories about Gen. Yeager-what a pilot-- The old 1960's comment from Nikita K. from "Russia- Without Love" of-- "We will bury you" and we built bomb shelters in the backyard and had "duck and cover" drills in grade schools- Possibly what old Nicky- "Let me use my shoe for a gavel" Kruschev really meant was "We will bury you in our technology and you'll spend years and billions trying to get up to our speed"__:cool:

I remember those school days well Francis. Exercises (in futility) of ducking under one's desk to protect us from a nuclear blast... what a joke! ...but who knew? Certainly those in charge would never tell us that we would simply burn to a crisp in the second wave. The shock wave would be first, then would come the heat wave... How innocent we all were in those days - would that we were still so :(

I don't care, Dean. When I see the light, I'm getting the hell under my desk.

We did duck and cover exercises at Offutt AFB in Nebraska, home of Strategic Air Command headquarters and location the SAC Command Post, at Ellsworth AFB in SoDak, home of a nuclear bomber wing and at Vandenberg AFB, Ca., home of the 1st Strategic Missile Wing, all with nuclear weapons and prime targets. The schools were each about one mile from ground zero. Go figure.

It's all about not wanting to create panic in the streets if we knew the truth. Why else have we never been told the truth about Area 51 . . . :shock:

Many, many fights along its edges at altitude. Just experimental, new and sensitive aircraft is all. No aliens, there are stranger people among the civilian populace.

Duck and Cover--Not a story by Van Campen Heilner--
 

Ah yes- those Ike "Happy Days"- but Sputnik sure was a wake-up call, later the Bay of Piggies in "Cuber"-- I grew up loving MAD magazine and all the parodies and spoofs they ran- one I recall was their spin on the old Chicago based (I think) novelty company Johnson & Smith- they rephrased it as "Smithson-John" or something like that and were hawking an A-Bomb detector-- ad went something like this, if memory serves: "Now you too can be prepared for a nuclear attack- this sturdy little device will sound a loud and shrill alarm when a A-bomb goes off within 50 feet (or was it 50 yards)? $2.95 postage paid to your door--:bigbye: