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We have a World War Two memorial, a Vietnam memorial, and other memorials, why do we not have a memorial to those who served and died defending our country during the Cold War? It may not have been considered a "shooting war" with front lines, but there were very definitely people protecting our country who were shot (at), held the lines of aggression and expansionism, and maintained a high state of readiness so that if it ever came to pass that the Western World faced an imminent threat from the Soviet Union or the Eastern Bloc, we could respond in a quick and appropriate manner.

Why don't we have a national memorial for these people and the world in which they worked?

http://www.coldwar.org/museum/index.html

Here's one variation on the theme...

Queso wrote:Why don't we have a national memorial for these people and the world in which they worked?

http://www.coldwar.org/museum/index.html

Sorry, this may be just a broad-brush, but I think it's the way a lot of people view it - the Vietnam War was the apex of the Cold War - the Cold War started about 15 years before Vietnam (about 1947ish) and ended about 15 years afterward (around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall). People might conclude the Cold War was epitomized by Vietnam and for the most part leave it there.

Good one, Aloges

"Cold War" was a "event" that actually didn't exist. Countries spy on each other and commit other acts of espionage but that doesn't make it a war.

Allstarflyer wrote:Sorry, this may be just a broad-brush, but I think it's the way a lot of people view it - the Vietnam War was the apex of the Cold War - the Cold War started about 15 years before Vietnam (about 1947ish) and ended about 15 years afterward (around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall). People might conclude the Cold War was epitomized by Vietnam and for the most part leave it there.

That's about my idea as well. War memorials are erected for shooting wars and battles, not for general hostility and skirmishes. If they were, we wouldn't have any space left in our cities.

IMHO, the Cold War encompassed many individual conflicts, essentially the so-called proxy wars. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola and so on; all of them were arenas where the two superpowers fought to increase their influence. Then, there is the myriad of submarine close encounters, face-offs at the iron curtain, ICBM scares and so on which were examplified by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Miraculously, the MAD doctrine did prevent escalation. So on one hand, the Cold War may never have ended - there are still many conflicts that we inherited from that era - and on the other, we have lots of memorials to it in the form of missile silos, air bases, the remains of the Berlin Wall, the Korean DMZ and so on... or were you talking about a designated space on the Mall in Washington?

I think that Queso might be refering to some of This stuff.

Click Click D'oh wrote:I think that Queso might be refering to some of This stuff.

EXACTLY RIGHT.

One common remark Cold War Vetrans hear is "you were not shot at". Well that is far from
being true, many lives were lost, some were accidents but there were many killed by hostile
forces. Just how many is not clear, top secret operations that were not reported for a long time
hid the numbers.

The VFW has counted approximately 389, but that is not a complete list. I would like to present
a few reports for you.

....Then he goes on to list many aircraft and crews lost during the Cold War. And that's precisely what I am talking about, these men (and women) were just as determined and dedicated to the security of the West as any who fought in the trenches in World War One, at Iwo Jima in World War Two, flew their F-80 into MiG Alley in the Korean Conflict, who spent time in the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam, who hit the beach in the US-led invasion of Grenada, or any other example of "hot combat" in the Armed Forces.