It happens once a month, the first Monday of every month.  I ought to be used to it by now.  But for some reason, I still have a visceral reaction every time I hear the sounds of Amsterdam’s air raid sirens.  I feel fear and anxiety.  Adrenaline fills my system.  Yet there’s really no good reason for such angst.  I have no conscious memory of anything bad ever happening to me, after the sounding of one of these sirens.  I’ve never lived in a battle-zone.  War has never been a part of my day-to-day existence.

Unless you count the Cold War -- which, come to think of it, may have a lot to do with my reaction to the air raid sirens.  I remember growing up back when it was the USA versus the USSR.  We watched movies featuring American heroes fighting against cold-hearted, iron-jawed Soviets; and we learned to hate those villains with their exaggerated Russian accents.  We cheered for the Red-White-and-Blues over those Reds with their insidious Hammer-and-Sickle CCCP uniforms, while witnessing the “peaceful” contests of the Olympic Games.  At school we learned the terrors of the Communists and their nuclear missiles.  I even recall a Trivial Pursuit question during that era asking which Communist nation lay is closest geographic proximity to the United States of America -- and I remember turning the card over to realize, horrified, that the answer was not Cuba or somewhere in Eastern Europe, but “Mother Russia” herself, just across the Bering Strait, close enough for one of those steroid-pumped Russian body-builders to toss a missile initiating the nuclear holocaust that would consume us all.  I remember Mr. Dorka, in particular, talking to us about the cataclysmic chain of events that would occur should a fly sneeze in Washington or Moscow, missile silo after missile solo discharging their poisonous arrows of death, eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth, until there wasn’t a blade of grass left standing in North America or Eurasia.  Mr. Dorka also explained to us the long-term effects of radiation poisoning, with shockingly graphic descriptions.  We even watched a Hollywood movie (though I can’t remember what it was called) which dramatically demonstrated the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust -- vomiting blood, flaking off charred skin, waiting in the darkness to die -- which seemed to be a statistical inevitability for us all.

As absurd as it seems today, I even remember safety drills at school -- trying to prepare ourselves for a nuclear attack, should it ever come to rural, southwest Wisconsin or north-central Ohio (strategic Cold War battlegrounds, if ever there were any).  For fire drills, we were taught how to exit the building in an orderly fashion.  For tornado drills, we were ushered into the central, windowless hallways of the school building and told to tuck ourselves up into the corner of the wall with our hands (or even a book) behind our necks protecting our heads.  But if ever we were to catch wind of the Communists launching a missile attack in our direction, well, we were to crawl under our desks, protect our heads and necks, and pray to God that the white-hot radiation from the bomb blast would pass us by.

It’s odd to think about it now:  now that the situation is so much different, now that we’re so far removed from that period of history, from that period of my life.  But as I reflect on those years, it makes more sense as to why I’m so affected by something as simple as a routine test of the city’s air raid sirens.

It’s amazing to realize that it’s been 20 years now, since the beginning of the end of the Cold War.  Today I arrived in Berlin for a conference, and I walked past (and over, and around, and through) the places which were once such poignant reminders of the Wall that separated the West from the East, the Capitalists from the Communists, the “Good Guys” from the “Bad Guys.”  Within the next few weeks, they’ll be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s collapse.  Twenty years.  Wow, I’m getting old…

What’s funny is that there are still plenty of Communists around:  China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea… In fact, the People’s Republic of China will also be celebrating a special anniversary within the next couple of weeks (its 60th).  But for some reason, it feels like the big tension has evaporated.  Europe is less conflicted, I guess, and so somehow the rest of us are less conflicted, too.  Today China’s elaborate military processions inspire more awe than fear, in me -- much different from the old May Day parades in the USSR.  I’m intrigued (though maybe slightly confused) by Chinese people; I’m not generally scared of them like I used to be of Russian people.  I can see Communism as being a legitimate form of social organization (though I’m still personally concerned about the lack of religious freedoms in many Communist regions); indeed there’s something to be admired about Chinese society over the last 60 years.

Still, I can’t help but wonder and worry that things might change in the coming years.  How will the relationship between the United States and China and the USA work itself out over time?  Could it become like the USA vs. the USSR again (only this time with the PRC)?  Will American Free-Market Capitalism one day face the same fate as the old East-German Communism?  Could North Korean nuclear armament suddenly bring us back to the days of the Cold War?  They’re interesting questions to consider.  It’s probably impossible to know these things.  But I do know this much for sure.  If ever caught on the scene of a nuclear attack, I don’t think I’ll be trying to climb under any desks this time.