I was a freshman in college in 1984, and this landslide victory made me realize that, in fact, we are really THE GREATEST NATION ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH!
I was a freshman in college in 1984, and this landslide victory made me realize that, in fact, we are really THE GREATEST NATION ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH!
most profound effect on me? Several things:
1. I emigrated to the US in 1982
2. Got married the same year.
3. My son was born in 1985
4. My daughter was born in 1989.
All momentous and all life changing.
Martha Quinn wearing a Michigan State sweatshirt on MTV! I know I’m being silly...
August 12, 1987. I think it was a Wednesday. I had an abortion. I spent the next four years doing drugs and living inside whatever bottle happened to be handy. I live with it every single day. Definitely not my favorite moment. Certainly one of my most memorable, which is a just punishment for what I did to my baby.
While being born in 86 is a pretty big deal (I guess).
I’m actually going to have to go with something I discovered 15 years after the fact.
November 14 1988 - Eric Johnson performs on Austin City Limits.
Completed Master’s Degree in ‘81
Transferred from CA to CO in ‘85
(Invited new B.S. grad brother to room w me)
I joined the Air Force and left Detroit behind. I’ve been back to visit but I will never live there again!
I was born in 1974 so was a range of age in the 80’s. Here are the historical events that had an impact on me:
Ronald Reagan’s election. I was too young to understand why my parents were so happy after the Carter years (now I know!)
His shooting.
John Lennon’s death.
The Prince Charles and Princess Diana wedding.
The first space shuttle taking off.
The bombing in Beirut. We were near the hospital (Wiesbaden) where the wounded were taken and our class wrote letters to the Marines. Our family friend was a military forensic photographer and took pictures of the remains.
The hijacking of the Achille Laurel.
The Space Shuttle blowing up. I still remember the morning vividly- and the shock and tears of a classroom of 6th graders as we turned on the classroom tv at the news.
Pan Am Flight 103.
The fall of the Iron Curtain.
Seeing a Madonna video for the first time. I can’t stand her now, but my friend and I were mesmerized.
Fall of the Berlin Wall. Signalled the end of Communism.
I graduated college.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
It changed all of our lives.
Challenger. It guarnteed that I would not make it in to space in my lifetime, a dream I had held since my dad let me stay home from school to watch every single Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launch, and recovery.
What a decade. But for me it was watching the Berlin Wall come down, I guess. It is one of those things I will always remember, like when President Reagan was shot.
The fall of the Berlin wall. I was in Germany in the late 80s and in ‘90. Most of the older West Germans I met did not like the Easterners coming over. The younger people seemed more optimistic. I remember watching the Scorpions perform at the Moscow Music Peace Festival on TV while at a German friend’s house. Supposedly, it inspired them to write “Wind of Change.”
For the country the biggest mistakes; amnesty, social security reform, Jimmy Carter. All three are haunting us now.
Refresh your memory:
Click on the year at the top to change the headlines:
http://www.1980sflashback.com/1980/News.asp
The book- The Third World War: August 1985, by General Sir John Hackett. It was entirely fictional, but it seemed to ignite the problems of the East-West schism in Europe. I was on border duty patrolling the Czechoslovakian/West German border at the time.
However, in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and shortly afterwards the Soviet Union. The main effect in the US was a massive downsizing of Defense Contractors and massive cancellation of contracts. I lost my job because of this, and was not able to get another one for years.
1980 was a busy year for me. :-)
The seminal event of the 1980s was the taking of the US Embassy hostages in Teheran, Iran in Nov. 1979. The hostage crisis lasted throughout the entire year of 1980, lasting until Reagan took office on Jan. 20, 1981.
We endured 444 humiliating days as a country, made even worse by the failed rescue attempt in the spring of 1980.
Jimmy Carter’s failure as a President ushered in Ronald Reagan, who had been groomed by God for this moment in American and world history.
Had Reagan not been elected President, the Soviet Union and the Cold War would have survived for many more years. Even an assassination attempt did not stop Reagan.
His destiny, to defeat the godless Soviet Union, became our destiny as a nation.
That decade long quest defined as a nation and changed all of our lives, and the lives of hundreds of millions of other people.
Thanks to one man, his faith, and God.