[magslinger]

The F-106 also carried the AIR-2 Genie rocket. It wasn't meant to shoot down a Bear, it was meant to bring down all the Bears.

That would do it.

Too seldom are Cold Warriors (and, yeah, me too) given credit for the risks they signed up for rather than the casualty rates we actually faced when the late, unlamented USSR didn't do anything really stupid.

Not that service in those years was without risk, just that we didn't have the losses we would have if push had come to shove. As it surely would have if we hadn't been as prepared as we were.

[BIGLOOK]

My Dad retired from the Navy in '60. In October '62, we all sat around the kitchen table waiting for the phone to ring again recalling him to active service. His sea bag was packed.

I was in a hot war, a proxy war....but everywhere else the SOS was going on in the Cold War.