The 25th Anniversary of The Day After

Assalamu alaikum,

My husband, step-daughter, and I were coming home from Cypress Gardens earlier this evening when Studio 360 came on, and one segment on the show highlighted the fact that this month is the 25th anniversary of The Day After. Anyone remember that movie?

I didn’t see it when it actually aired, but when I did see/listen to an actual airing of the movie in 1988, I think it was, it scared the daylights outa me, really! I could hear the air-raid sirens and the sound of the bombs going off for days after that! And I really wasn’t even supposed to be up watching that movie, I was supposed to have gone to bed for the night, so it wasn’t like I could really complain about how scared I really was.

The fear of nuclear war, and the awful after-affects of it, was something that I can honestly say I was truly frightened of as a child. I can recall many nightmares I used to have, about being at school, or at home, and the bomb going off, and most of the time surviving the actual bomb only to fear dying of radiation poisoning.

I remember wishing that we had a nice, air-tight, well-ventialted, well-stocked bunker somewhere where we could all hide and emerge only when it was considered safe to do so. However, “it’s never going to be safe after a nuclear war.” was a reframe I heard often. However, I knew I didn’t want to die instantly, being vaporized, in a blinding flash, no matter how much I’d say “I hope the bomb goes off right above my head”.

I also vividly remember my father, who was in the military at the time, describing how, if a hypothetical bomb hit Indianapolis, the closest major city to us, we’d still die, even though we’d be 70 miles away from it.

Any time I heard the words “nuclear war”, “atomic bomb”, “radiation”, etc., that set me on edge, just like the words “fire drill” (something I used to live in fear of but that’s another story for another day), and as it turns out, I had more reason to fear a fire drill than the advent of an actual nuclear war.

It’s funny, though, that after re-watching The Day After and Testament (another movie of that same nuclear-war-esque genre of film), I’ve now started dreaming of underground bunkers in my backyard! How crazy is that? However, now, it’s not nightmares anymore, my dreams now have more of a slumber-party feel to them, like an “oh boy we’re going down into the bunker to ride out the storm” kinda thing.

And in all honesty, I can’t really say I live in fear of an eventual nuclear apocolypse, and I’m not sure if that has to do with me being an adult now, me now being a Muslim, or the certain knowledge that death will find all of us when Allah wills it, whether it’s due to natural causes, or due to something man-made. Perhaps it’s a little of all of those things.

But anyway, I’m wondering if any TV networks will be commemorating this “anniversary”, as it really seemed to have an impact on the American public.