Putin's actions trigger long-buried fears of nuclear war for generations of Americans

Growing up in Las Vegas in the 1980s, Glynn Walker always knew he could die in a nuclear attack.

The 43-year-old engineer remembers "duck and cover" drills in elementary school, where you dive under your desk in the event of an air raid, and basement fallout shelters in churches and gymnasiums with radiation-warning signs on their doors.

"We had the nuclear test sites, Nellis Air Force Base, the Hoover Dam," he said, referring to Nevada landmarks that likely were in the crosshairs of Soviet military strategists. "We knew we'd be a target," he said.

The prospect of nuclear war also permeated popular culture at the time, as it had done during the initial nuclear era of the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Movies like "War Games," "Red Dawn" and "The Day After" played on TV. Pro-wrestling hero Hulk Hogan battled the villainous Russian Nikloai Volkoff right after Saturday morning cartoons. "99 Luftballoons," a pop song about an accidentally triggered Armageddon, by the