Having been born in an Air Force base hospital that was surrounded by nuclear missile silos. Ground zero, basically.

Or crapping my diapers during the Cuban crisis. My father, an officer with high clearance, knew how close it was. I don't remember it, specifically, but I know my parents were terrified, and that has to soak into an infant.

Or living my first 18 years on military bases; the threat ever present. I remember finding the handbook that was issued to my father about the effects of nuclear weapons and how to use the water out of the toilet for survival. I was ten. My siblings joke that we grew up in a gated community where the guards were armed with machine guns. The book "On Thermonuclear War" was assigned reading in high school, as was "Hiroshima."

Duck and cover training, of course.

As a teenager, my friends and I would sneak and explore the mock prison camp used for training.

I'd like to say it was a strange way of growing up, but not really. It was normal for us. I wouldn't say we grew up in fear. Just hyper aware of world events. And the military aircraft 1000 feet overhead were a constant reminder. We could identify all of them, often just by their sound.