Before I entered the Badlands, there is a national monument just off the exit relating to the Minuteman (nuclear) missile. Unfortunately, due to the recent federal cuts it was not open on a Sunday. I wanted to stop because of the significance it stood for my generation in our youth. I actually feared nuclear war because of the rhetoric and threats brought on by our politicians and the former Soviet Union. President, Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet leader Gorbachev along with his predecessors, Chernenko, Andropov, and Breschnev, ramped up the rhetoric, and there was something called the “arms race.” (For those not old enough to know) During his second term, Reagan, or perhaps it was actually Nancy because Ronnie was much like Biden in his mental state, wanted to create a legacy. That legacy did break down the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union. Most my age will recall the term “glastnos” which stands for openness. This reduced the threat of nuclear war and the number of nuclear missiles although the ones we have now are more powerful and destructive so we don’t need as many missiles! The threat of mutually assured destruction, as it is referred to, is still in the back of our generation’s minds. I recall the “Genesis”song, “Land of confusion” where they used the Muppets with likenesses of Gorbachev and Reagan!