1983This is a featured page

The 1980’s was certainly a colorful decade in our nation’s history as well as worldwide. 1983 in particular brought the introduction of the cabbage patch doll and the camcorder as well as the invasion of Grenada, the bombing in Rangoon and the discovery of the HIV virus. While the Middle East shook with an impending gulf war looming in the near future, the U.S. military had been more or less calm since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. While medical breakthroughs occurred in the states, conflict was eminent across the globe. On the home front, a French born medical doctor, Dr. Luc Montagnier, was hard at work studying an unknown virus, which causes a disease ailing people around the world. Today we know this disease as AIDS, and the virus which causes it we now know as HIV. Prior to 1983, it was a mystery. The virus to blame for this terminal illness, HIV, had never been studied before, though so many had already died from its fatal effects. Mark Cichocki RN reports that after some struggle to receive credit for his discoveries Dr. Montagnier went on to receive a much deserved Nobel Prize in physiology in 2008, for his 1983 discovery of the HIV virus, which led to the technology to detect the virus in a blood sample. Today, the technology exists to detect HIV in a human saliva sample in as little as 15 minutes, thanks to the work of Dr. Montagnier. Away from home, on a very small island in the Caribbean not too far off the coast of Cuba; there was something of a political uprising against a forced communism-like regime. This uprising led to the U.S. invasion of Grenada, in which the U.S. government tried to stabilize this tiny war torn nation. Grenada was once a British colony, gaining their independence from the U.K. in 1975, the island country was led by Marxist-Leninist Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop. Internal power struggle however, led to Bishop’s deposition and execution in mid 1983. That brought an end to the People’s Revolutionary Government of Grenada, and a beginning to the New Jewel Movement, which brought with it heightened levels of violence in the streets of Grenada. These street wars led to several hundred civilian deaths in a population of 70,000. With this surge of violence, and governmental demands for financial support while in political disarray, U.S. president Ronald Reagan gave the green light for a military invasion of the Island nation of Grenada on October 25, 1983. (onwar.com) Across the world, on the day of my birth, October 9, 1983, South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan was visiting the Martyrs’ Memorial Tomb in Rangoon, Burma to pay his respects by laying a wreath at the memorial. Fortunately for him, he was delayed in traffic, and failed to arrive on schedule for an assassination attempt. Not so luckily 21 members of his cabinet and security team were slain in the failed assassination attempt. In addition to 21 killed, another 46 people sustained injuries in the bombing of the martyr’s tomb. The three assassins were captured in the following days, and the story truly unfolded. One of the assassins admitted that there were three bombs hidden on the roof of the tomb, and that they had accidentally, prematurely detonated the first of the three, thinking that the president had arrived. He was given a life sentence, while his co conspirators were sentenced to death, one of which committed suicide before that sentence could be carried out. (Invasion of Grenada) I think that growing up watching news clips of military engagements all over the world and reading or hearing daily that there is a country at war, makes me think that human kind has a long way to go. We are killing ourselves off in masses! Today, just as then, we are at war so often it seems as though it is one ongoing war moving from one place to the next. As a society, I feel that the last 27 years have really taught us nothing in way of achieving peace amongst ourselves. While I fully support the military, I wish there was not a need for our country to have such a massive military force at the ready. Personally, I feel that constant U.S. military involvement all over the world in the last quarter of a century has made the American people too tolerant to the idea that our soldiers are abroad fighting battles that aren’t necessarily ours to fight. So, While 1983 brought us new dolls and a means to make home movies of our children, it also brought the discovery of an incurable disease, which has a 100% mortality rate and 3 decades of war, causing countless deaths as well as economic misery. I think the outcome of so much war, which really began in 1983, is that we as a society are constantly looking for the next conflict. It was most certainly a busy year to say the least.


carotha
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