[shurcooL]

It's a lonely and sad thought that the biggest heroes whose immense sacrifices and contributions to the well being of everyone around them are celebrated by... the blissful ignorance of everyone else.

Except in movies. There, we get to see and experience it all.

[ekianjo]

> Except in movies. There, we get to see and experience it all.

Well, movies often get the facts and the characters wrong (on purpose). Movies usually are adapted to fit to audiences who have no real understanding of History so things are made simple for them.

This being said, K-19 was a decent movie (despite the inaccuracies) and I'd recommend anyone to watch it AND read what actually happened.

[shurcooL]

I was talking more about fictional movies.

Like pretty much any superhero movie, no one knows who spiderman or Clark Kent are. In the first spiderman movie, at the very end he "gets the girl" but has to walk away from her, because of his obligation to help the world and keep the girl out of trouble. So his sacrifice is known by the movie audience, but not the in-movie characters.

[arbuge]

It is also a scary thought that a decision on nuclear war was/is in the hands of a few individuals.

[dfritsch]

Especially ones operating without any knowledge of what is going on elsewhere.

[ekianjo]

It still is. Most nations' Commanders in Chief (i.e. the Presidents) have the power to order a nuke launch by themselves. Of course they have advisers and so on, but that does not mean they have less of a power.

[vl]

All nuclear submarines carry all launch codes on board - as indicated in this article, 3 top officers can access them together.

[elementai]

And then there are stories that automated systems have this power too, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29

[dredmorbius]

Under US protocols, only the President can authorize the use of nuclear weapons, however the Secretary of Defense must also approve the use.

[ekianjo]

> Under US protocols.

I wasn't only talking about the US. There are many other countries in the world who own nukes and where their usage protocol is different.

[dredmorbius]

Interesting factoid: The US made it's PAL (permissive access link) technology available to other nuclear powers, including enemies in order that they could secure their weapons against unauthorized use.

Which makes everyone better off.

[ekianjo]

How many are using their technology as well, then ?

[huhtenberg]

And still Chewie didn't get a medal.