The Great Destruction

Part 1: Apocalypse.
September 2nd, 1968.

when autumn began in 1968, the Vietnam War was ending due to the Tet Offensive pushing the US troops back to Saigon. the hippie movement was in full swing, and several prominent celebrities were behind it, including Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Martin Luther King was touring the US, and he was currently in Nebraska. the Soviet Union had tested the Tsar Bomba 7 years prior and were working on producing it again. the Cold War was heating up and fast. the world was teetering on the edge of nuclear war. at 10:11 PM, the Soviets announced that they had been sending troops in Vietnam to the North Vietnamese and had been since the beginning of the war. the US responded by lowering its DEFCON level to 3, and readying its missiles. President Nixon warned the Soviets that if they did not pull their troops out of Vietnam, they would suffer the consequences. at 10:59 PM, the Soviets responded by saying they would not stand down, and that they had readied their entire nuclear arsenal, including 4 50 megaton Tsar Bombas. at 11:20, the US had lowered their DEFCON rating to 1. the US Army was mobillized. people entered their bomb shelters. at 11:48, the first missile is launched by the US, and it hits Moscow. before the city was vaporized, Nikita Krushchev gave the order to launch their missiles. due to a glitch in the programming, the missiles hit random targets across the world, including parts of oceans and seas. almost the entire East Coast is annihilated, but the West fares better, although several cities were destroyed by missiles. the Mid-West is spared much of the devastation that hit the East and West. Germany and France launch their payloads before their silos are destroyed, and England does the same about a minute later. electricity worldwide is cut. the nuclear exchange ends at around 12:18, half an hour after it started. 2 billion people died, and the world was forever changed.

Part 2: Aftermath.
September 3rd, 1968.

the sun did not rise on the morning of September 3rd. the world was engulfed in a cloud of ash and dust caused by the nuclear war, and the sun would not rise for weeks. the 5 week long night would make the temperature drop by 10 degrees for months afterwards. most of the plants on Earth would die, and over 500 milllion people would die as well. the people that did survive were completely unorganized for weeks or months before they managed to find other survivors. most of the Army had survived, as the government had ordered that all soldiers take cover in bomb shelters. some did not emerge for a few months, while others emerged a week after the bombs fell. one garrison, outside Farmington, New Mexico,