Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Duck and Cover

Not me, but...
Fox — (archived)

Kindergarten '56; HS grad '69... Like you, I remember CONELRAD (including the AM frequencies, 640 and 1240), and the informational packets given to us grade-schoolers to take home to convince our parents to build shelters. And, while I was a Cub Scout, we had a field trip to the local Nike base. [I also remember reciting the so-called "Lord's Prayer" to begin the school day in the first few grades of my public school, but don't remember which grade I was in when that disappeared.]

But: no Duck & Cover at school. I can only guess about why some school districts did it and some not: proximity to likely first-strike targets. Perhaps some realists understood that the closer one was to major cities and/or industry, the more futile the gesture of hiding beneath a desk. In my case, both criteria applied.

I've sorta skipped around this thread before deciding to reply, and now I don't recall which one of us mentioned aerial bombardment -- was it Robert? Anyway, it's my impression in hindsight that the entire CD philosophy was predicated on leftover WWII scenarios involving bombers, and anti-aircraft weapons such as the Nike... and as the primary delivery option moved to ICBMs, and the yield of individual weapons ran up into the megatons, the viability of "Duck and Cover" fell off.

On the other hand, I do know other folks my age (plus or minus 5 years) who had to do the drill.

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