Who Is Old Enough To Remember The "Bomb Raids" In School?

[matcom]

you remember (only Elementary School for me) when the siren would go off and we all had to crawl under our desks, cover our faces with our hands until the siren ended?

i, personally didn't think much of it at the time. do you remember?

[ewagner]

1. The scariest ones

were during the Cuban Missle Crisis. At a high school in Florida. 3 miles from a Navy Jet Base........

Pucker factor went off the scale everytime the friggin bell went off.

[MIScott87]

4. !!!!

:scared::scared::scared::scared::scared:

[Blue-Jay]

2. I remember those.

We called 'em "tornado drills" though. It wasn't until later that I realized the real purpose.

[wryter2000]

3. Ducking nukes?

I remember doing that in the Cuban missile crisis. We went into the hall and leaned against the wall. I had no idea how that would protect us from a nuclear blast. I was scared it would be the end of the world.

[Dookus]

5. Yup!

We called 'em Air Raid drills. We didn't crawl under our desks, though. We all lined up in the hallway on our knees with our heads down and our hands behind our heads.

I guess the thinking was it was easier to drag all the bodies out if they were lined up neatly.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. My father was a Nike-Ajax missile technician

Every day was a bomb drill!

If you're too young to remember, the Nike-Ajax and Nike-Zeus program was an older, 1950s - 1960s version of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars". We really thought we could shoot Soviet missiles out of the sky with missiles of our own.

Dad insisted we have several contingency plans in the event of WWIII. Better safe than sorry, but my analyst is reaping the benefits now.

--bkl

[Lindsay]

7. Air raid drills for me, too.

One arm covering your eyes, the other covering the back of your head.

Lotta help that would have been....

[H2O Man]

8. The sacred "Civil Defense Drill"

Gosh, yes, I remember hoping that desk would hold up the world around me.

[JitterbugPerfume]

9. yup---

duck and cover

the commies are coming---the commies are coming!!!!

[displacedtexan]

10. We sat xlegged in the hall, heads down, with hands clasped over...

our heads.
I later learned that we were there, in alphabetical order, so that our bodies could be easily identified.
Many of our neighbors built bomb shelters, which they later filled in when people started laughing at them.

My dad was an Army Air Corps engineer, who was busy building silos at Carswell AFB, so everyone in Fort Worth figured we were pretty high on the attack site list.

[CO Liberal]

11. I Do!!

The scariest ones were when I went to The Hillcrest School in Morris Township, NJ. As the name implied, the school was at the top of a hill and it had no basement or corridors - it was a series of cinderblock buildings on concrete slabs connected by sidewalks. The air raid drills involved running down the hill as fast as we could to houses that had been stocked with supplies to serve as fallout shelters.

[Plaid Adder]

12. I remember.

We stopped in about second grade. I don't think I had a clear idea of exactly what kind of 'bomb' they were talking about.

:scared:

The Plaid Adder

[tigereye]

14. matcom in your picture you don't look old enough

to remember those! I don't remember hiding under the desk, but I remember lining up at my Catholic school for some reason, and the air raid shelter signs. Duck and cover, my foot!

[Aunt Anti-bush]

13. In the 80s

When the movie, "The Day After" aired, everyone got all paranoid and I can recall a couple of times in school we were made to get under our desks and another time we were all told to go out in the hall and duck down really low to the ground in front of the lockers. Now, I think I may have been 10 or 11 at the time, but I can recall thinking what in God's name is this going to help if we're nuked. Even children knew how pointless the drills were.

Really, if there was ever a time we should have these kind of drills in school it would be now, but honestly, I am glad my son's never had to do that because truthfully, those drills left me feeling terrified because it proved to me, even at such a young age, that the people in charge really had no clue what to do to protect us if anything like that were ever to happen.

[phaseolus]

15. Ten years before I went there, my high school...

...had an Anti-Communist League.

:shrug:

[VOX]

16. On the last Friday of each month, the air-raid siren would sound...

at 10:00 a.m. for two minutes, during which time all elementary school students were to be beneath their desks, on their knees, heads down, with their hands clasped behind (and over) their heads.

I don't know how many pairs of khaki pants I ground up at the knee with this ritual.

On edit: The more imaginative kids were convinced that the Soviets would be smart to attack at 10:00 a.m. on the last Friday of a month, since everybody would expect it to be **only** a drill!

[bikebloke]

17. Done it

We had to open the windows and pull the curtains. Then crawl under our desks with our arms covering our heads. And make sure your eyes are closed. Though most of us were staring at the linoleum design up close. I can't recall anyone being frightened. Not in my school.

[Raven]

18. Mat, you are full of ca-ca... or is it ka-ka...

you weren't even born! That shit stopped in the late 50's, early 60's... but if you'd like to bring it back...vote fot George W. :-)

[matcom]

19. no it didn't

i was in Elementary School in the 70's. was still alive and well in the D.C. area.

up until about the 4th grade or so anyway

[marigold20]

20. I remember

Sometimes we'd all go to a hallway in the basement and sit cross-legged on the floor. Other times we crawled under our desks and put our hands over our necks. I first became aware that Miss Cline wasn't all there when I saw her get her purse from her desk drawer. She kept it clutched under her arm as she crawled under her desk. And, we also had to line up for polio shots. Man, how we suffered in the 50's!

[Guy Fawkes]

21. Two things

One, I'm pretty young- still a minor- and *I* remember having bomb raids in elementry school. Some places around here still do them. (the religious, not public schools, though)
Two, there's a modern equivelent: bomb threats. My highschool once held the US record for most in one quarter/semester/and year.

[supernova]

22. Not Bomb Raids but Tornado preparedness

We practiced going to the center of the building in the event of a tornado or other severe weather.

In the case of the bomb threats, we just let out school on those days, because it would usually take so long to clear the building.

[geniph]

23. Remember that stupid film of the turtle?

Duck and cover...and kiss your ass goodbye! As if the frickin' turtle would survive a nuclear hit!

(did I just date myself, or WHAT?!)

[graywarrior]

24. I remember duck and cover

and then, I remember duct and cover 2 winters ago.

[TheMightyFavog]

25. Not necessarily.

For all we know you may have picked it up watching the movie The Atomic Cafe.

[Catshrink]

26. Yep, 2nd grade, Graham Hill Elementary School, Seattle.

We had one drill where we went out into the hall and laid down, perpendicular to the wall, with our heads covered. Fat lot of good that would have done, but, that was the deal. I think that alarm was a staccato "ring" rather than the long blast of the fire drill alarm. It was all very confusing.

[Ramsey]

27. I do

We had to go out in the hall and sit on the floor against the wall, in case "they" nuked us! I swear, they made a whole generation of Reagan supporters one pre-schooler at a time.

[matcom]

28. kick

:kick:

[RebelOne]

29. Yes, remember them well.

[hayu_lol]

30. Melrose Ave. Elementary School, Hollywood, CA

1942 to the end of the war. Our families had to furnish pads for us. When the warning sounded, we all went into the hallway(no windows)and lie down on the mats. This was general practice at the time in all LA City Schools.

I dont think it was so much bombs they were worried about...we were only 17 miles from the beach...well within battleship range.

[Spirochete]

31. I remember those.

First and second grade, mostly.