Duck and Cover; A New Meaning

Duck and Cover

A very long time ago, school children practiced a drill called Duck and Cover throughout the United States.  These drills became a part of our school lives, a routine,  designed stupidly, to protect school kids from the blast of bombs delivered to us by our enemies, Russia or Cuba.

The early 1960s were stressful times for everyone in the United States.  Life could be eradicated at any time by Nikita Krushchev, the leader of our mortal enemy, Russia.  Russia and the United States were enemies.  We distrusted them, with good reason, and they hated us because the U.S. stood in their path of spreading Communism by overtaking weaker countries.  We were like two pit bulls locked in a fighting ring, snarling at each other, one representing freedom, one communism.

The tensions between the countries were so intense that private citizens were having bomb shelters built in their homes' basements.   Looking back on it and knowing what we know now about radiation and the destruction of all living things, it was a waste of money and a pipe dream.

The prominent defense mode for schools, buildings was to get low and cover your head.  Schools were required to run practice Duck and Cover Drills frequently.  It was a frightening thing for kids.  Imagine school hallways lined with hundreds of kids, side by side, butts in the air, heads against a wall, covered by arms and hands.  It was only not frightening for the younger kids who did not understand why we were doing it; it was terribly scary for older kids who heard the bomb discussion on TV or their parents.

When I was in 6th grade, our country was involved in a war of nerves with Russia called The Cuban Missle Crisis.  Spy planes, ours, had discovered and taken photos of Russian missiles being smuggled into Cuba, approximately 90 miles from the US.  Cuba was run by a man named Fidel Castro, a Communist and ruthless leader, who was also a sworn enemy of the U.S.  The United States could not allow Cuba to keep the threat of war 90 miles from our shoreline.  Every day the news was filled with discussions of war with Cuba and Russia.  It was frightening stressful for everyone in the U.S.; nobody knew what was going to happen.

When advisors were telling President Kennedy to bomb Russia and Cuba during the height of the tensions, it seemed like a hopeless situation.  During that time, our school and I imagine all schools held a Duck and Cover Drill.  If you were an older kid,  you thought that this was the end.  My heart was beating like a drum, kids were crying, teachers were trying to calm them.  As a kid, I knew that we could not survive a bomb by ducking in a hallway with my hands on my head.  This was a very long drill, where they were just usually a minute or so after everyone was on the ground; this one was maybe five minutes of kissing your butt goodbye, literally.  We survived because we had a smart, well educated President at that time, who called Russia's bluff.  But I have never forgotten how frightening that drill was.

Today, we are not threatened by Russia, not in our schools anyway.  Our biggest challenge as parents and grandparents is that our kids make it home from their school day.  Our most significant threat is white males with a chip on their shoulder, a grudge, hate in their hearts, and too much power in their hands in the form of semi-automatic, automatic, high powered, multiple ammunition clips that rip through a person causing extensive bodily damage.  And they require no skill to use the weapons, just the knowledge of how to load it and pull a trigger; they don't even have to aim it.  They can spray death and destruction by pointing and moving it.  The weapons shoot faster than a person can run or dodge or dive to get away from danger.  They are weapons manufactured to slaughter the recipient who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Death and horrific injuries come to them "just because."

Children are required by law to be educated.  They have to attend some form of acceptable formal education.  Generally, that is provided by public education.  Public schools have become a killing ground for the young and innocent.  As a nation, how can our government mandate education but not mandate students' and teachers' protection?  How can we even fathom building a damn wall to "protect" us, but we can't protect our schools from our own citizens?  Why are severely maligned interpretations of the second amendment allowed to be construed to accommodate law-abiding people's overkill to support the insanity and ignorance of die-hard gun nuts?

My grandson is 6 years old.  He participates in drills designed to "prepare" them for the horror of a nut with a powerful weapon entering the school and killing anyone in sight.  Who honestly believes that you can prepare young kids to be slaughtered?  I have a dream occasionally that is revived by school shootings.  It is little boys and girls screaming and crying and pandemonium and blood and mutilation.  My dream is called Sandy Hook.  It is a nightmare.  I should never have that dream.  Our money whore US Congress and Senate refused to pass laws to make it harder to obtain mass destruction weapons.  Now my grandson has to try and learn how to react to terror, something even adults fail to deal well with.  The actions taught in his classroom will not protect him.  It's hard to dodge one bullet, let alone hundreds of them. No Duck and Cover will save him.

It's time to demand common-sense gun laws.  It's time to outlaw specific types of weapons.  Our kid's lives are more important than how much the NRA donates to political candidates.  The government and the NRA need to be accountable for the death, injuries, and lifelong trauma victims of school massacres endure.  It's time for them to step up or get out of the way.  No lame plan the president has come up with is adequate or even sensible.  Do you think he really cares?  Not me.

Hold your kids tight tonight.