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SURVIVING A NUCLEAR ATTACK WITH SPAM (IMAGES COLD WAR FALLOUT SHELTERS)
Atlas Obscura ^ | October 23, 2015 | ANIKA BURGESS

Posted on 10/23/2015 6:49:35 AM PDT by NYer

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To: NYer

I don’t remember if I ever saw that film in grade school. I heard about it on tv and saw the civil defense commercials. I grew up in a rural area, a hundred miles south of Chicago, which would have been a target. I think my mindset, as a child, was we were too far away from Chicago to be hurt by it being ‘nuked.’

Of course in my adult years being in the Army during the Cold War and living in Washington, DC, while assigned to the Pentagon. I took a more fatalistic attitude: I was literally at ‘ground zero’ being in the Pentagon. With the warning times for ICBMs there was no way for the city to be evacuated, thus I decided that my attitude would be ‘oh well, I’ll go so quick I’ll never know it.”


41 posted on 10/23/2015 7:48:20 AM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: Kartographer

LMAO. Classic Twilight Zone.


42 posted on 10/23/2015 7:52:51 AM PDT by TADSLOS (A Ted Cruz Happy Warrior! GO TED!)
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To: GreyFriar

What we discovered was that the Soviet Union’s nuclear capability was vastly overstated. It was dependent on rigorous discipline by their armed forces and that simply was never going to happen.

A basement was a perfectly acceptable shelter. Bomb shelters were usually built in areas where basements were not the norm....like where I grew up. Basement is from the Latin word “basemada” meaning “something that floods”. I knew 1 family with a shelter. The rest relied on their basement or a friends basement.


43 posted on 10/23/2015 7:54:57 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you really want to irritate someone, point out something obvious they are trying hard to ignore.)
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To: KC_Lion; Norm Lenhart; Lazamataz
Vault Tec Ping.


44 posted on 10/23/2015 7:57:48 AM PDT by TADSLOS (A Ted Cruz Happy Warrior! GO TED!)
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To: WKUHilltopper
SPAM? Well...that’s more than we have now.

Spam, YUM! Made myself a fried Spam, scrambled egg and salsa burrito for breakfast yesterday.

45 posted on 10/23/2015 8:02:16 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: redfreedom

Then you sure don’t want to see how sausage is made from pigs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOs_a4iHQPY


46 posted on 10/23/2015 8:02:48 AM PDT by Carriage Hill ( The cheddar cheese slid off my cracker, a long time ago.)
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To: ShadowAce

MOST enjoyable ... shared and thanx !


47 posted on 10/23/2015 8:07:35 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: McGruff

When I served in the Navy over half-a-hundred years ago we were opening up a few inflatable lifecraft for inspection. They were provisioned with survival rations dated from during WWII. They were still edible. Not good, but hey, it’s just survival!


48 posted on 10/23/2015 8:08:33 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: NYer; TADSLOS; Norm Lenhart; Lazamataz; GraceG
You beat me to it TADSLOS, I choose Cram!

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cram_(Fallout:_New_Vegas)

49 posted on 10/23/2015 8:10:08 AM PDT by KC_Lion (This Millennial is for Cruz!)
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To: McGruff
I had my last C around 1976 or so ... if I remember correctly, it was stamped with the date 1943

I got 4 Luckies in a little flip box, a couple of squares of TP and I think it was ham and eggs ... sort of

30 years later ... I didn't die and the cigarettes were still palatable

50 posted on 10/23/2015 8:12:17 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: mkjessup
We need that same level of preparation returned to our public schools today.

Boy, wouldn't THAT twist liberal panties into knots!

51 posted on 10/23/2015 8:12:39 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: KeyLargo

That looks like cat vomit.


52 posted on 10/23/2015 8:15:00 AM PDT by Catmom (We're all gonna get the punishment only some of us deserve.)
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To: Dubh_Ghlase
"not far from a SAC base and one of the old ICBM missle silos"

It was all academic in my case as well since we lived in southeastern Virginia near Norfolk, Langley AFB, the Naval station, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock, etc. Probably first strike territory anyway.

53 posted on 10/23/2015 8:16:53 AM PDT by Da Bilge Troll (Defeatism is not a winning strategy!)
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To: McGruff

When I was stationed at Beale AFB in the 80’s I was tasked as a Shelter Commander. During one of our inspections of the shelter and supplies we found cases and cases of C-Rations stocked — all dated 1942. I could never get anyone to take my bet and eat one. LOL


54 posted on 10/23/2015 8:21:47 AM PDT by commish (The takers rule. Time to implement the triple G plan - GOD, GUNS, & GOLD)
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To: McGruff
These may still be edible.

Hey, C-rats were great! Well, some of them. I suspect if the balloon ever had gone up we'd have found shelters full of starved victims sitting on unopened crates of ham and lima beans, though.

55 posted on 10/23/2015 8:25:04 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: mkjessup

I was always the kid who asked teachers why we did certain things.

One day during a bomb drill I asked the teacher why we went down in the basement.

“It’s so the Russians can’t hurt us if they drop a bomb,” she said.

At the age of 7 or 8 the only Russians I knew anything about were named Boris and Natasha and the only bombs I knew of were the round black ones with fuses like you see in cartoons.

So I figured the basement of my elementary school would suffice to protect me from Boris and Natasha and their silly bombs.


56 posted on 10/23/2015 8:25:23 AM PDT by Catmom (We're all gonna get the punishment only some of us deserve.)
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To: Dubh_Ghlase
The farm house was torn down and a new house built, but the top entrance was still there and the shelter still existed.

Reminds me of where I worked for ten years, in Mountain View, CA. The building was built for Sylvania in 1958, just a mile from Moffett Field NAS, on the south SF bay. The basement wasn't a fallout shelter, but a bomb shelter.

The company was GTE by 1997, when they sold the campus to a housing developer. The builder was going to demolish all the old buildings for townhouses.

This buildings basement walls protruded about three feet above ground, so they needed to come down. However, the walls were so thick and strong that the demo contractor could not touch them without explosives.

Since this was in the middle of a residential area, with an elementary school across the street, blasting was not an option. They had to alter the plans to account for the old bomb shelter. Instead of housing, they put a small park inside the basement walls.

As far as I know, those old walls still shelter the park.

57 posted on 10/23/2015 8:26:26 AM PDT by jimtorr
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To: NYer
Students were drilled in "duck and cover" practices at schools

Yes - I clearly recall how we were instructed to hide from Soviet 57 megaton nuclear bombs by hiding under a $3.50 wooden desk.


58 posted on 10/23/2015 8:27:26 AM PDT by Iron Munro (The wise have stores of choice food and oil but a foolish man devours all he has. Proverbs 21:20)
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To: TADSLOS

59 posted on 10/23/2015 8:29:27 AM PDT by yuleeyahoo
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To: redfreedom

Mmmmm... Bologna!

That doesn’t bother me so long as I only have to see the end product. And if you think about it, cows and pigs do indeed have eyes, lips, scrotums, udders, anuses (ani?) and other parts.

It’d be a shame to let all that just go to waste!

Boloney was recycling—if you will—long before it was popular.


60 posted on 10/23/2015 8:33:37 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (As we say in the Air Force, "You know you're over the target when you start getting flak!")
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