Have you ever talked about something and then a couple days later, in a strange coincidence, what you talked about becomes a reality? That’s exactly what happened for Mr. Matthew Elder and his History Through Sports class.
Mr. Elder has been talking about the Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, and Mutually Assured Destruction, in his 4th period History Through Sports class. Leading up to the significance of the Miracle on Ice. At Mr. Elder’s church, as they were clearing out storage rooms, they found three unopened bomb shelter kits, Mr. Elder was lucky enough to be able to bring it in and show his History Through Sports.
These bomb shelter kits, provided medical supplies that would help survivors live out a fallout, however, this is not the case. These bomb kits were purely a “placebo” in order to not cause mass hysteria. It made civilians feel better that they’d be prepared in the case of a nuclear war.
“There’s a lot of stuff in the kits – so to think of the effort of creating the kit, packing them, thinking about what medical supplies would be needed, distributing them, etc. – there was a LOT of effort put into that. All just for it to be, essentially, a placebo. It probably made the people feel better that those kits were there, but if the worst happened, they wouldn’t have really helped at all,” said Mr. Elder
The U.S. government gave out these kits to places, and it’s believed the church applied for these kits to help protect the congregation, especially since they all lived near the church at the time. If an attack was to happen, they’d know where to go, and know where the supplies were. There’s only one thing about that, the church most likely wouldn’t have done anything, as the church would’ve been obliterated.
The kits offered many medicines, bandages, booklet called “medical care in shelters” that list the common illness or injury’s that could occur. Syringes, and a few other things right now.
Not only did the students learn what was in the bomb kit, it also gives the future classes a better view on what people endured during the cold war.
“This year, we got the unique experience of unboxing it – having no idea what was in it,” Mr. Elder said. “Now, I can use it to take the course even more in depth, have students brainstorm what we’d put in the kits today, wonder if society has changed so much today – would we even bother making kits? Etc. I look forward to that in the future.”
