Cuban Missile Crisis & the Underground Silos

I'm currently reading a book that mentions the early 60s showdown between Russia and the US, which comments on the ubiquitous drills that school children went through during that scary time.   I grew up in rural Missouri, and I recall the little one-lane bridge over the Blackwater River having to be replaced by a two-lane affair that permitted the big transport trucks to cross over with the equipment to build an underground missile silo less than a mile from our farm house.  But we never had drills in school, and in fact, I never heard anyone talking about any near-nuclear-annihilation.  How is that possible?

Was I just particularly obtuse or oblivious?  I was certainly old enough to be aware (I was 12 years old when John Kennedy was assassinated - or nearly so - one week away from it).  I certainly remember that.  I remember the principal coming into our classroom to announce it.

I also remember something about the planning for the missile site locations, because the locals made cracks about how our little community would be wiped off the face of the earth in a flash if the Russians ever decided to take out missile silos.  That was because we were located halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis and thereby allocated an overlapping of the two 100-mile radius circles which were supposed to be ringing all major US cities with missile silos.  Hahaha.  Ya dumb yokels. Surely the planners didn't waste money on overlapping sites.  Surely.

I know I didn't just forget that we used to practice ducking under our desks.   We didn't do it.  I have a feeling nobody back there deep in the heart of the "Show Me" state really believed anything they heard or read in the national news - other than if we elected Kennedy, we'd all be forced to become Catholics.  Or maybe they figured they had farming to do whether Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Kruschev were getting along or not.  Or maybe they really did figure we'd be ground zero anyway, and until then, they had farming to do.

Or maybe they were level-headed enough to at least realize desks wouldn't save us.

Anyway, the Reds didn't get 'em.

Many years later, the University of Missouri fortified the area around its nuclear reactor - to keep it safe from the radical Islamists. I had a really good laugh about that. A fence on one side and some waist-high concrete slabs on another. No self-respecting farmer's kid would see that as anything but a waste of taxpayer money.

I have a feeling the Islamists won't get those Missouri farmers, either. But the drought, now...