Those "kids" were probably your parents. By the time I came around (school in 60s). we were ignoring them as well.
I'm so glad that I lived/went to school in the UK during the 50's and 60's.... I missed all that paranoid crap and grew up perfectly abnormal.
The worst thing I had to worry about at school was getting caught smoking... or caught sneaking into the girls showers on sports days (yep, I did that, and it was always a giggle because the female sports teacher was always in their locker room 9just not in the showers] yet I never got caught)
But seriously, having to live with that kind of paranoia as a kid must have been disturbing. I know as a kid I wouldn't have liked to have lived with that shit hanging over my head... the, um, possible nuclear threat and being turned into a crispy critter before [or after] the lunch bell
At least now I know why so many Americans are in therapy...
the f***ed up politicians of the day bred fear and paranoia into the population ....
And those lunatics who managed to avoid the strait jackets and become today's politicians... well they just replaced the lunatics who perpetuated the Cold War mentality that damaged so many.
Quite frankly, if I had been taumatised by the Cold War mentality, I'd be sending the government my all shrink bills and claiming personal injury compensation for undue stress and mental anguish. I'd also be claiming my quarterly strait jacket replacements... not to mention [probably] six - eight months underwear for when my hands weren't free to attend nature calls.
Yeah, I'm being flippant, but I just find it hard to fathom how a nation of a couple hundred million could be duped and held to ransom by a handful of raving idiots with nuclear 'issues'. For mine, it was downright criminal.... and sadly, while there's no more reds under the bed, the insanity continues with new US politicians finding new and inventive ways to "put a scare up those dumb fuckers who vote for us."
That about sum it up?