Golden Age of Civil Defense and NMCD
National Museum of Civil Defense and the Future of American Civil Defense
The American Tactical Civil Defense Mission
As part of my mission to help American families learn about how to handle natural and manmade disasters to thereby not suffer injury, death, misery, depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and despair that can result from not knowing what to do in a disaster, I created the civil defense card you see above. I hand it out to thousands of good Americans each year and ask that they spread the word to other good Americans.
This morning, while handing out two of these cards to car show guys in the parking lot in front of the gym, I discovered a civil defense fact I did not know. One guy had a 1961 Plymouth Fury. He pointed to his radio dial and said, “The AM radio’s back then had a station all the way to the left and right of the band that was for civil defense. A’int that somethin’?”
That is somethin’. That is the level of national civil defense preparation we once enjoyed. Imagine the level of awareness and the dedication to survive it took for private car manufacturers to incorporate a civil defense car radio station that you could tune into in the event of a civil defense threat in the Golden Age of Civil Defense.
I’m looking at you, Elon Musk! In a Back to the Future innovation, isn’t it time to add an emergency Internet radio station to the Cybertruck and Tesla vehicles and to power it and control it via Starlink?
Like today, the Feds back in the early 1960’s thought they knew better than the American people how to prepare for disaster. What in the 1940’s, 1950’s, and early 1960’s was a civilian-centered enterprise was abruptly shut down and disappeared into the Fed bureaucracy Borg. The Feds justified their unwise move by saying too many American’s were going insane thinking about nuclear war and it was up to the “experts” and not average Americans to handle it. Sound familiar?
Eventually, it was renamed “emergency management” and “homeland security” and ended up being the FEMA behemoth that, like all Fed agencies, promotes, funds, and practices expansion for itself and not the American people.
My brother worked at the Department of Labor (DOL) when he graduated with an economics degree from George Washington University (GWU) in 1976. He sat with other bright and talented recent economic graduates doing nothing as the DOL kept hiring more employees but not giving them work. He was puzzled by this and took a public policy graduate course at GWU to discover why this bizarre situation existed.
Though his coursework he found out that, unlike the private sector, to advance, employees in the public sector have no reason to be effective or efficient. Instead, it is how many employees report to them that determines their advancement, increase in pay and benefits, status, and power. It was true in 1976 and it is true today. He was so disgusted by it all he went to law school at night and eventually became a lawyer to escape the corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse of his former Fed job.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supposedly takes care of Americans before, during, and after natural and manmade disasters. And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security supposedly keeps them secure. Sadly, under instructions of the White House, both FEMA and DHS are more interested in pushing “pride month” and “DEI” than in helping Americans deal with disasters and protect their national security.
Americans are under the mistaken belief that FEMA handles disasters and Homeland Security handles security within the borders of the United States. If that were true, why have 30 million illegal aliens, including 30 divisions of Communist Chinese Party (CCP) and Peoples Liberation Army (/PLA) invaded the American homeland?
And why do we spend hundreds of billions defending Ukraine’s border while enabling millions of criminals, mental patients, grifters, and loafers into the United States of America? Why do we allow the CCP/PLA to purchase hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland near our U.S. Air Force bases?
FEMA only shows up long after the event and hand out checks, but that is to a very few. The majority of relief comes from private insurance companies and the business sector. For example, after hurricane Katrina, it was a big box stores’ water bottles that arrived by the millions to to save the lives of American citizens, despite FEMA having huge warehouses nearby that supposedly pre-stage such critical supplies.
And the temporary “FEMA trailer” housing they provided was full of formaldehyde insulation, were the subject of lawsuits, and sold off to a Pennsylvania entrepreneur who cut them into duck and dear hunting blinds.
So as in the past and especially in the past 4 years have taught us anything, it is that you are on your own when it comes to your defense and security. Plan accordingly.
The National Museum for Civil Defense
Civil defense grew out of the United States military and has always depended on service members with a skill stack they developed in the service to protect property and save lives from natural and manmade disasters.
As an Advisory Board Member to the National Museum of Civil Defense, I am well aware that the sacrifice and skills of the American military members are vital to American tactical civil defense. It is a remarkable organization that is gathering the American civil defense artifacts, planning documents, kits, vehicles, strategies, and other resources, including digital resources, to help educate Americans about the Golden Age of American civil defense. Visit their website and explore.
Nick Studer, M.D., is the genius behind the organization. Here is his bio.
MEET THE DIRECTOR
NICK STUDER, M.D.
Dr. Studer is a practicing Emergency Physician and the founder of the NMCD. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 first catalyzed Dr. Studer's interest in the history of our Nation's Civil Defense program, which grew into a desire to share his research with others. He realized that the rich history of the program was in danger of being lost and
He volunteered for the Brevard County (FL) Office of Emergency Management during the early 2000s, and later served at the Florida Department of Health - Bureau of Radiation Control's Radiological Instrument Maintenance & Calibration Laboratory from 2006-2010. He attended medical school at the University of South Florida, graduating in 2014. He has completed a Transitional Year Internship, Emergency Medicine Residency, Emergency Medical Services Fellowship, and a Disaster Medicine Fellowship along with numerous short courses relating to operational and prehospital medicine. Dr. Studer has published extensively on topics of relevance to military and emergency medicine.
As the Director, Dr. Studer is responsible for most aspects of day-to-day operations. His extensive collection of Civil Defense items forms the nucleus of the NMCD's permanent Collections.
It is well worth your time to visit the NMCD to learn more about American civil defense. The past is prolog to the future. Prepare so you don’t get caught like the panicked Hawaiians when they thought North Korean missiles were about to rain down on them.
The Wonder of American Tactical Civil Defense
Like the cybersecurity and national defense technical writing I do in my paying job, I love the rush that comes from discovering the endless knowledge that is available on American civil defense to be analyzed for the tactical gems that will help Americans prepare for, survive, and prosper before, during, and after disasters.
For example, X is an excellent way to monitor disasters in real time. Here is a post I just wrote on X about that. @elonmusk I first joined X when it was Twitter in 2006. It was the same year I started my civil defense blog. https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2006/02/business-blog-how-to-successfully.html… I saw immediately how useful it was to know, monitor, prepare for, and respond to natural and manmade disasters, and I used it as a primary resource to save lives and property when they struck Americans. It was highly useful for that purpose, as here. https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2012/05/social-media-lessons-from-joplin.html… When Twitter was weaponized and brought under the regulation of the intel agencies for psyops, I saw many friends viciously attacked, banned, excommunicated, fired from their jobs, kicked off Twitter, and their ability to bank and do business denied. It was a dark time and I could no longer use it in good conscience as it had become an oppressive, immoral, evil business, so I closed my account. But all that was reversed when Elon Musk bought it. When I saw he was returning it to its original purpose, to be moral, inventive, and useful as a town square and communication platform for real people, I joined again. Thus, my 2 year anniversary to celebrate today. Thank you Elon Musk for having the business acumen, wisdom, and guts to restore this tool to its full potential. Once again, I can use it to better use my civil defense expertise to save American lives and property when disasters occur. Do you remember when you joined X (again)? I do! #MyXAnniversary
