Civil defense

“ A national force should be organized primarily for civil duty in time of peace. It should be organized in such a way that it could at a moment's notice be converted into a military machine for national defense in case of war. ”

“ People have been warned of impending storms and similar dangers, told how to protect themselves, sheltered from the elements, fed and clothed, treated for injury and illness, and given help in resuming their normal lives. Experience has shown that as cities, counties and towns develop their systems to preserve life under nuclear attack conditions, they also become better prepared to deal effectively with peacetime disasters.
In cooperation with the U.S. Office of Civil Defense and the States, many local governments are improving their civil defense systems by preparing community shelter plans. ”

“ As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community. ”

“ We have in the United States a military establishment adequate to suppressing riots, controlling mobs, preventing local anarchy, and protecting property from destruction by internal disturbance or uprisings in our own country. As a national police force, our army is an entirely adequate and satisfactory organization. ”

“ In one of the darkest hours of the great struggle for National existence, against rebellious foes, the Government called you from the comparatively safe and easy duties of civil life to place you in front of the enemy and in a position of personal toil and danger, perhaps more hazardous than was encountered by any citizen or military officer of the United States. ”

“ The success of any military health care system in wartime is directly related to the number of casualties adequately treated and returned to duty with their units. This must be accomplished as soon and as far forward in the theater of operations as possible.
The Second Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia, was one of the major engagements of the United States Civil War. Three days after that great battle, three thousand wounded men still lay on the field. ”

“ Truly effective law enforcement demands our reliance on one of our great historical strengths as a Nation: the willingness of our people to band freely together, in local communities, in defense of lives, homes, and property. ”

“ However, it is likely that most of the people in the fringe area would survive these hazards.
People who were outside the fringe area would not be affected by the blast, heat or fire. Department of Defense studies show that in any nuclear attack an enemy might launch against us, tens of millions of Americans would be outside the fringe areas. To them--and to people in the fringe areas who survived the blast, heat and fire--radioactive fallout would be the main danger. ”

“ That a well-regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that Standing Armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. ”

“ Whatever system of national defense is to be adopted in the United States, it must be a system in which the people themselves, as citizens and not as professional soldiers, furnish the human material for national defense. The people must control our army of citizen soldiery so absolutely that it can never be turned against their personal liberties or property rights. ”

“ If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. ”

“ IMPROVISING FALLOUT PROTECTION
If an enemy attack should occur when you are at home, and you have made no advance shelter preparations, you still might be able to improvise a shelter either inside or outside your house. In a time of emergency, the radio broadcasts may tell you whether you have time to improvise a shelter or should take cover immediately.
An improvised shelter probably would not give you as much protection as a permanent or a preplanned family shelter, but any protection is better than none, and might save your life. ”

“ Use of force in military law enforcement is authorized for (1) self-defense and defense of others against a hostile person when in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm by the hostile person; (2) to prevent the actual theft or or sabotage of assets vital to national security; (3) to prevent the actual theft or sabotage of resources that are inherently dangerous to others; (4) to prevent the commission of a serious crime that invovles imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm ”

“ We have no organization, save a police organization for our own regulation and defense on the way. And coming in that spirit to this territory, we claim the rights of American citizens to bear arms, and to be exempt from unlawful search and seizure. ”

“ Permit me to call your attention to the subject of the Militia of the Commonwealth.—A well regulated militia "held in an exact subordination to the civil authority and governed by it," is the most safe defence of a Republic.—In our Declaration of Rights, which expresses the sentiments of the people, the people have a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence. ”

“ We can fully rely upon the assistance of all the police and from one-quarter to one-half of the other troops. And of the remainder many will under no circumstances engage in a sharp fight in defense of the present government. ”

“ A few days ago I addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, suggesting that the department encourage voluntary organizations of non-conscripts for local defense, and that they be armed with every superfluous musket that the government may possess. If this be done, the army will not be so much embarrassed by vehement calls to protect the people from raids everywhere; and in the event of serious disaster, the people would still make resistance. But an unarmed people would have no alternative but submission. ”

“ But the bulwark of our defense is the national militia, which in the present state of our intelligence and population must render us invincible. As long as our Government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will ”

“ But as social organization advances, the central ruling power undertakes more and more to secure to individuals their personal safety, the safety of their possessions, and, to some extent, the enforcement of their claims established by contract. Originally concerned almost exclusively with defense of the society as a whole against other societies, or with conducting its attacks on other societies. Government has come more and more to discharge the function of defending individuals against one another. ”

“ You must be aware, General, that no orders of yours can save from punishment spies, marauders, robbers, incendiaries, guerrilla bands, etc., who violate the laws of war. You cannot give immunity to crime. But let us fully understand each other on this point. If you send armed forces wearing the garb of soldiers and duly organized and enrolled as legitimate belligerents to destroy railroads, bridges, etc., as a military act, we shall kill them, if possible, in open warfare, or, if we capture them, we shall treat them as prisoners of war. ”

“ An army needed as a national police force to safeguard against any sort of domestic disturbance is a very different proposition from the army we would need in the event of a war with any of the great world powers. An army of 100,000 is as large as we will ever need to safeguard against domestic disturbance. ”

“ The distribution of fallout particles after a nuclear attack would depend on wind currents, weather conditions and other factors. There is no way of predicting in advance what areas of the country would be affected by fallout, or how soon the particles would fall back to earth at a particular location.
Some communities might get a heavy accumulation of fallout, while others--even in the same general area--might get little or none. No area in the U.S. could be sure of not getting fallout, and it is probable that some fallout particles would be deposited on most of the country. ”

“ Many of the actions recommended in Part I of this handbook to help you prepare for and live through a nuclear attack--such as learning the warning signals, stocking emergency supplies, taking a course in emergency skills, and knowing how to fight fires at home--also would help you in case a major natural disaster occurs in your area. If you are prepared for nuclear attack, you are also prepared to cope with most peacetime disasters--disasters that kill hundreds of Americans every year, injure thousands, inflict widespread suffering and hardship, and cause great economic loss. ”

“ It may be that those, who, on the magistrate's bench, have to maintain right against might, could be better trained than by submission to violence and subsequent exercise of violence. And it may be that some other discipline than that of the stick would be desirable for men who officer the press and guide public opinion on questions of equity. But, doubtless, while national antagonisms continue strong and national defence a necessity, there is a fitness in this semi-military discipline, with pains and bruises to uphold it. ”

“ If there is none near you, a home fallout shelter may save your life.
The basements of some homes are usable as family fallout shelters as they now stand, without any alterations or changes--especially if [pg 25] the house has two or more stories, and its basement is below ground level.
However, most home basements would need some improvements in order to shield their occupants adequately from the radiation given off by fallout particles. Usually, householders can make these improvements themselves, with moderate effort and at low cost. ”

“ The men who created this Constitution also set it in operation, and developed their own idea of its character. That idea was unlike any other that then prevailed upon the earth. They made the general welfare of the people the great source and foundation of the common defense. In all the nations of the Old World the public defense was provided for by great standing armies, navies, and fortified posts, so that the nation might every moment be fully armed against danger from without or turbulence within. ”

“ In time of war the civilian as much as the soldier is responsible for defeat and disaster. Battles are not lost alone on the field; they may be lost beneath the Dome of the Capitol, they may be lost in the Cabinet, or they may be lost in the private office of the Secretary of War. Wherever they may be lost, it is the people who suffer and the soldiers who die, with the knowledge and the conviction that our military policy is a crime against life, a crime against property, and a crime against liberty. ”

“ In order to provide for our defence, and exclude the dangers of a standing army, the general defence is left to those who are the objects of defence. It is left to the militia, who will suffer if they become the instruments of tyranny. The general government must have power to call them forth when the general defence requires it. In order to produce greater security, the state governments are to appoint the officers. ”

“ A community certainly would not promote the cause of law and order by leaving itself helpless against those who set out to do wrong. Now the army and the navy are our police writ large. They are, against wrong-doing from without, what the police are against wrong-doing from within—a measure of protection and security.
A nation cannot leave itself defenceless. Defence is an Essential Function of Government.—Many years ago one of the Fathers of the American Republic, James Madison, stated this point in a single sentence. ”

“ Our reliance for protection and defense on the land must be mainly on our citizen soldiers, who will be ever ready, as they ever have been ready in times past, to rush with alacrity, at the call of their country, to her defense. ”

“ My judgment is that we shall need courts, police, armies, navies—the embodiment of force, just so long as on the part of individuals and groups of individuals and communities and nations there is a disposition to resort to acts of injustice, to violate law, to gratify the disposition in man to make aggression upon his fellow-men. ”

“ But she is showing her knowledge of her inadequate military condition, and is training officers and is voting larger sums for the annual drilling of the militia. Her population, expanding over vast surfaces, is being strengthened both for civil and military cohesion by a thorough railway system; but she will need all the consciousness her best men have, that defence means preparation and organisation, if she wishes to inspire respect for her ever-increasing and ever more vulnerable possessions. ”

“ It embraces every phase of the national defense, including the protection of war materials and the members of the armed forces from injury and from the dangers which attend the rise, prosecution and progress of war.' See Lichter v. ”

“ Because the common defense is a common duty, universal military training is the only system that is fundamentally democratic and fair. We urge upon Congress the prompt enactment of a bill to put this system into immediate operation. ”