On the other hand it protected us quite well from the acid rain, which actually ate up a lot of our forests. The worst part was knowing that the real bad guys were actually on our side of the curtain.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, we practiced putting on "Improvised Means of Individual Chemical Protection" and I should add that it was a raincoat and plastic bags put on our legs and arms and we lay down with our feet facing the nuclear explosion.