What it was like being a child in public School in the 1950s and 1960s

First of all, all boys were conditioned (especially from Junior High On) to prepare to kill in a war. This was a given. So, we were all treated pretty rough to condition us for this. One of the ways was forcing boys (before then went through puberty to shower with older boys in large lines of showers). This was sort of humiliating for most boys and then the older boys would try to snap your genitals off with a wet towel and other crazy stuff like that. So, towel fights were common that left welts and didn't usually lead to stays in the hospital unless someone hit someone in the eye or genitals with a wet rolled up towel snapped with great force at them.

As a younger child you were expected to crawl under your desk during nuclear blast drills. Girls often would cry and boys would make jokes about "Bending over and kissing your ass goodbye" if a blast actually occurred which only made the scared cry more and made more macho boys laugh. I was one of the laughers.

You couldn't show weakness. In public School in Junior high boys tested each other to see if they were going to have to fight each other. So, if you were tough enough no one would fight you because you were too tough and dangerous. So, your motivation as a boy was to be as tough as nails so you wouldn't have to fight.

You stood next to each other and each took a turn hitting the other's upper arm in the muscles with your middle finger's knuckle extended on your right hand (if you were right handed). This was meant to create maximum pain and injury in the opposing boy. So, you had to take a great deal of pain without flinching or crying. If you flinched or cried you likely were going to get beat up later.

I was very good at not crying or flinching and also I was bigger and could hit harder than almost any other boy. So, if a boy hit me in my arm to test me then he had to allow me to hit him. By exacting maximum pain on the other boy you could avoid fights completely so I did. People left me alone after that, because I could hit really hard with my knuckle out to avoid fights in Junior High.

So, all this was sort of allowed to "toughen up" boys for the draft and killing and dying in war. This type of toughening behavior continued in public schools until the draft ended after the Viet Nam War.

So, boys subject to the draft expected to have to serve and maybe to die by the time they were 18 to 20 years of age. This was true from the 1940s until the mid to late 70s when the draft ended.

This is what wikipedia has to say about the draft here in the U.S.

1. Conscription in the United States - Wikipedia, the...

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_StatesCached

   Conscription in the United States, commonly known as the draft, has been employed by the federal government on three occasions. The third incarnation of the draft ...

2. From 1940 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means.

   end partial quote from:

   Conscription in the United States - Wikipedia, the...

   So, boys didn't have to be abused so much to condition them to killing and dying after that unless they were playing football. 

   So, during the Viet Nam War even boys who didn't want to go to college did because so many of their friends were either dying in Viet Nam or coming back with arms and legs missing or just coming back completely crazy.

   So, boys in droves went to college and got Bachelor's degrees and post grad degrees too. And all the girls followed them there and this is how we got to be such an educated society today, because boys didn't want to die or go crazy or be maimed for life in the Viet Nam War.

   And after Viet Nam boys and girls followed in their parents footsteps into college and got better and better jobs to as a results over the years to now.