“The National Civil Defense Training Center at Olney, Md., consists of two training schools - the Staff College for training in Civil Defense Administration and Operations, and the Rescue School, for training in civil defense rescue operations and related skills such as emergency action to save lives and fire fighting for householders…. “The graduates from FCDA schools return to their home communities where they serve as a cadre of instructors, which multiplies itself by conducting local civil defense schools and courses. “Both centers also helped plan the administrative, operational, and technical aspects of civil defense at State and local levels. Likewise, each center has served as an actin-research base in which developing policy was interpreted to representatives from the field and tested utilizing their own experiences. “The school at Olney has become a center not only for instructing civil defense volunteers but also for developing and testing doctrine and devices useful in civil defense. It has also become a public education medium of some importance, particularly through its night exercises which are open to the public. These exercises constitute training activities in which both the Staff College and rescue students pactice and apply what they learned; with units from the fire departments and first-aid squads of nearby municipalities participating. About 10,000 people have observed these night training exercises in which control center operations are used. Civil defense services units are dispatched to the rescue street, and live ‘casualties’ extircated under highly realistic fire and rescue situatins. Such exercised have demonstrated to civil defense officials and the public the progress that has taken place and how the services work together. “During 1953, the Staff College graduated 470 trainees - State and municipal civil defense directors, civil defense service chiefs, civil defense coordinators in industrial organizations and government installations, and others. These trainees came from 31 States, 5 Territories, and foreign countries such as Canada and Brazil. In addition approximately 1,700 persons attended courses and conferences at the Staff College. “The Staff College also assisted State and local officials by making available material, based on the units of instruction at the Staff College, and by lending personnel to assist in carrying on training or conferences at the State or local level…. A high degree of realism is achieved in rescue training by using a ‘Rescue Street’ with 5 demolished buildings where wartime rescue conditions are simulated. Trainees learn rescue methods and perform actural rescue operations in these buildings, wich duplicate conditions resulting from enemy attack or natural disaster”. (FCDA, 1953 Annual Report, pp. 89-91)