In todays modern warfare, we have a weapon called Biological and Chemical agents. We have access to them, and I'm afraid that the enemy has them as well. And despite the geneva convention and other such items used to control these weapons of mass destruction, the enemy will continue to use them on us, the United States Army. This is why we are trained to put a protective mask on in under nine seconds. It sounds hard, and when the mask is uncooperative, it is.

Well, in Basic Training, they teach us all about these chemical agents and how to protect ourselves from them using the protective mask previously mentioned. And to prove how iffecient they are, they have an item called the gas chamber.

Of course, they aren't going to use a lethal substance such as Mustard Gas on us, they like to pull out the good old CS. I'm not sure what CS stands for, (I'll look it up) but it is not lethal to human beings unless in high doses. And I mean really high. It is the gas used in riot control, and it causes your entire respiratory to itch and clean itself out, causing your snot to hang down past your belt as you puke
out your lunch.

Drill Sergeants love CS gas.

Now, you enter the gas chamber with your mask on. If it isn't properly sealed, you'll get a slight itchy feeling, but nothing that you can't handle. There is a Chemicle Sergeant in the chamber with you, giving you the orders, which you are expected to follow. In this case, it was good old DS H (name abbreviated to protect the innocent, which would be me), a Staff Sergeant who likely inhaled a little to much CS gas in his time.

Now, when you are masked up in the real world, you have to decontaminate your face if entering a chemical environment. This requires breaking the seal. And guess what? That means possibly inhaling the dangerous contaminants that are in the air if you don't do it properly. So DS H watches us carefully as we all break our seal and display our chins. Then he orders us to reseal and clear our mask. If we do it properly, we won't have to worry about trapping contaminates in our mask with the air we are
breathing, otherwise killing ourselves.

Now that we demonstrate that we know how to clear and seal the mask, he gives us all the order to remove the mask and yell out our name and platoon motto. A lot of places might make you yell out your name, rank and Serial number, but no, this is Bravo 3-10, and for crying out loud, we are a bit cheesey for Army Standards.

NOw I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of unmasking ourselves entirely and breathing in the load of CS Gas found in the chamber, but part of me thinks it is for the Drill Sergeant's twisted enterntainment. They call it riot control, but it is riot enducing.

Now, before we entered the gas chamber, some volunteers were picked out of the crowd to direct traffic, or in other words, as the unmasked trainees gropple their way out of the gas chamber, it is the duty of these few individuals to direct them in the right direction and stop them from running off like a steaming locomotive, hurting themselves and anyone who happens to be in their way. When you first come out of the gas chamber, your eyes are tearing and you can't see a damn thing.

Guess what? I was one of the volunteers!

Now, positioned right outside the gas chamber, you could hear everything going on inside, and you got to be the first ones to see them dart out of there like a speeding bullet. This proved very entertaining, and we got to be some of the last ones to go through, so we saw EVERYONE go through the chamber.

They also videotaped everyone coming out of the chamber. I bought the video tape. It is highly entertaining.

What also proved interesting, after people puked and blew snot all over their masks, they had to give them to people who had malfunctioning masks that were missing parts or other wise not working well. So these people got puked on, snot filled masks.

I'm very glad I just stood in front of the chamber and nobody used my mask but me.I have a problem with people who have snotty noses wiping their boogers all over my property.

Well, I was probably the last to go through the chamber. And I was one of the first to take my mask off. Some idiot who was with me didn't want to take off their mask, and while I'm groping in the darkeness and trying to breath, and wanting to punch their lights out (we weren't allowed to leave until we ALL had said our platoon motto), I had to wait a good 10 seconds longer then normal for her to say the damn platoon motto. And that was already 15 seconds to long.

Of course, despite the fact that I had to breath in a butt load of CS gas, I strolled out of that gas chamber and yelled "COLD STEEL!" at the top of my lungs. And then I allowed myself to meander over to the rest of the company as we all congratulated and give ourselves a pat on the back for enduring the Gas Chamber. It turned out to be a fun event.

Of course, because we slacked slightly in our discipline, upon returning to the company area, we got a nice little visit to the pit. And got our butts reamed out for something we weren't entirely sure for. I guess for high morale, but then again, the drill sergeants always wanted us to have high morale. But then, that's just Drill Sergeants.

Posted by Erickson on 16:47 : (((