Lesson Number One

     In the mid 1990s there were a series of nerve gas attacks on crowded Japanese subway stations. Given perfect conditions for an attack, less than 10 percent of the people there were injured, and the injured were better in a few hours. Only 1 percent of the injured died.

     60 Minutes once had a fellow telling us that one drop of nerve gas could kill a thousand people. Well, he didn’t tell you the thousand dead people per drop was theoretical. Drill sergeants exaggerated how terrible this stuff was to keep the recruits awake in class. I know this because I was a drill sergeant, too. Forget everything you’ve ever seen on TV, in the movies, or read in a novel about this stuff. It was all a lie. (Read this sentence again out loud!)

     These weapons are about terror. If you remain calm, you will probably not die. This is far less scary than the media and their "experts" make it sound.

     Chemical weapons are categorized as Nerve, Blood, Blister, and Incapacitating agents. Contrary to the hype of reporters and politicians, they are not weapons of mass destruction, they are "Area denial," and terror weapons that don’t destroy anything. When you leave the area, you almost always leave the risk. That’s the difference; you can leave the area and the risk. Soldiers may have to stay put and sit through it, and that’s why they need all that spiffy gear. These are not gasses, they are vapors and/or airborne particles.

     The agent must be delivered in sufficient quantity to kill/injure, and that defines when/how it’s used. Every day we have a morning and evening inversion, where "stuff" suspended in the air gets pushed down. This inversion is why allergies (from pollen) and air pollution are worst at these times of the day. So, a chemical attack will have its best effect an hour or so either side of sunrise or sunset. Also, being vapors and airborne particles, they are heavier than air, so they will seek low places, such as ditches, basements and underground garages. This stuff won’t work when it’s freezing; it doesn’t last when it’s hot, and wind spreads it too thin too quickly. They’ve got to get this stuff on you or get you to inhale it in order for it to work.

     They also have to get the concentration of chemicals high enough to kill or wound you. Too little and it’s nothing, too much and it’s wasted. What I hope you’ve gathered by this point is that a chemical weapons attack that kills a lot of people is incredibly hard to do with military grade agents and equipment, so you can imagine how hard it will be for terrorists.

     The more you know about this stuff, the more you realize how hard it is to use. We’ll start by talking about nerve agents. You have these in your house: plain old bug killer (Raid) is a nerve agent. All nerve agents work the same way; they are cholinesterase inhibitors that mess up the signals your nervous system uses to make your body function. It can harm you if you get it on your skin, but it works best if they can get you to inhale it. If you don’t die in the first minute and you can leave the area, you’re probably gonna live.

     The military’s antidote for all nerve agents is atropine and pralidoxime chloride. Neither one of these does anything to cure the nerve agent; they send your body into overdrive to keep you alive for five minutes. After that the agent is used up. Your best protection is fresh air and staying calm. Listed below are the symptoms for nerve agent poisoning.

     Sudden headache, dimness of vision (someone you’re looking at will have pinpointed pupils), runny nose, excessive saliva or drooling, difficulty breathing, tightness in chest, nausea, stomach cramps, twitching of exposed skin where a liquid just got on you.

     If you are in public and you start experiencing these symptoms, first ask yourself, did anything out of the ordinary just happen, such as a loud pop? Did someone spray something on the crowd? Are other people getting sick, too? Is there an odor of new mown hay, green corn, something fruity, or of camphor where it shouldn’t be?

     If the answer is yes, then calmly (if you panic, you breathe faster and inhale more air/poison) leave the area and head upwind, or outside. Fresh air is the best "right now antidote." If you have a blob of liquid that looks like molasses or Karo syrup on you, blot it or scrape it off and away from yourself with anything disposable.

     This stuff works based on your body weight. What a crop duster uses to kill bugs won’t hurt you unless you stand there and breathe it in real deeply, then lick the residue off the ground for a while. Remember, they have to do all the work. They have to get the concentration up and keep it up for several minutes, while all you have to do is quit getting it on you or quit breathing it by putting space between you and the attack.

Blood Agents

     Blood agents are cyanide or arsine, which affect your blood’s ability to provide oxygen to your tissue. The scenario for attack would be the same as a nerve agent. Look for a pop or someone splashing/spraying something and folks around there getting woozy or falling down. The telltale smells are bitter almonds or garlic where it shouldn’t be. The symptoms are blue lips, blue under the fingernails, rapid breathing. The military’s antidote is body working for five minutes till the toxins are used up. Fresh air is your best individual chance.

Blister Agents

     Blister agents (distilled mustard) are so nasty that nobody wants to even handle it, let alone use it. It’s almost impossible to handle it safely and it may have a delayed effect of up to 12 hours.

     The attack scenario is also limited to the things you’d see from other chemicals. If you do get large, painful blisters for no apparent reason, don’t pop them. If you must, don’t let the liquid from the blister get on any other area; the stuff just keeps on spreading. It’s just as likely to harm the user as the target. Soap, water, sunshine and fresh air are this stuff’s enemy.

          The bottom line on chemical weapons is the same as what they use for industrial chemical spills. These weapons are intended to make you panic, to terrorize you, to herd you like sheep to the wolves. If there is an attack leave the area and go upwind, or to the sides of the wind stream. They have to get the stuff to you, and on you.

You’re more likely to be hurt by a drunk driver on any given day than to be hurt by one of these attacks. Your odds get better if you leave the area. Soap, water, time and fresh air really deal this stuff a knock-out punch. Don’t let fear of an isolated attack rule your life. The odds are really on your side.

Nuclear Bombs

     These are the only weapons of mass destruction on Earth. The effects of a nuclear bomb are heat, blast, EMP and radiation. If you see a bright flash of light like the sun, where the sun isn’t, fall to the ground! The heat will be over in a second. Then there will be two blast waves, one outgoing, and one on its way back. Don’t stand up to see what happened after the first wave. Anything that’s going to happen will have happened in two full minutes. These will be low yield devices and will not level whole cities.

     If you live through the heat, the blast and the initial burst of radiation, you’ll probably live for a very, very long time. Radiation will not create 50-foot-tall women, or giant ants and grasshoppers the size of tanks. These will be at the most 1 kiloton bombs, which is the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.

     Here’s the real deal. Flying debris and radiation will kill a lot of exposed (not all!) people within a half mile of the blast. Under perfect conditions this is about a half-mile circle of death and destruction. But, when it’s done, it’s done. EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse and it will fry every electronic device for a good distance. It’s impossible to say what and how far, but probably not over a couple of miles from ground zero is a good guess. Cars, cell phones, computers, ATMs, you name it, will all be out of order.

     There are lots of kinds of radiation. You only need to worry about three; the others you have lived with for years. You need to worry about "ionizing radiation." These are little subatomic particles that go whizzing along at the speed of light. They hit individual cells in your body, kill the nucleus, and keep on going. That’s how you get radiation poisoning. You have so many dead cells in your body that the decaying cells poison you. It’s the same as people who get radiation treatments for cancer, only a bigger area gets radiated. The good news is you don’t have to just sit there and take it, and there’s lot you can do rather than panic. First, your skin will stop alpha particles. A page of a newspaper or your clothing will stop beta particles. You just gotta try and avoid inhaling dust that’s contaminated with atoms that are emitting these things, and you’ll be generally safe from them.

Gamma rays are particles that travel like rays (quantum physics makes my brain hurt) and they create the same damage as alpha and beta particles, only they keep going and kill lots of cells as they go all the way through your body. It takes a lot to stop these things, lots of dense material. On the other hand, it takes a lot of this to kill you. Your defense is, as always, to not panic. Basic hygiene and normal preparation are your friends. All canned or frozen food is safe to eat. The radiation poisoning will not affect plants, so fruits and vegetables are OK if there’s no dust on ’em. (Rinse ’em off if there is.)

If you don’t have running water and you need to collect rain water or use water from wherever, just let is sit for 30 minutes and skim off the water gently from the top. The dust with the bad stuff in it will settle and the remaining water can be used for the toilet, which will still work if you have a bucket of water to pour in the tank.

Biological Warfare

Finally, there’s biological warfare. There’s not much to cover here. Basic personal hygiene and sanitation will take you further than a million dollars. Wash your hands often, don’t share drinks, food or sloppy kisses, etc., with strangers. Keep your garbage can with a tight lid on it, and don’t have standing water (such as old buckets, ditches or kiddie pools) lying around to allow mosquitoes breeding room. This stuff is carried by vectors, that is bugs, rodents and contaminated material. If biological warfare is so easy as the TV makes it sound, why has Saddam Hussein spent 20 years, and millions and millions of dollars trying to get it right?

If you’re clean of person and home, you eat well and are active, you’re gonna live. Overall preparation for any terrorist attack is the same as you’d take for a big storm. If you want a gas mask, fine, go get one. I know this stuff and I’m not getting one, and I told my mom not to bother with one either. (How’s that for confidence?) We have a week’s worth of cash, several days’ worth of canned goods and plenty of soap and water. We don’t leave stuff out to attract bugs or rodents, so we don’t have them.

These people can’t conceive of a nation this big with this many resources. These weapons are made to cause panic, terror, and to demoralize. If we don’t run around like sheep, they won’t use this stuff after they find out it’s no fun. The government is going nuts over this stuff, because they have to protect every inch of America. You’ve only got to protect yourself, and by doing that, you help the country.

Finally, there are millions of caveats to everything I wrote here, and you can think up specific scenarios where my advice isn’t the best. This article is supposed to help the greatest number of people under the greatest number of situations. If you don’t like my work, don’t nitpick, just sit down and explain chemical, nuclear and biological warfare in a document around three pages long yourself. This is how we, the people of the United States, can rob these people of their most desired goal - your terror.

SFC Red Thomas (Ret.)
Armor Master Gunner
Mesa, Arizona