Words of Wisdom About Gas, Germs, and Nukes
[Got this in an email from my mother, who received it from a friend in Missouri, who received it from someone who had double checked the validity with snopes.com. -Thomas]
Words of Wisdom About Gas, Germs, and Nukes
By SFC Red Thomas, Armor Master Gunner
U.S. Army (Ret) 10.19.01
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Since the media have decided to scare everyone with predictions of
chemical, biological, or nuclear warfare on our turf I decided to
write a paper and keep things in their proper perspective. I am a
retired military weapons, munitions, and training expert.
Lesson number one: In the mid 1990s there was a series of nerve gas
attacks on crowded Japanese subway stations. Given perfect conditions
for an attack, less than 10% of the people there were injured (the
injured were better in a few hours) and only one percent of the
injured died. CBS-Television’s 60 Minutes once had a fellow telling
us that one drop of nerve gas could kill a thousand people. He didn’t
tell you the thousand dead people per drop was theoretical. Drill
Sergeants exaggerate how terrible this stuff is 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 means
of “Area Denial,” effective to keep an enemy out of a particular zone
for a limited period of time: 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. Any
such agent must be delivered in sufficient quantity to kill or
injure, and that defines when and how it’s used.
Every day we have a morning and evening atmospheric inversion where
“stuff,” suspended in the air gets pushed down. This inversion is why
allergies (pollen) and air pollution are worst at these times of the
day.
So, a chemical attack will have its best effect an hour of so either
side of sunrise or sunset. Also, being vapors and airborne particles,
the agents are heavier than air, so they will seek low places like
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 fast.
Attackers have to get this stuff on you, or, get you to inhale it, for
it to work. They also have to get the concentration of chemicals high
enough to kill or injure 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 achieve with military grade agents and equipment. So you can
imagine how hard it would be for terrorists. The more you know about
this stuff, the more you realize how hard it is to use.
A Case of Nerves
We’ll start by talking about nerve agents. You have these in your
house: plain old bug killer (like Raid) is 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 you to inhale it. If you don’t die in the first minute and
you can leave the area, you’re probably going to live.
The military’s antidotes for all nerve agents are 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, 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 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 deep, then lick the residue off the ground for while.
Remember, the attackers 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 and quit breathing it by putting
space between yourself and the attack.
Bad Blood and Blisters
Blood agents are cyanide or arsine. They affect your blood’s ability
to provide oxygen to your tissues. The scenario for attack would be
the same as nerve agent. Look for a pop or someone splashing or
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 amyl nitride and, just like nerve agent
antidote, it just keeps your body working for five minutes till the
toxins are used up. Fresh air is the your best individual chance
Blister agents (distilled mustard) are so nasty that nobody wants to
even handle them, let alone use them. Blister agents are just as
likely to harm the user as the target. They’re almost impossible to
handle safely and may have delayed effects 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.
Soap, water, sunshine, and fresh air are this stuff’s enemy.
Bottom line on chemical weapons (and it’s the same if they use
industrial chemical spills): They 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. You’re more likely to be hurt by a drunk driver on any given
day than 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.
Up and Atom
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 a second. Then
there will be two blast waves, one out going, and one on its way
back. Don’t stand up to see what happened after the first wave. Wait.
Everything that’s going to happen will have happened in two full
minutes.
Any nuclear weapons used by terrorists will be low yield devices and
will not level whole cities. If you live through the heat, blast, and
initial burst of radiation, you’ll probably live for a very very long
time. Radiation will not create fifty foot tall women, or giant ants
and grasshoppers the size of tanks. These will be at the most 1
kiloton bombs; that’s the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.
Here’s the real hazard: 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 Electro Magnetic 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, all will be
out of order. There are lots of kinds of radiation, but ,
physically,you only need to worry about three: alpha, beta, and
gamma. The others you have lived with for years.
You need to worry about “Ionizing radiation,” little sub atomic
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 getting radiation treatments for cancer, only a bigger area
gets irradiated.
The good news is you don’t have to just sit there and take it, and
there are lots you can do rather than panic. First, your skin will
stop alpha particles, a page of a news paper or your clothing will
stop beta particles. Then you just have to 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 them (Rinse them 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 it sit for thirty 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.
The Germs’ Terms
Finally there’s biological warfare. There’s not much to cover here.
Basic personal hygiene and sanitation will take you further than a
million doctors. Wash your hands often, don’t share drinks, food,
sloppy kisses, etc., …with strangers. Keep your garbage can with a
tight lid on it, don’t have standing water (like old buckets,
ditches, or kiddy pools) laying around to allow mosquitoes breeding
room.
This stuff is carried by vectors, that is bugs, rodents, and
contaminated material. If biological warfare is as easy as the TV
makes it sound, why has Saddam Hussein spent twenty years, millions,
and millions of dollars trying to get it right? If you’re clean of
person and home, eat well and are active, you’re going to 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 terrorist people can’t conceive of a nation this big with as
much resources as it has. 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 and does them
little good. The government is going nuts over this stuff because
they have to protect every inch of America. You only have 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 in which my advice wouldn’t be
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, AZ
Unlimited reproduction and distribution is authorized. Just give me
credit for my work, and, keep in context.
