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Words of Wisdom About Gas, Germs, and Nukes
By SFC Red Thomas, Armor Master Gunner
U.S. Army (Ret) 10.19.01
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.