Week six brought an entirely new excitement to Basic Training. For the past six weeks we had been toting on our side a green bag about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle that fit snuggly on our waste. Within the bag was a “Mask, Protective, Chemical”. For some reason or another, the great Army thought that it would be neat to label everything in reverse order, like “bag, sleeping” or “canteen, drinking” or “sex, anal” (which believe it or not, is strictly forbidden by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, male or female).
So, week six we start learning how to use our masks. The task is stated to give you the ability to dawn your mask within 9 seconds after Drill Sergeant yells “GAS! GAS! GAS!” Seems simple, but is more like trying to learn to be the fastest gun in the West. Quite often you would scramble around inside the bag so much, drop the mask on the ground, stumble around after it, and then finally get it on after about 45 seconds. Yup, pushups.
After a week of practicing, we all finally get it down. My best time, 4 and a half seconds. Somewhere a while back, someone in a decision making position decided that it was not enough for us to be able to put our masks on in fractions of seconds. So they thought about how they can make this task more fun for us! The next step was to learn “Mask Confidence”. This was how it showed up on the training schedule for us. It was a mysterious day that no one knew what to expect from, and Drill Sergeant for sure wasn’t divulging any secrets of.
The day came around and we road-marched for four hours to a small undisclosed sight on post. We road- marched everywhere. Road-marching was all about travelling long distances at extremely early times in the morning - tactically of course. I always figured it was about the government saving a few pennies on busses. Nonetheless, we road-marched for four hours to a small undisclosed sight down an undisclosed road with a small, yet charming, cement building. It was about 20 feet x 20 feet, had no windows, and only 2 doors. Needless to say it was not your typical raised ranch colonial.
There was something foul about the air. I had developed quite a cold during week six so my nostrils were completely clogged and I couldn’t very well breathe, let alone smell anything. However, even with clogged nostrils you could sense something not right with the air; the lingering stench of death perhaps? Who knew?
We ended our road march and formed up* in front of the building. Drill Sergeant yelled “GAS! GAS! GAS!” and it finally dawned on us what was going on. We were going to learn that our masks work! Or at least that’s the lesson we hoped we would learn. So we dawned our masks on and marched single file into the building where we found another drill sergeant, all masked up, cooking a can of Foldier’s Coffee. How sweet, Drill Sergeant brought us all the way out here to get us a cup of coffee. That’s what the can said at least; turned out to be filled to the brim with CS. A chemical that once turned aerosol, would wreak havoc on ones ability to breathe. Tear gas in short.
We were instructed to walk around with our masks on and experience normal breathing. I did - the guy behind me didn’t have his mask on correctly and I could hear him starting to gag a little. About 30 seconds in, every nerve ending on your body began to remind you that it was still there. Any exposed flesh became a beat red color and burned like the dickens.
We would walk around in the room, circling the smoldering can of CS, for about 2 minutes like this, breathing normally, and the exercise would be complete. Upon completion, Drill Sergeant called us to the back door, one by one. I was first, thank God! I made my way to the door. Strategically, Drill Sergeant positioned himself right in front of the door. I stood there in front of him and he directed that on his command, I was to remove my mask, take a deep breath, and tell him my name, my unit, and where I was from.
I figured that, like my skin, I would have a couple seconds to ramble all this out and bolt for the door. What I hadn’t anticipated is that once you remove your mask, you can’t get past the deep breath part. I remember thinking “how stupid of me to exhale before I removed my mask”. I got almost about to gasp a little air in and I experienced complete involuntary shutdown and unresponsiveness from my eyes, nose, mouth, and throat. I could not even gasp. I just stood there suffocating for a few seconds while Drill Sergeant looked at me asking me what my name was. I looked back at him just generally shaking my head and pointing at my throat. No words to be heard or spoken from me. He exclaimed “You don’t know your name!?” Then graciously allowed me a few more moments to think about it and instructed me to run out the back door waving my arms in the air and yell “I can see! I can breathe!”. This of course was a lie, for I could do neither, nor could I speak for that matter.
I ran out the back door and the next thing I knew, there was gobs and gobs of snot, saliva, and phlegm oozing from just about every hole in my head. There was enough bodily fluids being excreted from my nose alone to fill my “canteen, drinking” 50 times over.
Once all was said and done, I remember no longer being sick! My sinuses were crystal clear and I had never breathed so clear before in my life. It was the cure to the flu! We then packed up our things and were instructed by Drill Sergeant to thoroughly clean our masks.
The next morning, Drill Sergeant called “GAS! GAS! GAS!”, and had us dawn our masks once again. Wouldn’t you know, the same knucklehead that didn’t have his mask on correctly in the room, also did not know how to clean his mask. After about 10 seconds, he started whining and yelping like a dog with its paw stepped on. He removed his mask to reveal a beat red face followed by a “canteen, drinking” full amount of snot to land graciously on his cleanly pressed BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform).
* Forming up is the process of running to a location where Drill Sergeant is standing when he yells the words “FALL IN”. Once at indicated location, you are to find your assigned spot among squad members and all stand in a perfect square directly beside the people on your sides and directly behind those in front of you. On a good day, 2 drill sergeants will stand on opposite sides of the parade field and yell “FALL IN” and “FALL OUT” at each other. We of course, drones that we were, would run aimlessly back and forth until the drill sergeants became tired.
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