On Tear-Gas

I sat and watched some news piece this morning over the crowd at the Texas border, and the use of tear-gas.  The journalist (safe to say they were awful supportive of the migrant guys)....laid out this terrible in-humane use of tear-gas.  After sixty seconds of their chatter, you had this feeling that it was the 'end of the world' for these people who'd been hit with the tear-gas.

I sat over this.

Around in January of 1978 (six months into my enlistment into the Air Force), I was in-processing through the last part of Rhein Main's introduction period, which meant a half-day of fake combat training (my term for it).  You had to be able to grasp the wearing of the chem-warfare suit, and there was this three-hour period where they talked about the terrible things which would occur if war started up and the Soviets used chemical warfare. 

Then came this brief one-hour introduction to the gas-mask, and a visit to the 'room'.  You basically entered with a group of five folks and the instructor....with the full-up mask on.  The instructor had some tear-gas capsule set off, and he wanted you to take the mask off....count to three....then put the mask back on. 

You got a pretty good 'huff' of tear-gas.  Then he let you leave the chamber.  It was one of those miserable experiences that you disliked, and repeated every twelve months, for the next 18 years.  Toward the last three years in the Air Force, I found various ways to skip out and miss the training episode.  So I probably did at least fifteen of these tear-gas episodes. 

I kinda look at the journalist hype and just start laughing.  It's harsh stuff, but it won't kill you.  If you don't like tear-gas....don't get into some stupid environment where it's going to be used.