I hope this calms a few fears.

This is the most sensible discussion I have ever seen on this
subject.

The "Real" Deal about Nuclear, Bio, and Chem Attacks by SFC Red
Thomas(Ret)



---
Since the media has 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 1990's there were 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.

"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 air borne 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 (pollen) and air pollution are worst at these times of the day. So, a chemical attack will have it's best effect an hour of so either side of sunrise/sunset.

Also, being vapors and airborne particles they 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. They've got 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 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 (like Raid) which a 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 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,
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 up wind, 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 awhile. 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/quit breathing it by putting space between you and the attack.

Blood agents are cyanide or arsine which effect your blood's
ability to provide oxygen to your tissue. The scenario for attack would be the same as nerve agent. Look for a pop or someone splashing/spraying something and folks around there getting woozy/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 the your best individual chance.

__________________
1988 420SEL 170K

Blister agents (distilled mustard) are so nasty that nobody
wants to even handle it let alone use it. It's almost impossible to handle safely and may have 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.

Bottom line on chemical weapons (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. 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 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 a second. Then there will be two blast waves, one out going, and one on it's 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, 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 grass hoppers 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 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 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, compoters, ATMs, you name it, all will
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 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 radiated. The good news is you don't have to just sit there and take it, and there's 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, 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 effect 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 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.

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 kiddie 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 so 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, you eat well, and are active, you're gonna live.

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 letter is supposed to help the greatest number of people under the greatest number of situations. If you don't like my work, don't nit pick, 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

__________________
1988 420SEL 170K

Great information! I will share this with my wife, who implores me to take drastic pro-active counter-terrorist measures anytime someone is reported to have farted in our general direction!

__________________
2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

I really thought they did a nice job on this piece. Much it is common sense but it's nice to see it all put together in a clear way. Wouldn't it be nice if the news could bother to do the same?

I'm always amazed how willing they are to wind everyone up for the sake of a few rating points. News should not be entertainment! sigh...

__________________
1988 420SEL 170K

Knowledge should never be a single source matter, we need to look to many educated, and informed sources before we reach a conclusion.

Examples of my skepticism would lie with the FACT that mustard gas was used to devastating effect in the first world war, "Public revulsion at the use of chemical weapons in World War I led to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which bans the use of poison gases in war. Consequently, allegations of chemical weapons use have been accompanied by intense international concern and scrutiny." Physicians for Human Rights

And that Saddam attacked the Kurds with poison gases and as a result, killed 5,000 people and left 65,000 others facing severe skin and respiratory diseases, abnormal rates of cancer and birth defects, and a devastated environment.

"Reliable testimony which confirmed the use of chemical weapons included: (1) bombing runs by low-flying jets were followed by the appearance of dark yellow clouds from the bomb-bursts; (2) death came suddenly to birds and domestic fowl, followed by sheep, goats, cows, and mules. Humans also died within minutes, without evidence of physical trauma; (3) refugees who had been within 75 to 500 meters of bomb-bursts described skin blistering which began within 30 minutes of exposure, and a characteristic pattern of severe irritation of the nose, mouth, skin and respiratory passages, nausea and/or vomiting, diarrhea, headache and painful urination." Physicians for Human Rights

Oh, and please show your references:

[color=dark red]REFERENCES

(1) Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons: Report of the Secretary-General. New York, NY: United Nations; 1981. Publication A/36/613.
(2) An Epidemiological Investigation of Alleged CW/BW Incidents in Southeast Asia. Ottawa: Government of Canada; 1982.
(3) Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan: Report to the Congress From Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. Washington, DC: US Dept of State; 1982.
(4) Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan: Report to the Congress From Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. Washington, DC: US Dept of State; 1982. Annex B.
(5) Ember LR. Yellow rain. Chem Engineer News. 1984;62:8-34.
(6) Evans G. The Yellow Rainmakers. Thetford, United Kingdom: The Thetford Press; 1983.
(7) Robinson J, Guillelmin J, Meselson M. Yellow rain: the story collapses. Foreign Policy. 1987;68:100-117.
(8) Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan - An Update: Report of the Secretary of State George P. Schultz. Washington, DC: US Dept of State; 1982.
(9) Seeley TD, Nowicke JW, Meselson M, Guillemin J, Akratanakul P. Yellow rain. Sci Am. 1985;253:128-137.
(10) London Times. September 2, 1988.
(11) New York Times. September 1, 4, and 5, 1988.
(12) Washington Post. September 1, 3, 4, and 5, 1988.
(13) London Guardian. September 14, 1988.
(14) Iraqi News Agency. September 2, 1988.
(15) Economist. September 10, 1988.
(16) London Times. September 15 and 19, 1988.
(17) London Observer. October 2, 1988,
(18) New York Times. September 10 and 12, 1988.
(19) New York Times. September 10, 1988.
(20) Winds of Death: Iraq's Use of Poison Gas Against Its Kurdish Population. Somerville, Mass: Physicians for Human Rights; 1989.
(21) New York Times. September 15, 1988.
(22) Washington Post. September 17, 1988.
(23) Chemical genocide in Iraq? Science. 1988;241:1752.
(24) Washington Post. September 16, 1988.
(25) Requena L, Requena C, Sanchez M, et al. Cutaneous lesions from mustard gas. J Am Acad Dermatol. 1988;19:529-536.
(26) Vedder EB. Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare. Baltimore, Md: Williams & Wilkins; 1925.
(27) Hay A, Roberts G. The use of poison gas against the Iraqi Kurds, II: analysis of shell fragments, soil, and well samples. JAMA. In press.
(28) Government of Canada. Handbook for the Investigation of Allegations of the Use of Chemical or Biological Weapons. Ottawa, Canada: The University of Saskatchewan and the Dept of External Affairs; 1985.
(29) United Nations, Security Council. Report of the Specialists Appointed by the Secretary-General to Investigate Allegations by the Islamic Republic of Iran Concerning the Use of Chemical Weapons. New York, NY: United Nations. Documents 5/15834 (June 2, 1983), 5/16433 (March 26, 1984), 5/18852 (May 8, 1987), 5/19823 (April 25, 1988), 5/20063 (July 25, 1988), and 5/20134 (August 19, 1988).
(30) United Nations, Security Council. Report of the Mission Dispatched by the Secretary-General to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Conflict Between the Islam Republic of Iran and Iraq. New York, NY: United Nations; March 12, 1986. Document 5/17911.[/color]

__________________

Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

Since you addressed your reply to me I should point out that this isn't my work but a copy of an article that was sent to me. That being said I don't see much information in the quotes you are referencing that wasn't covered in the article. It doesn't deny that these weapons exist, nor that they are horrible.

Obviously the point of the article was not intended to give us a false sense of security but just to point out the difficulty of delivering such devices. As your own quote points out, they require low-flying planes or bombs with a relatively small blast radius.

In fact I would refer you to his closing paragraph:

"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 letter is supposed to help the greatest number of people under the greatest number of situations. If you don't like my work, don't nit pick, 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."

This is nothing more than a guide that provides the reader with a series of common sense ways of dealing with a situation like this one if they were ever unfortunate enough to be exposed to it. I would love to have the time to take off of work to research all of the sources that you've gathered but frankly I just don't have the luxury. That being said I am happy to have at least read a concise, abridged version of those sources. If you would like to take the time to write an article yourself, I would happily read that one as well.

__________________
1988 420SEL 170K

I did not address my reply to you except in terms of reference, and believe me, it was quite clear who the material was credited to. Thanks for providing the information, but please show the source where you got it from. If you can't, then don't post heresay.

There's a lot of unsubstantiated crap and half-truths on the internet that have to be countered with facts. As Sam Clemens once said "Don't believe anything you read, and only half of what you actually see".

You did not post a reference for the material, or show any alternate or subsequent sources for additional material for or against the material you posted. If anyone posts material on these forums, I feel that they need to be accurate and credible in content and source.

All I ask of anyone is that they be accurate, show their sources, and make an intelligent and informed point backed up by factual material that can be referenced. If you feel that applies to you, then we should have no issue with each other.

However, chemical, biological, nuclear and gas weaponry is serious business, not to be taken lightly, or downplayed by a single source. I have studied weapons of mass destruction, as they are now called, for decades. And I am never underwhelmed by the extents that people will go to develop weapons to injure, maim, kill, or as the inventors of the Gatlin and Maxim rapid fire weapons believed, to end warfare forever. And that applies to the atomic and hydrogen bombs as well.

Remember that information is power, and accurate information is essential to survival.

__________________

Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

Scott,

I certainly share your sentiment regarding weapons of mass distruction and a certain amazment at our willingness to continue to think up new and more horrible ways to kill eachother. But I don't think that every internet posting needs to be a scholarly essay. I have written my share of those, believe me, and this simply isn't the right format for that sort of thing.

Your caution regarding the proliferation of false advice is appreciated and I don't disagree that there is too much disinformation out there. This article however is not specific enough to require that level of support you are asking for. It is just a few general rules of thumb for emergency situations. More like first aid than medical diagnosis.

I have quite a bit of expereince with emergency medical situations and having read this carefully I can't think of much I would do differently in the same circumstance. Don't panic, get out the the area, clean youself off, seek medical attention. Stabalize and transport, its the mantra of every EMT and ER-MD in the land.

Regarding you requests for alternate or subsequent sources for additional material, I was hoping that others might chip in a bit and between the lot of us we might put together a series of reasources to use. Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case but I was trying to spark a little conversation on preparation not footnoting technique. Owell...

__________________
1988 420SEL 170K

I'm not on about "footnoting technique" or something being a "scholarly essay". I am driven by curiousity and a healthy amount of skepticism. I want to know where material comes from, how accurate it is, and if the writer is a real person, if they did their research and can show references, or if it's all made up. As it turns out, Google gives over 1380 hits on the author's name referencing this material.

I appreciate your posting this material, and I understand and applaud your motives. I also want to salute Sergeant Thomas for his service to our country and honor him for writing this material in an effort to share his experience and knowledge.

However, one of the things that disturbed me about the accuracy of his material was his reference to: "Blister agents (distilled mustard)". Mustard gas has nothing to do with mustard itself and is not distilled from mustard. The term simply comes from the yellow color of the gas. Also, his allegations are incorrect in many other areas. For Instance "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." Wrong, the liquid contents of a blister are not toxic, they're your own bodily fluid.

There was an article on this material from The Washington Post titled "Take This, Terrorist Boogeyman, By Don Oldenburg, a Washington Post Staff Writer. It appeared on Thursday, December 13, 2001; on Page C01. Link To Article In that article is the following passage:

"The Army itself took a look at "The Real Deal," and "nitpick" is not exactly the word for its response. "He is trying to minimize the dread and terror associated with these weapons. However, many of [Thomas's] claims are incorrect," reported Maj. William King, Maj. Keith Carroll and R. Scott Farrar, experts from the Army's 84th Chemical Battalion based at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in an e-mail to The Washington Post.

Thomas's conclusions about why the 1995 sarin attack in Tokyo killed so few people were flat-out wrong, they said. Thomas wrote that only 12 people died, a fact that he believes disproved expert predictions that one drop could kill a thousand people and demonstrated that biochem weapons aren't that effective in real life.

His comparison of nerve gas to household bug killers like Raid is "wrong info," they said, as was his stating that the fluid in blisters caused by mustard gas is dangerous. Thomas's take on nukes and biological weapons ignores their potential catastrophic consequences, they say.

Furthermore, the Army's experts said they "absolutely disagree that an attack with military-grade agents is 'incredibly hard to do.' Two months ago, any one of a dozen experts would have told you that the use of anthrax was beyond the means of even the most sophisticated terrorists."

Still, the Army experts call his advice to "put space between you and the attack" generally "reasonable for unprotected persons." And his "editorializing" on the low odds of an individual becoming a victim of terrorism wasn't bad either: "Individually, we are in more danger of traffic accidents than getting hit with chemical attack. However, as drivers we can take precautions to lessen that probability."

The Army's last word: "Retired SFC Red Thomas's article offers some common sense advice for unprotected victims of a NBC [nuclear/biochemical] attack. However, his article doesn't reflect the U.S. Army's position for individual defense and contains an overwhelming amount of incorrect material. . . ."

It is also listed in the Snopes website at this link: Urban Legends Their synopsis is:

For those who care about such things, Red Thomas is indeed a real person who lives in Mesa, Arizona, and who says that he retired from the Army several years ago after twenty years' service which included his receiving training in nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons. (NBC training is not uncommon, as the Army requires that "every company, battery, or troop have a chemical NCO, a school-trained NBC officer, and a school-trained enlisted alternative.")

As for the substance of this piece, although it may be full of sober information and advice -- even if chemical attacks don't kill as many people as widely believed, biological warfare is harder to wage than we might think, and terrorists probably only have "low-yield" nuclear weapons that won't level entire cities -- we're not sure the message people are taking from it is the one intended. The typical civilian isn't trained to deal with dangerous situations, doesn't enter into his daily routine with the expectation that he might be the target of an attack, and doesn't think of human life in terms of acceptable losses. He doesn't much care whether a particular form of terrorist attack is going to kill two people or two hundred thousand; he just doesn't want to be one of the victims himself. Much of the reaction we've seen to this piece is from people taking it as a "Don't worry -- this won't happen to you" reassurance, and that's the wrong message.

Chemical agents may be difficult to use effectively, but the Aum Shinrikyo cult still managed to kill a dozen people by releasing nerve gas into Japanese subways at rush hour in 1995. Some simple precautions might blunt much of the danger posed by bioterrorism, but an outbreak of smallpox could still wreak deadly havoc on a population. A one-kiloton bomb may not create "fifty foot tall women or giant ants," but we know all too well how much death and destruction even the crudest of bombs can deliver. That any of these methods might not be as effective at killing people as we fear doesn't mean that terrorists won't use them, and that people won't die when they do. (History has long demonstrated that terrorists willing to engage in acts such as suicide bombings of civilians or flying airliners into office buildings aren't dissuaded by thoughts that their actions "aren't much fun" and "do them little good," and it's unlikely that any of the recent anthrax victims succumbed because they failed to be "clean of person and home" or "eat well and be active.")

This isn't to say that Mr. Thomas' overall points -- that many potential dangers are greatly exaggerated, that these exaggerations can make it all too easy to paralyze a nation through fear and panic, and that the average citizen can best help himself and his country by being well-informed -- aren't well-taken. They are. But don't fall into the comfortable trap of thinking that "things aren't as dangerous as I feared" is the same as "there is no danger."

That's what I wanted to know when I first read what you posted, and that's all I'd like people to understand about it.

__________________

Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."