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