By Charles Springer
I’m sitting here at Santa Monica College, thinking of what to write. I have already written several pieces on this war and some observations when I was in China.
Hey, how about duct tape and plastic! Yeah, that’s what the powers that be tell us to use in case of an attack by these evil terrorists. Do you think these people will send us an e-mail or flier telling us when they are going to attack and what they will be using? If anyone who reads this column is a combat-trained and salted veteran as I am you would be laughing.
When I was in the Marines, I was in 3rd Recon, Force Recon. Basically what I did was go behind enemy lines and work. We were trained in N.B.C. which is nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. This was in the late 70s and early 80s. The things we had to do to prepare for an attack like the one that the we are told will happen here is going to take a hell of a lot more than duct tape and plastic. There are suits designed to keep these agents out as well as gas masks. And from what I was taught in this training is that most everything else is useless against the chemical and biological agents.
And nothing is safe in the case of a nuclear attack, unless you have a lead-lined fallout shelter in your house stocked with about two to three months worth of food and water. Fallout from even a dirty bomb will be around for months to years and the ground zero will be all but useless for far longer.
If you do not what a dirty bomb is, it is a low order detonation designed to deliver any type of agent into the atmosphere without destroying the majority of the agent used. And they can be made out of virtually anything that does not create much heat when it explodes, like cow manure. And outside of the bio and chemical agents you can get a type of radioactive pellet to use in medical supply stores. These pellets with a large enough explosion can irradiate a three-to 10-mile area and make it uninhabitable for months to years. I learned over 24 years ago.
I think the technology we have today is far superior to what it was then and the people we are dealing with are only concerned with causing as much damage as possible to as many people as possible. And these are the people our nation’s leaders are really agitating. So while we are looking to the skies for planes to ram buildings, they are going to start on the ground. They have already, in their minds, proven that we are not invulnerable to attack. And, as I have stated in a previous column, we would be fools to think that there are no sleeper cells here that have been recruiting for years. So, maybe we should be on alert for them to send out those fliers and e-mails telling us to prepare so we can put protect ourselves with duct tape and plastic. (Charles Springer is homeless and living in Santa Monica.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 24, 2003. Read the original PDF.