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Essay Eleven
Hold Your Breath
At an Army school I attended after the war, I saw a movie of some men who had
been experimentally subjected to a light dose of a new military gas. This chemical
weapon was not supposed to do any permanent damage to the human body: it only made
people act silly and "incapable of taking purposeful action appropriate to the situation." It
seemed to work; at least the subjects were unable to follow orders in a simple marching
drill. They all turned in different directions, bumping into each other and eventually
collapsing in a fit of giggles.
But it didn't take a new gas to make people act silly. All it needed was the mere
suggestion of gas - any kind of gas - to make clowns out of soldiers.
The last gas scare we had was sometime in the spring of 1945, when we were
loping across Germany like a dog chasing a large cat - trying to keep it moving fast
enough so it wouldn't have time to turn and give us a face full of claws.
Arlo Knowles, who had replaced me as S-2, came to me in the fire direction
center. "Major, this just came in by radio from Mendicino. What do you think I should do
about it?"
I looked at the decoded message in his hand. "There is an unconfirmed, repeat
unconfirmed report that we have had some casualties from gas. Am investigating.
Recommend necessary precautions."
I held the scrap of paper in my hand, absently noting the coffee stain in the corner.
A number of thoughts ran through my mind. Vince Mendicino was liaison officer with
the 3rd Battalion of the 359th, and he was not a man to panic easily. If he thought this
rumor was worth reporting, it probably should be taken seriously, and the men should be
warned to collect up their gas masks and prepare to don them.
However ...
I tried to think when I had last seen my own gas mask. I seemed to remember
hanging it on a nail in the kitchen of a farmhouse we were using as a CP, back in
November - or was it December? I could not recall taking it down again, nor having seen
it since.
How many of our people were in the same situation? I
tried to think if I had
noticed anyone carrying a mask recently, but could not. If they had not lost them, they
had them stashed on a truck somewhere.
If we warned everyone to prepare for a gas attack, it might save the lives or lungs
of those who had and could find theirs, but wouldn't it cause a panic among those who
did not or could not?
Panic was a word that I associated with warnings of gas attack.
Even away back, during training at Camp Barkeley, Chemical Warfare instruction
was associated with pandemonium. When a bunch of men attempt to put on gas masks
while holding their helmets between their knees and remembering not to breathe - well,
visualize it.
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