Image is Everything

A while back my friend Kyle and I were in the middle of a good conversation about how drills we were taught to keep ourselves safe during various natural disasters were the end result of a brainstorming session loaded with marijuana and booze. Kyle brought up the idea of getting into your basement during a rainstorm, and I countered with getting under a doorway during an earthquake. We both laughed because these are probably the two worst ideas for protection, yet we still have pamphlets extorting their values. If you get into a basement during a torrential downpour, what, exactly, are you avoiding?? Any wind generated by this rainstorm that is strong enough to rip a house from its foundation will have no problem picking you up from the basement after it dispatches the house. And when it rains a crapload, doesn't flooding follow? And don't low-lying areas, which is pretty much the definition of any basement when compared to, say, the first floor of the house, flood first?

Katrina joke approachi... oh wait. Still too soon?

And really, earthquake experts? Get in the doorway?? Literally the only spot in the house where I can be convinced I am nowhere near the massive pieces of wood that are supported by the foundation? Yeah that's a great idea. I'll just hope that the small bit of wall above the door won't come crashing down while the rest of the house is still relatively stable. I really think that the people at FEMA sort of punted that one. I mean, what was the conversation there? Did they just realize "Well, we can't predict these things and we know for sure they are deadly so lets just throw them a bone move on to the next problem: Zombies."

This multi-racial, group of go-getters thinks that during fires, you should coat yourself with gasoline-soaked paper!! YAY!!

This thinking has been around a while. Too long. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, where we were on the brink of nuclear war and only John F. Kennedy's crack team of advisers and Kevin Costner could save the day, people my parents' age were taught to "duck and cover" in case of a preemptive attack. Because, apparently, the safest place to be during a nuclear missile strike is hunkered beneath a desk coated with lead paint in an asbestos-sealed room while your teachers in the break room swapped shots of bourbon. But in their defense, this was the 1950s, the zenith of good medical advice and paternalistic government. That sort of thinking just worked, along with the thought that woolen baseball uniforms were oh-so-comfy and Styrofoam was the best because it was just the single-use container we needed for burgers.

"God, when this is over I am so heading straight for my pack of doctor-recommended Lucky Strikes"

The deployed Army feels the same way, namely, providing the thought of protection is better than nothing. The concrete walls which surround literally everything were made by the lowest bidder, but they are concrete walls reinforced with rebar. They are fine! They will protect you in case of indirect fire!! And our outer tactical vest, or "bullet proof vest" has a crotch protector filled with kevlar to protect your... ahem... sensitive areas from shrapnel. This is all well and good: well-built, properly emplaced bunkers can provide cover from any number of bad things people can do to you. And most books about the parachute invasion which preceded D-Day tell of Paratroopers in the DC-30s flying over occupied France sitting on their helmets, lest a stray piece of flak ruin their chances of pushing their son to succeed where they failed.


Images can be deceiving, however. The bunkers on my base appear to be made from a highly scientific mixture of concrete and cotton candy. Seriously, I have yet to see one of these concrete structures without superficial damage, and during hard rain storms, the bases of them are always slightly more eroded away than before. Rain, at last count, was significantly less powerful than mortars... I think we might be in trouble. And the crotch protector?? Most guys don't wear them. My old platoon sergeant used to laugh at those who did, wondering out loud if anyone ever came back from a mission saying "You know what saved my life?? This crotch protector!" It provides minimal protection, and kevlar, while bulletproof, can really only stop 9mm rounds... you know, the kind of rounds that the Iraqis, Iranians and Afghans physically cannot use in their preferred weapon, the AK-47. It even fails to protect the femoral artery, for the most part. All it really does is get in the way when you need to pee.

You can be just like me kids!! Just remember: Safety First!! Wear your helmet and your crotch protector!!

Fact is, though, even when you know you are taking a placebo, it still works. I was trying to explain indirect fire or IEDs to someone once. It is hard to do. When you are driving and you hear screeching tires, you tense up, move your foot to the brakes, and check all around for the vehicle you know is headed directly toward you. You can't help it. Ask yourself, though: how many times has the screeching sound been followed by a crash you could actually hear and see? Rarely, if ever. It would seem we should have developed a Pavlovian Response to screeching tires: since they rarely lead to accidents we ought to be able to dismiss them as white noise and drive on. But we haven't. Take the tensing up whenever you hear the screeching sound and apply it to mortar attacks. Insurgents and other ne'er-do-wells like to lob indirect fire at night. When it comes, everyone gets woken up by sirens, blaring "Incoming! Incoming!" No matter how often you try to just roll over in bed and go back to sleep, you can't. You can hear them approaching as the air makes way and the low whine turns into a shriek. You tense up and try to put it out of your mind. But there is nothing you can do. You can get under the bunkers provided for you, but one lucky hit renders those useless. I was in a room that literally shook from the concussive blast of a mortar round and we were protected by 15 foot tall, 6 inch wide concrete walls. Thing is, we head for the bunkers nevertheless, because the illusion of protection is better than nothing at all. It is interesting because you would think that 8 years would have taught us better technologies at surviving mortar attacks than something Grant used at Petersburg. You would be wrong. He must have known the same thing: a placated Army is a more effective Army.


I still hate the crotch protectors, though.