This has been bothering me for 40 years.
When I was receiving tear gas training in Basic Training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, we were instructed that the command to take off our masks was “all clear”. Okay, that’s reasonable enough. We practiced responding to that command about fifty times (the army doesn't like to leave anyone behind), and then we were driven to an old ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere, where we were to experience tear gas up close and personal.
We were all commanded to don our gas masks, and then in groups of twenty or so, were led into the living room of the old house. We assembled in the living room (yeah, I could tell that once upon a time a family gathered around a radio in this cozy room listening to Fred Allen), where in the middle of the dirt floor was a smoking pile of tear gas pellets. I’ll tell you, looking around the darkened room at this group of men in olive drab uniforms, all of which were wearing helmets and gas masks was off-putting to say the least.
Anyway, the sergeant told us that after we removed our gas masks, we were to shout our name, rank and serial number (which at that time was our Social Security Number---I wonder if they’ve changed that due to the specter of identity theft in today’s world?) and then exit the room via the hallway, which led past the kitchen and bedrooms to the backdoor.
Before I knew it, I heard “ALL CLEAR!” and everyone was removing their masks. But not me. As I could see the billowing clouds of tear gas, I knew very well that it was anything but ‘clear’, so I stood there, not knowing what else to do, while everyone shouted their names, rank and serial numbers.
"Why aren't you removing you mask, Private?" The sergeant shouted.
"Sergeant, you said that it's all clear, and I can see that it isn't."
The sergeant then ordered everyone to exit the house, but pointed at me, and said “but not you.” I could tell from his tone of voice that my immediate future was in the hands of a sadist. After everyone left and I was standing mask to mask with the sergeant, he said “Take off your f*ing mask!” Okay, I understood that, and immediately complied to his order. Then things got a little bizarre.
“Where are you from, troop?” he asked.
“Monterey, California, drill sergeant!” The first whiffs of the gas kinda hit me, but it really wasn’t too bad.
“So” the sergeant asked, “have you ever been to the ‘Guilded Cage’?
I realized that he had once been stationed at Fort Ord, as the Guilded Age was a homosexual bar in downtown Monterey. I also realized that, in a not too subtle way, he was calling me a homosexual , or a Nancy boy, as he believed I was afraid to take off my mask.
I managed to say “no, drill sergeant, that’s not my bag” before getting a huge dose of tear gas in my lungs. I kind of reflexively gasped, but damn it, I would have stood there, in a room full of gas, answering questions until I either passed out (which was a distinct possiblility as each passing second the atmosphere increasingly resembled that of Venus), or I was ordered to leave: I really was a good soldier. To the best of my recollection, he did ask me a few more questions, and then told me to ‘get the f**k outta here’.
As soon as I was outside, my nose and eyes exploded like a cloudburst in the Amazon, and my skin felt like it was on fire. When I got on the bus, all the other wimps (yeah, wimps, they had to deal with less than ten seconds with the gas, while I managed 30 or 40 seconds minimum) were staring at me. I didn’t think of it then, but afterwards, and to this day, I wonder whether they all thought I was a coward, when in actuality, it was merely my instinctual objection to a ridiculous command.
To set the record straight: I wasn't afraid to take off my mask. The order "All Clear" was absurd. I hope the modern army has changed the order (in training) to something like "Remove masks"--something I would have complied with immediately.
On the other hand, the army expects soldiers to obey commands, and in this case, perhaps I was wrong. I do know this: If I could go back in time, I would have removed my mask at the order, and then afterwards suggested to the sergeant a more appropriate command, saving myself a lot of grief, not to mention face.
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