Originally Posted by Courtney Mil
Whoever made that statement clearly didn't spend years doing excercises in Europe during the Cold War. I came to love the inside on my NBC kit, colpro, entry/exit drills. I'm so indoctrinated that I still have a tray of Fuller's Earth inside my front door instead of a doormat.
That was 20+ years ago... and in a completely different mental culture.
And even then it was a losing battle in many parts of the military.
As a USMC Sgt in 1988 I was assigned "collateral duty" as a team leader (1 of 4) for MAG-11's NBC group... all but the 4-5 admin personnel were "part-timers" with full-time duties elsewhere in the Group.
Almost none of us had, or ever would, attend the 2-week NBC training course that regulations required 100% of us to have attended immediately upon assignment to the NBC teams.
As team leader for the monitor/survey section I tried like h&ll to get my 10 men (including myself) sent through the school... in 4+ months I only got 1 man sent (not me), and then they decided that a 2x1/2-day refresher course would suffice instead of the 2-week course.
When I went through basic training in 1981 everyone was required to remove our masks and repeat our name & SSN out loud while in the gas chamber filled with tear gas... guaranteeing we would get exposed. This had a very definite result that we took things seriously.
By the time I left active duty in 1989, we were getting new Marines who hadn't even been required to take off their mask when in the gas chamber in basic!
I shudder to think what things are like now.