• Liquid sprays dispersing from unlikely areas.
• The presence of vapor clouds. These could appear as unusually low-lying clouds or as a colored fog that is unrelated to weather. You could see clouds of dust suspended over an area and drifting in a manner unlike any natural occurrence.
• A large number of birds, fish, or small animals suddenly found dead.
• An odor that seems out of place but isn’t necessarily foul smelling. You may smell something similar to almonds or peach kernels, or fresh-cut grass or hay. If you are on a farm, this may be normal, but in a city, for example, a sudden smell of mowed lawn drifting through the streets should be cause for alarm.
• Trucks spraying or dispersing mist, or low-flying, crop-dusting-type aircraft in unusual areas or without preannouncement. For example, mosquito-spraying trucks and their nightly routes are announced and made public.
• Someone entering a building or public transportation, like a stadium or a subway car, for example, dressed unusually (such as a person wearing a long-sleeved shirt or overcoat in the summertime). If you see someone wearing breathing-protection equipment, particularly in areas where large numbers of people are gathered, then treat the suspect as a potential disperser of toxins. If his breathing equipment is already in place, chances are the toxins have already been released. Rapidly leave the area and notify police.
• Multiple people nearby suddenly vomiting, convulsing, having difficulty breathing, or acting confused and disoriented. This means a chemical attack has already begun.
How to Protect Yourself and Escape
The quicker-acting chemical toxins are designed to cause an immediate inhalation hazard. On the other hand, many chemicals of this nature also break down and lose potency rapidly when exposed to the sun, diluted with water, or dissipated in high winds. However, you will not know the difference at the time, so reacting quickly and gaining distance from a biological or chemical agent is the key to survival. The next decisions you make will be the difference between living and dying.
1. Unlike professional firefighters or those of us in the teams, you are not likely to have protective gear on hand, so you’ll have to make do.
• Take maximum effort to cover your mouth and nose. Use your shirt, a coat sleeve, a handkerchief—even a plastic shopping bag will provide some form of protection.
• Minimize exposure to all body parts by covering arms and legs, tucking your pants into your socks, and raising your collar, and most importantly check that any cut or abrasion is thoroughly bandaged. If you are wearing shorts or a dress, try to find anything to cover your legs—plastic garbage bags, a blanket, the fabric stripped from an umbrella—even newspapers will minimize exposure.
2. Get off the X. Attempt to figure out where the toxic agent is emanating from by noting any of the unusual signs mentioned above, and move as far away as possible without passing through the contaminated area. When evacuating the area, make sure you move upwind, or into the wind. Downwind a greater concentration of toxins will be heading in that direction, carried by natural air currents. Quickly assess the direction of the wind by holding out a piece of thin paper, looking for a flag, or watching how trash in the street is tumbling. The only time you would not move upwind is when you know for certain the source of the disbursement, which always dictates moving in the opposite direction.
3. During flight, resist the temptation to take deep breaths to smell if the air is “all clear.” Wear protective breathing apparatus or keep your mouth and nose covered for as long as possible.
IMPROVISED GAS MASK
You can make an improvised version of a gas mask by putting a piece of cloth into a gallon of water and adding one tablespoon of baking soda to the mix. Strap this moistened rag over your mouth and nose.
Shelter In
Getting off the X might mean you are forced to move indoors and “shelter in.” Most toxic agents are heavier than air and tend to settle and stay close to the ground. You want to make your indoor evacuation by heading upward to a safe haven.
1. Get to an interior room on a higher floor.
2. Shut down all air-conditioning or heating systems.
• If in a car, shut off air or heating, close air-intake vents on the dashboard, and roll up windows. If you detect or believe toxic fumes or a gas has entered your car, then keep the windows open fully while driving away from the exposure site. Once the car is sufficiently aerated, then close windows.
3. Ensure all windows are closed and sealed tightly. Use duct tape to cover seams.
As if CQC (close-quarters combat) isn’t challenging enough, one of the contingencies we would train for was unexpectedly encountering a biochemical agent. We would be working our way through the house when the instructor cadre started yelling, “Gas, gas, gas !” So after saying the usual “F this,” half the team would don their gas masks, while the other half held security . . . and their breath. Then we would switch it up, with the gas-masked guys holding security while the other half masked up before continuing on with the mission. Let’s just say that a 100-degree temperature and 100-percent humidity with a fogged-up gas mask makes it feel like you are breathing through a straw. Just another beautiful day in the teams!
What to Do If You’ve Been Exposed
You must begin decontamination procedures as soon as you have cleared the area of the attack.
1. Remove all of your clothes immediately. Do so by pulling them down and away. Don’t pull them over your head because the eyes, nose, and mouth are then more susceptible to exposure. If you are wearing a pullover-type garment that cannot be stepped out of and has no buttons, zipper, or snaps, then cut it with scissors or a knife, or tear the garment, though always in a downward direction. This should get rid of 90 percent of any agents to which you have been exposed. Have a plastic bag at hand and put the clothes into it while undressing. Seal the bag immediately.
2. Wash. You want to find any source of water, be it an outdoor fountain, hose spigot, or body of water. If indoors, use soap and cold water and wash yourself down thoroughly yet gently—you do not want to scrub abrasively, as this will open skin pores and increase toxin exposure. It’s best if you can make a mix of water, soap, and a touch of bleach or chlorine. This will help disinfect your skin and neutralize toxin concentrations. Remember to flush nostrils, clean ears, and wash all cracks and crevices of your body. If in a tub, make sure this water is flushed away and the area afterward cleaned. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
3. If you do not have water available, talcum powder can be used, or even flour will act as a dry wash and absorb toxins. When using a dry cleanser, cover your body in it and let it stand for about thirty seconds. Brush it off with whatever you have, be it cloth or gauze, and repeat this. Make sure to seal these cleaning rags in plastic bags. If outdoors, mud can be used as a form of nonabrasive cleaner, as long as it’s retrieved at least twelve inches below the surface. Let some of the mud harden. In doing so it will absorb toxins from the outer layer of the skin. But remember, flake off or gently brush away whatever substance you use to clean exposed areas. Don’t rub your skin too roughly, as abrasion will cause more toxins to enter.
• Remember: Any item that has been on the ground during the toxic assault should be considered contaminated and not good for decontamination purposes. For example, using a newspaper you found on the street could potentially only introduce more of the toxin into your system versus removing it.
4. Seek medical assistance as soon as possible.
BOMB
A bomb is any of a number of explosive devices both civilian and military that rely on an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. They can be low-explosive, high-explosive, or nuclear. They can be positioned in advance for follow-on detonation, dropped from the air, or even precision guided. For the purposes of this section, we will focus on the types of bombs that are most commonly used by terrorists to inflict injury and death.
Car Bomb
In early maritime w
arfare, ships packed with gunpowder were set on fire and cast adrift toward enemy fleets. These bomb ships or fire ships were a hit-or-miss tactic. Most times the fire was extinguished before it ignited the combustibles aboard. The Dutch sent dozens of these bomb ships, called Hellburners, packed with seven thousand pounds of gunpowder, to ultimately break the Spanish blockade at the Siege of Antwerp in the 1500s. In the 1920s, Communist anarchists parked a horse-drawn cart filled with explosives in the financial district of New York City, killing thirty-eight. Car bombs were used by the Vietcong in Vietnam, and also by terrorists in both Palestine and Israel.
It got to the point where it was common to hear these going off all day long throughout Baghdad. A boom in the distance and I’d take a second to pray nobody but the assholes who made it got killed—then back to work. Freaking Wild West over there.
Car bombs have been used to kill people for more than a hundred years, but not to the extent and unfortunate effectiveness that we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq against our troops. Today, the car bomb is known as a VBIED, or vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, and has been responsible for the death or injury of tens of thousands of people, including, most regrettably, many of our armed forces. More than 60 percent of all U.S. casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq were caused by car bombs or IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
The most important weapon against car bombs is situational awareness. Again, alertness is one of the most vital and key tools needed to acquire a SEAL mindset. In the case of detecting a possible car bomb, ask yourself questions such as these:
Why did the driver park in a no-parking zone, park awkwardly, or park in haste?
Why did the driver park in front of a certain business or building, but head in the opposite direction from it?
Why does the vehicle appear to be heavy (low-sitting suspension)?
Since the car bomb is such a cheap and effective way to do harm and cause chaos, incidents of this nature can only increase. Economical handheld technological inventions are being tested that will offer a way to detect whether or not a car contains explosives. Perhaps there will be a day when these detectors will be as common as smoke alarms in the house. Until then, situational awareness is our best weapon.
The main problem with situational awareness being the best defense is that detection of a car bomb will require an exceptional degree of alertness in everyday life. Any vehicle can become a car bomb once it is loaded with explosives. The metal of the car itself turns into shrapnel. More than the explosive, the shredded car parts cause the most widespread and indiscriminate damage, killing anyone near it. Explosives used in car bombs could be ammunition, pyrotechnics, or dynamite. These don’t require ingenious concealment and are simply placed under the seat, put in the trunk, or magnetically attached underneath the car. The charges can be detonated by numerous means: timers, ignitions, the opening of doors, the pressing of brakes or accelerators, switches (tilt, pressure), or remote devices (such as cell phones).
Seeing people talking on cell phones is a normal, common thing here in the States. You don’t give it a second thought. But when you’re rolling around in Iraq and you see this, you are always waiting for the BOOM. It’s strange how during wartime such an everyday thing can be a threat. But since we knew IEDs could be detonated by cell phone, we were always on the lookout for the random guy standing by himself with phone in hand. Really got the hair standing up.
Because military compounds and important buildings tend to have a lot of security in place against bombings and the like, prospective car bombers oftentimes target low-security locations—soft targets—such as markets or busy street corners.
Another brutal tactic that has been employed is the use of sequential car bombs. One is detonated to lure first responders and those trying to help, after which a second one is detonated, killing even more.
INDIVIDUAL PRECAUTIONS FOR COMMUNITY SAFETY
The absolute randomness of a car bomb makes it such a difficult thing to defeat. However, there are several things you can do to avoid your vehicle’s unknowingly being recruited as a car bomb or rigged with explosives. A potential car bomber will not want to use a car that can be traced to them, so they will often use a rental car obtained fraudulently—or your car. In Israel, it is not uncommon for random cars to be chosen and rigged with explosives, unbeknownst to the owner. Personal safety thus depends somewhat on everybody in the community taking basic precautions.
1. Park your car in a secure location whenever possible. If a secure lot or parking space isn’t available, then always try to park it in a very public place. It would be difficult for someone to remain unnoticed if they attempted to attach an explosive under your car or wire it to go off when you opened the door, for example.
2. Lock your doors and trunk to avoid undesired access to your vehicle.
3. Take a look under your vehicle frequently. Look for anything that shouldn’t be there, such as a wire that seems out of place or is hanging down. You may see an object that is relatively clean in comparison to the normal grease and dirt under your vehicle. Mirrors attached to a long handle are ideal for this task.
4. If you even remotely suspect something is wrong, back away immediately and contact the police.
The NYPD has established a saying that applies to every city in the United States—“If you see something, say something.”
In 2010, when a car bomb attack was planned for the theater district in New York City, it was two street vendors who noticed smoke coming from the car and alerted mounted police.
STRUCTURAL SAFETY
In 1995, Timothy McVeigh packed a rented moving truck with five thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate, a type of fertilizer, which he doused with highly combustible racing fuel. He parked the truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City at nine A.M. and lit a two-minute fuse. At 9:02 the truck exploded and killed 168 people. Two minutes! In this case, McVeigh had been recorded on security cameras making practice runs and driving near the building in the same truck a few days before. On the day of the explosion, he parked the vehicle in a pickup zone for a day-care center, which was housed in the building, and abandoned the vehicle. He fled on foot, moving away from the parked and abandoned truck, and jogged far from the building toward his getaway vehicle. What we can learn from this in retrospect is how important situational awareness is in detecting a car bomb. Unusual behavior, such as a driver running rapidly from a parked car or truck, is not part of the normal baseline, as discussed earlier.
One deterrent put in place after the Oklahoma City bombing was the installation of concrete barriers at all federal buildings, and eventually at the entrances to all buildings with high occupancy, such as malls and many schools. The following techniques for fortifying your house, estate, or compound are essential. These will also serve to protect you in the event that a catastrophe, civil unrest, or rioting occurs in your area.
Standard methods of fortification
• Gates and barriers at a distance far from the entrance.
• An approach to the entrance that requires vehicles to slow or stop completely. You don’t want a car to have the ability to race through rapidly. Use barricades or an obstacle, forcing an approaching vehicle to make a series of S-turns before arriving at the gate.
• Limited exits and entrances, so there is less traffic flow to control.
• Permanent bunkers at a structure’s other susceptible areas. Note how this technique is used at main pedestrian entryways at malls and public buildings.
• Inspection of all undercarriages, hoods, and trunks of cars.
• Visual sweeps of a vehicle’s occupants.
IED and Booby Trap
The use of explosive devices to kill or injure is not limited to vehicles. The true leading cause of casualties during both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was the use of IEDs and booby traps. An IED is simply any homemade device packed with explosives. Intensive situational awarenes
s is the best defense against IEDs. As always, be alert to things that seem out of the ordinary, such as an unexpected delivery, or a package wrapped or boxed, for example, in an unusual manner.
IED delivery methods
• Disguised as a package.
• Thrown from a hideout along the road—in this situation it is usually two males doing the throwing. That’s how it was in Afghanistan and Iraq, though the throwing was not always done by adults.
• Placed in potholes and covered with a thin layer of dirt, to act as land mines. They can be on major roadways or on trails used only by the military.
• Placed near a pile of cinder blocks or rubble. Now and again after a battle, the IEDs are planted where they will kill rescue workers.
• Placed in dead animals.
Yes, the insurgents use dead animals on the side of the road to conceal IEDs. Animals using animals. I’m a master of the obvious when I say that you need situational awareness, cranked up to the red line, while operating in an environment like Afghanistan or Iraq. Every time we drove past something that “didn’t look right,” we would sort of wince or hold our breath for a second. It just became second nature.
Suicide Bomber
What’s called a “person-borne” bomb, the person being a suicide bomber, is a very lethal weapon and difficult to spot. These volunteers, or “recruits,” are fitted with a special vest or belt, or modified clothing, which is packed with high explosives. To achieve as much collateral damage as they can, these modified carrying devices also contain fragmentary objects, such as ball bearings, bolts, nuts, or any kind of metal scraps. Most often, this type of bomb will use a “command detonation firing system,” which is some sort of switch or button the person activates by hand. The downside of this method of delivery is that sometimes these bombers lose their nerve and fire off the bomb when not yet in place. Their clothing is bulkier than normal, and many times they seem nervous, sweaty, and preoccupied.
Seal Survival Guide Page 9
