experts, these are the symptoms of exposure to toxic agents:
Unexplained runny nose
Sudden headache
Sudden drooling
Difficulty seeing; dimness of vision
Tightness of throat
Localized sweating
Nausea
I immediately cycle through all of these symptoms as the plug slides down my throat. I fight the urge to throw up, ever mindful of warnings we have received about the dangers of "chunky vomit." As the waves of nausea subside, I become aware of a new sensation: wind blowing inside my pant legs. When the Marines issued my MOPP, I had complained to the sergeant who gave it to me that it looked kind of small. She had dismissed this as another example of a prima-donna reporter's whining, and had told me, "The suit fits good." But fully tied up, there's about an inch gap between my pant legs and my boot tops, and this is not good. The culprit is my suit's g-string—a strap that you take from behind the jacket, pull between your legs and snap in the front. It's designed to keep the jacket snugly sealed over the pants. Mine is so tight that it has jammed my pants up my crack and is letting air in over my boots.
I lie back and try unsnapping the g-string, but it's stuck. The harder I pull—my fingers extra clumsy in my rubber clown gloves—the tighter it gets. Marines seem not to notice as I sit back in the sand, struggling with the g-string. My lenses start to fog from my heavy breathing. Then I glimpse a gas-masked figure leering over me. It's Corporal Gabriel Garza, a heavy-weapons gunner on Colbert's team.
In the platoon, Garza, twenty-two, is something of a cipher. He wears Coke bottle-lens glasses and a blue bandanna around his neck, which his grandmother, who raised him, gave him for good luck. She is an aloe picker in south Texas, and Garza always grins when he mentions her. "She used to beat me with a two-by-four when I was bad," he says. "That's 'cause she cares about me." Garza has a round head and is not particularly tall or imposing, yet he is one of the strongest Marines in the platoon. According to his buddies, he can bench-press ten repetitions of 300-pound free weights. He works out constantly. Every night at Mathilda he would follow his dinner with a glass of salt water and lemon wedges, or oranges rolled in salt. When I asked him what the point of his unusual diet was, he said, "It makes you tougher." He seldom talks, but frequently, while sitting alone, will suddenly begin shaking with quiet laughter, the only sound a whistling from his nose. Everyone in the platoon likes him. They call him the "Zen Master." But when they compliment him on his physical power, he just shrugs and says, "It's nothing. I've got retard strength."
Now he's standing over me, turning his head to his side in a quizzical gesture. Another feature of gas masks is that you can't really talk through them; nor can you hear too well through the MOPP hood. We try to carry on a conversation. It sounds like the parents in a Charlie Brown cartoon: wa wa wa. I gesture to the g-string now twisting my testicles, and Garza immediately unsheathes a pair of Leatherman pliers he carries on his vest and looms over me. I lie back, my legs spread as if I'm about to undergo a gynecological exam, and Garza delicately nestles the plier tips against my balls and clasps the g-string. When he rips it off, he tears a dime-size hole in the front of my MOPP, rendering the whole thing useless.
A few minutes later, pulling my mask off after they sound the all-clear, I'm greeted with a rush of cold air and laughter.
"I just performed testicle surgery on the reporter," Garza brags.
The funny thing is, all the Marines who've been standoffish the past week are suddenly pounding me on the back, bruising my ribs with affectionate punches. "You've got brown shit all over your chin," one of them says, brushing tobacco juice off my face with his sleeve. I seem to have gained acceptance by making a total jackass of myself.
The comedy session near Colbert's Humvee is cut
Unexplained runny nose
Sudden headache
Sudden drooling
Difficulty seeing; dimness of vision
Tightness of throat
Localized sweating
Nausea
I immediately cycle through all of these symptoms as the plug slides down my throat. I fight the urge to throw up, ever mindful of warnings we have received about the dangers of "chunky vomit." As the waves of nausea subside, I become aware of a new sensation: wind blowing inside my pant legs. When the Marines issued my MOPP, I had complained to the sergeant who gave it to me that it looked kind of small. She had dismissed this as another example of a prima-donna reporter's whining, and had told me, "The suit fits good." But fully tied up, there's about an inch gap between my pant legs and my boot tops, and this is not good. The culprit is my suit's g-string—a strap that you take from behind the jacket, pull between your legs and snap in the front. It's designed to keep the jacket snugly sealed over the pants. Mine is so tight that it has jammed my pants up my crack and is letting air in over my boots.
I lie back and try unsnapping the g-string, but it's stuck. The harder I pull—my fingers extra clumsy in my rubber clown gloves—the tighter it gets. Marines seem not to notice as I sit back in the sand, struggling with the g-string. My lenses start to fog from my heavy breathing. Then I glimpse a gas-masked figure leering over me. It's Corporal Gabriel Garza, a heavy-weapons gunner on Colbert's team.
In the platoon, Garza, twenty-two, is something of a cipher. He wears Coke bottle-lens glasses and a blue bandanna around his neck, which his grandmother, who raised him, gave him for good luck. She is an aloe picker in south Texas, and Garza always grins when he mentions her. "She used to beat me with a two-by-four when I was bad," he says. "That's 'cause she cares about me." Garza has a round head and is not particularly tall or imposing, yet he is one of the strongest Marines in the platoon. According to his buddies, he can bench-press ten repetitions of 300-pound free weights. He works out constantly. Every night at Mathilda he would follow his dinner with a glass of salt water and lemon wedges, or oranges rolled in salt. When I asked him what the point of his unusual diet was, he said, "It makes you tougher." He seldom talks, but frequently, while sitting alone, will suddenly begin shaking with quiet laughter, the only sound a whistling from his nose. Everyone in the platoon likes him. They call him the "Zen Master." But when they compliment him on his physical power, he just shrugs and says, "It's nothing. I've got retard strength."
Now he's standing over me, turning his head to his side in a quizzical gesture. Another feature of gas masks is that you can't really talk through them; nor can you hear too well through the MOPP hood. We try to carry on a conversation. It sounds like the parents in a Charlie Brown cartoon: wa wa wa. I gesture to the g-string now twisting my testicles, and Garza immediately unsheathes a pair of Leatherman pliers he carries on his vest and looms over me. I lie back, my legs spread as if I'm about to undergo a gynecological exam, and Garza delicately nestles the plier tips against my balls and clasps the g-string. When he rips it off, he tears a dime-size hole in the front of my MOPP, rendering the whole thing useless.
A few minutes later, pulling my mask off after they sound the all-clear, I'm greeted with a rush of cold air and laughter.
"I just performed testicle surgery on the reporter," Garza brags.
The funny thing is, all the Marines who've been standoffish the past week are suddenly pounding me on the back, bruising my ribs with affectionate punches. "You've got brown shit all over your chin," one of them says, brushing tobacco juice off my face with his sleeve. I seem to have gained acceptance by making a total jackass of myself.
The comedy session near Colbert's Humvee is cut
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