Gas masks

(Slight swearing)

As you probably know, Saddam Hussain, thank God, backed down and there was no war here. We are all very thankful for this, to put it mildly, and it came as a bit of a surprise.

We had lectures by prestigious speakers, that said on no uncertain terms, that we'd get to see the Patriots miss the Scuds. Uri Milstein explained it pretty simply. (Though this guy is considered to be a little messed up.) Clinton wants to get rid of the whole Monica thingy, plus, he wants to be remembered. War would be a valid answer.

Bibi has, forget the approval rating, 36% of the population who thinks he should immediately resign. War wouldn't hurt his image, either. The Mossad would do anything to get some dignity back. (They got caught in London this time? At this point I don't think they couldn't bug an older sister.) Espionage during wartime would have helped immensely.

Meanwhile, Saddam has his back to the wall. Nobody wants to support him. Even Arab countries were offering help to the allied forces. The only way he could have gotten support would be if Israel were to get involved, the countries that were not on great terms with Israel would have joined him.

So, we were a wee bit scared. In order to placate the citizens, Israel handed out gas masks. I won't say that these were placebos, but in Desert Storm, it was shown, after the fact, that many were defective. It's not as bad as what civilians were told in the fifties about dealing with nuclear weapons. We aren't told to put our heads between our legs, and we don't carry safety pins to use for fishing hooks, so that we can eat after the bomb falls. But it has been shown that the sealed rooms are of minimal effect, and the gas masks only work, if they do, for a few hours. Plus we don't even know if Sadam was capable of shooting chemical warheads this far a distance. But, we still wanted gas masks. If nothing else, because, as my brother put it, "Because gas masks are cool, God damnit!"

Well, there was more to it than that. It would be reassuring to know that we had something to help us. Even if in the back of our minds, we would hear a voice telling us of its futility, it is something. Every little thing helps. Especially when the thing that we need help against were high speed projectile missiles, who's intention was to cause damage to us or anybody or thing around us.

The problem was that the entire country was trying to get a gas mask. One really can't blame them. So, quickly, Israel ran out, and they purchased something like 1.2 million from various countries. The tourists could get one for their stay for one hundred shekels, or two hundred shekels to keep one. (3.5 Shekels = 1 Dollars)

I would have gotten one, but the Yeshiva assured me, that B A would get me one. "C'mon, say what you want about B'nei Akiva, they're not going to kill you." But we never heard from them, and got a bit scared.

The British kids, out of more than sheer curiosity, asked one of their Madrichs on their Kibbutz, Gadalia, how they should get gas masks. "Gas masks, shmask masks. You don't need gas masks. What are you, girls?"

Again, thank God, nothing happened. The whole thing blew over. Hussein backed down. But just as the Israelis had a right to be frustrated after they found out their gas masks were defective in the Gulf War, even though in the end, they had no need for them, we were a bit frustrated towards the fact that it appeared as though we were not worth saving, in the eyes of B'nei Akiva.

But, I'm sure that wasn't really the case. Oded became are new quasi director, sort of replacing Gilad.

"One last question Oded?"

"Fine, what?"

"What ever did happen to the gas masks?"

"Ok, for the fifth time now. There were gas mask that were in your name, that were being stored in a warehouse."

I don't know about you all out there, but it's not that reassuring to know that if God forbid, we were bombed, my box would have survived.

Get me outa here!!!

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Michael Kadish

"You can't judge a people by its Jews." - Guy Sudrey

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