You know why they call it chemical demilitarization, don't you? Because the military doesn't want anything to do with their chemical weapons anymore. They can't use them anymore, so they don't want them. They want to demilitarize the chemical weapons stored at Anniston Army Depot and other depots around the country and make dealing with them the civilian population's responsibility.Who agreed to this?
In case you've missed it here, their bosses, the Congress, passed a treaty saying we as humans don't want to have available chemical weapons of mass destruction. Chemical weapons were a bad idea. Everybody all over the world has to get rid of these poisons. And there was a deadline set.
So, here we sit in Calhoun County, Alabama, on a big stockpile of the military's trash. And now they are going to burn it.
Neither I nor my parents, nor I suspect you or yours, asked the Army to bring these particular weapons here. We were more cordial and gracious to the Army than perhaps in retrospective was wise. We just let them move in, lock, stock, barrel and poison gases without being so brash as to inquire as to their future plans. Doing for the Army was our patriotic duty, and besides, building places for the Army to live and train and store things meant jobs for people who live around here. Jobs are good. Good jobs are better. Some people made their family fortunes that way.
There's a downside to everything though. Apparently the Army had no future plans, no ideas for what to do in the event of. Bombing back to the Stone Age they can handle. Getting rid of it isn't their bailiwick.
Well, guess what. It's not ours either. Nor should it be.
The stuff is theirs. They made it. They made plans for its deadly use. They decided how best to deliver it to any target. Hopefully they made plans for the safety of those soldiers charged with delivering it wherever it might go in defense of our national security.
Now, many years later, the matter of our national security is right here, right now.
I was taught and try to teach my children that if I make a mess, I have a responsibility to clean it up in a satisfactory manner. If I visit someone's home and they allow me to bring my dog, I should be grateful enough to make sure my dog leaves no unpleasant surprises. Should my dog behave rudely and leave a deposit on my host's rug, I have a responsibility to clean up the mess. And the rug might need to be professionally cleaned.
The Army and the Department of Defense should use the best information they have and put our house back the way it was. Rather clean. Without need for hoods or duct tape and plastic. And while we are awaiting that day, they should be accommodating and forthcoming. They should tell the truth about all of it and the length of time it is going to take to burn all they want to burn.
If we need protective hoods - and God help us, one day soon that might be a selling point for the Chamber of Commerce to use: "Move here and we'll get you the best protective hood money can buy" - the Department of Defense should tell us what the best hood is and when they will have it delivered to us. Laymen elected by us to tend to the county's business should not be charged with these decisions. The chemicals belong to the Army.
They owe us. We don't owe them. They should be giving us the best advice available about how to live our lives fully and safely while they clean up their mess.
This is a mess of their making. They need to clean it up so that we'll want to live here again.
In the meantime, I'm going to shelter in place.
