It's A Gas!

Yesterday I was quite excited to receive a letter from my buddy Don Croswhite. He is serving in the Army at Fort Benning, Georgia. This is directly from his letter:
"I did the gas chamber today. That really sucked. You walk into a 20 by 50 ft. brick building with your gas mask on. And almost instantly any exposed skin begins to feel like you have a major sun burn. The Drill Sergeants then make you pull your mask away from your face and yell out the last four of your social. You then have to do a procedure that blows out the gas from inside your mask so that you can breathe again.
Then the fun begins. In groups of 15 out of 40 you take off your masks completely, take your helmet that has been resting on the barrel of your M16 that you're holding up with your legs, put the helmet on properly, strap it and then hold up your weapon and gas mask. As soon as all the members in your team have done this you grab the back of the guy in front of you and orderly walk out. If you run or panic or drop your weapon arm, you go back in.
This gas is a harsh chlorine burn but 10x worse. Your chest hurts, your eyes burn. It's "CS Gas". You can Google it and check it out."

I was a bit stunned to read this because we went through this same procedure when I started working at Dairy Queen.
Don closed his letter saying, "I am having a great adventure here, don't worry." That is so cool.