When to take off the gas mask, a tip
From a friend, a reporter in Iraq. A quick snippet from the frontline that you'd appreciate: last night, as the six-vehicle press convoy I'm with was camping by the side of the road with the Marine battalion we're following north of Nasiriyeh, there was a gas alert. We dove into our cars and put on our gas masks. Of course we couldn't hear an "all clear" once it was sounded, so Gary, one of the journalists in the convoy, fired up his satphone and SMS'ed Kit, who was in the adjacent vehicle and had, in his passenger seat, a journalist without a gas mask. Our canary. "Is Wes dead yet?" Gary asked. Kit's SMS reply: "No." We took off our masks and got out of our cars.#
