Bird flu and beyond

Near the end of my time in Basic Training, we had a 10K road march that began a three day field exercise, complete with war games and camping and no sleep. I had been feeling pretty lousy for a couple of days, but when I woke up at 4am that day, I was so weak and feverish that I felt like I was going to pass out while I was dressing. I was determined to go on despite my illness, because graduation from Basic was less than two weeks away, and I sure as hell didn’t want to stay any longer.

Before we left, they threw MREs at us, but I couldn’t eat. I tried to eat a packet of pineapple, and I stuffed the rest in my rucksack. I hoped it was one of those illnesses that grew better as the day went on, because I didn’t think I would make it through the day like this. My nose was a faucet, probably because it couldn’t run down the back of my throat, as it was swollen shut. The chills were awful. I was freezing though it was 80 degrees. We started off, and it didn’t take long to realize I had a problem. The soldier behind me gave me a packet of tissues, and I was grateful. Soon, the sun was up, and I was already having trouble keeping pace.

The sun and the now 90 degree heat pounded the other soldiers, but I was still freezing, especially because the cold sweat had made all of my clothing drenched. The soldier in front of me took my rucksack from me to carry in a gesture of real generosity. The soldier behind me offered to carry my rifle, and I graciously accepted. When we stopped to take a break, a drill sergeant came over to me. He had noticed steam pouring off of my head. He took my temperature- it was 104. He suggested I go to the hospital, but I refused.

After an agognizing eternity, we reached our destination. Fortunately, it was lunch time, so we had a decent break. I ended up throwing up the pineapple I had eaten in the morning. I took out the snotty tissues from my pocket and threw them on the ground next to my rucksack, where I proceeded to pass out. The drill sergeants left me alone.

When I woke up, soldiers were doing drills at various stations. I looked on the ground next to me to see my snotty tissues covered with dead or dying ants. Whatever I had was bad enough to kill them! What did that mean for me? I freaked out. One of the drill sergeants noticed that I was awake and came over to me. I showed him the tissues. He took my temperature again, but it had not gone down.

He rounded up a driver and a truck to take me to the hospital. I stayed there for three days. Fortunately for me, I was allowed to make up the exercises I missed over those three days and graduate on time. When I got to California, I found out that the Army releases diseases into the air over its posts to build up soldiers' immune systems. A bunch of new soldiers had come in sick. Apparently, someone screwed up and released too much disease at once.

My question is this: if the military can do this to its soldiers, does the government do this to its citizens? What if it decides to immunize the population to bird flu? What if it releases too much? Something to think about.