The Gas Chamber

Let me tell you this. The gas chamber, a very effective contrivance, completely conquers all the other obstacles that you will have to go through during Beast. Army’s brilliant device, or also dubbed as a torture chamber, tends to put everyone into fear, is something that every cadet has to go through. Don’t be afraid! I can guarantee you, you will live. No one has ever died off inhaling gruesome chemicals that are trapped in a cubicle room. But, I have seen various people spewing out their scrumptious lunch they ate twenty minutes prior to entering gas chamber.

Honestly, gas chamber did not daunt me at all somehow. I just thought it would be a simple “in-and-out” procedure. We had all the special protective gears completely covering our bodies, including the most important gear known as a gas mask. When I first saw a very small building made with gray bricks, I thought we were entering a stark prison filled with corrosive chemicals that would tear us apart. Just by assessing that statement I made, you can tell I have seen plenty of “X-File” episodes.

Anyways, when it was my squad’s turn to enter the notorious gas chamber, I saw some cadets actually freaking out and trembling in fear. We took one step at a time, and finally our entire squad entered the little cubicle room, which completely sealed off the air from the outside as soon as the doors were shut with a “thud.” I did not feel any different at all from being outside on fresh air than staying in this little room with corrosive gas. But, that was because I had protective gears completely shutting off from acrid gas entering the inner part of the suit. One of the guys in charge had us do jumping jack and some neck roll for a minute to get adjusted to the environment. He also told us to take off the gas mask for couple seconds and put it back on after clearing out the gas in the mask. That part was pretty simple and harmless. But the hard part hasn’t even started yet.

There were several writings on the wall. They read “Name, birthdates, where you are from” and this long, intricate chemical word that no one can pronounce. Basically, our objective was to take off the mask and state your name, birth dates, where you are from and pronounce the entire complicated word in complete sentence or they won’t let us leave. Sounds pretty simple right? Wrong. It’s harder than it looks. I was the last person in line, and the more people I saw struggling, coughing, and crying while they were trying to pronounce the last word, it started to slowly put me in a frightened mode.

Thus, my turn has finally arrived. I quickly took off my mask, and then rapidly said my name, birthdate and where I was from. Suddenly, I started coughing and it felt like my entire lung was clogging up. My eyes started to sting so much that only streams of tears started to slowly drip down to my mouth. I probably had to repeat that last, impossible word three times to get it down perfectly. One second without mask felt like a year in a boiling water- not a good analogy, but you get the point. Anyways, as soon as they released me, snot in my nose started to drip down like waterfall, and tears from my eyes started to stream down like, uhh, waterfall (lol). They had us flapping our arms like a bird so that all the chemicals that were stuck to our body can be eradicated. After they had us do that for a while, I finally felt like a normal, happy camper. It definitely remedied my cold.

So, good luck on your future gas chamber journey!