Editor’s note: This commentary is by Deborah Riemer, of East Rupert, who is a broadcast journalist, author, writer, editor and public speaker.
I still have the laminated card from 1990 in my wallet. A picture of a gas mask on the front with two single lines in bold black lettering:
You Are Prepared! You are Protected! And in red the admonition: Open this Kit ONLY Under Clear Instructions from The Civil Defense. The flip side of the card has a list of color-coded instructions: What to do Before, During and After a chemical or biological attack.
In the midst of this global pandemic, 30 years after the first Gulf War in Israel, this card jolts me back into that Gulf War mindset of everything that went right … then.
Israelis are a people notorious for NOT following the rules. They are a citizenry of risk takers. They are a citizenry of rule-breakers. Think start-up nation. If there’s a shortcut or a novel way to approach a problem, Israelis are first in line … and they don’t stand in lines. But in war they know the drill. I know it. I lived it … and words, though not a conventional defense, matter.
Weeks before the first Scud missile was fired from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq into the heart of Israel, I was instructed, like every other Israeli in the country, to show up at my municipality to collect a cardboard box. It wasn’t a “guideline.” It wasn’t a “recommendation.” I wasn’t “encouraged” to show up. It was an imperative sentence. A directive. Inside was a gas mask and a syringe with a nerve gas antidote with clear instructions for use. If the Scud missiles fired from Iraq contained chemical or biological warheads, this protective kit would be our personal defense.
We were told to take them everywhere. And we did. Walking in the center of a bustling Tel Aviv, eight weeks before the war started, everyone had their little cardboard box. Everyone! School kids decorated theirs with bright crayons and paints. Israeli soldiers walked around with Uzis slung over one shoulder and their protective kits in a backpack on the other. Teens went on dates with them. Friends meeting for coffee crowded bistro tables stacking the kits in the center. Even Israel’s generals carried them around with their first names scribbled in black marker. We weren’t supposed to open them until instructed … but I do admit I cheated on that one. Took a peek inside just to make sure everything was there.
The night before the first Scud missile rained down upon the country, we were given the instruction to open our kits, insert the filter in the gas mask and practice wearing them.
Hope was running neck-in-neck with fear. And for the next 100 days those masks were our defense while the Israeli Defense Forces and Patriot missiles were our offense.
We trusted both.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends everyone wear a face mask when leaving the home. The mask blocks transmission of the virus at the source from you, out to others. It’s the only thing we have in our arsenal in our war against this virus. A cloth mask and social distancing. The CDC can only recommend. But our elected officials are entrusted with making policy. Language has power.
Now is the time to choose our words well. As the poet Toni Morrison said when she accepted the Nobel Prize in Literature, “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” Words matter. Let’s hope that our language measures up, and our leaders measure up to their responsibilities to choose words that match the needs of this crisis. Mandate masks.
