LOL! You reminded me of my very first Tac Eval when I was an Army butterbar. While I was briefing the Wing Commander (Hahn AB) on our air defense positions, an input came in that Ramstein had been hit with a nonpersistent nerve agent.
The Base Disaster Preparedness Officer, an AF Captain, recommended that the entire base go to Alarm Red, which meant that everybody would have to don all of their protective gear. To put it mildly, normal operations would have been severely impeded. Before the Wing Cdr could say anything, I piped up "may I make a recommendation, sir?"
"Sir, I recommend Alarm Yellow (no masks) for the following reasons:"
"1. Ramstein is at least 60 miles east of us, the winds are westerly."
"2. It's raining like hell outside, so the stuff is virtually harmless."
The Wing Commander said, "I like your idea, LT...Alarm Yellow it is." As he said that, I could see the Chief Evaluator nodding his head.
Thirty minutes later, I heard the Wing Cdr say "I want that Army LT up here whenever there's an NBC input."
Great post.
Sometimes cooler heads just have to prevail : )
Based on my USAF career experience, Disaster Preparedness is not a career field frequented by fast-burning officers with promotion potential.
Sounds alot like my experience during an exercise, when the Readiness guys in my Control Center couldn't figure out the proper wind speed and direction for a chemical spill. They were arguing back and forth, so I called the Control Tower on the Fire/Crash channel on my brick, identified myself as a Group commander and asked them to please say actual wind speed and direction.
I turned up the volume so all could hear and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, there's your answer."