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Twenty Eight years ago when I was the unit CBR NCO, the Army was a different place. Then I would have said that the units I was familiar with were not prepared to fight in a CB environment. I believe that is where Hackworth is coming from.

Times have changed and todays troops know damn well and good that their equipment and their knowledge of CB could be what stands between them and the reaper. I'm so far out of the loop that I couldn't offer an educated opinion but my guess is that the line units are damn well prepared for CB attacks.

All I know is that when we went across the border into Iraq wearing all our chemical gear except our mask and gloves, we were a little nervous about chem/bio, but still had confidence in our ability to deal with it. It was pretty routine in my units in Bragg and Germany to go up to 6 hours in full chemical gear, and to also go through hasty and deliberate decontaminations, to include getting the actual chemical corps folks out to decon us with their equipment.