Drop and Cover, America

It seems a lifetime ago, I was crawling under barbed wire while machine gun bullets whistled just a few feet overhead. I recall that it was a miserable experience, belly to the cold dirt, incessant racket and a gunnery sergeant screaming that I wasn’t moving fast enough or paying enough attention or something or the other.

Live-fire exercises as a U.S. Marine were the riveting kind of experiences that stayed with me in a way that college philosophy classes never did.

I cannot say that they fully prepared me for the war I would see later in Vietnam, or the other wars I was drawn into as a journalist. But I did learn that an important part of facing danger was getting ready for it mentally. Visualizing it. Anticipating it. Listening to old salts talk about coping. Promising yourself courage, or at least reminding yourself to hold on to your wits.

This valuable lesson comes to mind now as I contemplate the war that besets our country.

“Inevitable.” That’s FBI Director Robert Mueller’s assessment of whether we’re going to be attacked again by suicide bombers, or car bombers, apartment building bombers or some other kind of bombers.

“Inevitably.” That’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaking on the likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear, chemical or germ weapons.

You want warnings? Well, we’ve got them.

So now what?

In Washington, they’re absorbed with looking back at the mishandled clues that led up to the Sept. 11 attack. This kind of hindsight hullabaloo has a long tradition behind it. The exercise supposedly serves to keep our officials on their toes. At the very least, it allows politicians to blow off some partisan steam. Personally, though, I think we ought to spend more energy getting us unwilling conscriptees ready for this future none of us wanted. If the expert odds are as certain as inevitable, then it’s a safe bet to say that we’ll be looking back next time and demanding to know why didn’t someone think about the public’s role in attacks on the public.

How much Cipro does a family need to stockpile? Do those briefcase parachutes really work if you need to bail out of a high-rise? Do we put the gas mask beneath or on top of the peanut-butter sandwich in the kid’s lunch pail? If you live downstream from a dam, should you wear water wings to bed just to be safe? What to do if your fortune cookie tells you something big is about to happen in your life?

Actually, there are plenty of sober matters that warrant discussion, thought, visualization and personal planning--and not in the aftermath.

But the only sign of civic preparation brought to my attention is notice that President Bush, in cooperation with the National Sheriffs’ Assn., “has announced that the Neighborhood Watch Program will be taking on a new significance.” That and the disturbing disclosures as to how government officials have made sure there are secure hiding places for themselves.

Otherwise, the guidance from Washington seems to be: Some of you are going to die, poor dears. But you cannot say you weren’t warned.

During World War II, Americans were mobilized, at least those on the West Coast, where an attack was thought probable. When I listen to people reflect about those days, I realize that one result of civil defense was to ready people mentally, to harden them against panic, while daily life went on. If war was to engulf civilians, then someone back then had the good sense to engage civilians in preparations. Cold War air raid drills across the nation probably did the same.

We all know that the first aim of terrorists is to spread terror. We’re making it easier for them by adhering to the agenda of politics instead of readiness.

Warnings by themselves serve only to inflame anxieties, and then leave us numb. The lesson I learned long ago is that you cannot overcome the stunning shock of attack, but you can control it. We don’t need something as radical as live-fire drills. But with some straight talk and premeditation, we can set expectations for ourselves and for each other. We can make ourselves smarter about the nature of the threats and sensible reactions. We might save some lives; we’ll surely save ourselves a measure of terror.

If you want, you can quarrel about whether the Bush administration should have given more attention to the evidence of trouble in advance of Sept. 11. But now, in the face of the “inevitable,” it’s hard to argue that the wisest thing the country can do is relegate its citizens to nothing more than the hapless role of sheep waiting for the wolves.