'4th Infantry Division Accidentally Tear-Gassed its Own Soldiers During Morale Event'
Some 8,000 soldiers with the 4th Infantry Division were accidentally tear-gassed the day before Thanksgiving during a massive physical morale event in which soldiers scaled obstacles, went through trenches and ran up hills.
Division leadership overseeing the event at Fort Carson, Colorado, marked the boundaries of the course with tear gas, an unusual use of the chemical irritant given it can easily move with the wind.
The gas did shift with the wind on Nov. 23, settling on soldiers who were not told ahead of time they would be gassed. They did not have gas masks, a standard requirement for any time chemical irritants are deployed in training.
"The purpose of this event was to build unit cohesion. Leaders at echelon participated in this event with Soldiers," Dee McNutt, a Fort Carson spokesperson, told Military.com in a statement. "The limited use of CS [gas] was not intended to interfere with the formations but to deter participants from leaving the course."