Well, at least it is nice to know that my friends in the military are safer than me.
You need to read between the lines of my posts - they just think they're safer. Back in the bad old days of the Cold war, Soviet troops used to train in the field with the real thing. They had, so I was told, better protective equipment than we did and trained with it more often. They always managed to kill a fair number of their soldiers in these excercises.
If trained soldiers, in controlled excercises, with the best equipment available can't be garanteed survival, what good is an Army Surplus mask going to do you? None. Unless you are going up against riot police armed with CS or you plan to smoke dope with it.