Astonishing film that shows how Marines were used to test atomic weapons
They were the nuclear guinea pigs of the Cold War.
And this is the shocking film to show how U.S. Marines were used in hundreds of experiments by the US military to test the limits of nuclear bombs between 1951 and 1957.
During many of those tests, soldiers who thought of themselves as ‘ground grunts’ and were sworn to secrecy witnessed the atomic explosions first-hand, and from close range, before the devastating health risks of those bombs were fully understood.
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Watching the blast: Soldiers in the 1950s witnessed atomic bomb explosions from close range
Only a test: In Operation Desert Rock, the military conducted a series of nuclear tests in the Nevada Proving Grounds between 1951 and 1957
I live in fear: A soldier watches a mushroom cloud leave a smoky trail in the sky
In Operation Desert Rock, the military conducted a series of nuclear tests in the Nevada Proving Grounds between 1951 and 1957, exposing thousands of participants – both military and civilian – to high levels of radiation.
In total, more nearly 400,000 American soldiers and civilians would be classified as ‘atomic veterans.’
Though roughly half of those veterans were survivors of World War II, serving at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, the rest were exposed to nuclear grounds tests which lasted until 1962.
In an article published last October, the Bangor Daily News, the paper notes that the government wished to keep the tests out of the public eye.
As a result, the plight of these soldiers exposed to high levels of radiation, suffering from radiation sickness, nausea, and cancers. Many of their children were born with deformities.
Former Marine James D. Tyler was one such soldier present at a bomb testing in 1957. He was told by his commanding officer to stand in six-foot ditch with fellow troops, keeping his head tucked under his arm, eyes closed.
He was 18 at the time, and participated with some 14,000 others in Operation Plumbbob. That operation consisted of 29 separate explosions as the military tested various types of warheads, in a move that is still controversial today.
Cloud of smoke: Soldiers look on as the mushroom cloud balloons and expands
1 comments:
I met a former soldier two years ago that had been one of the human guinea pigs in Nevada. He had two forms of cancer, and was under treatment. The US Military denied for years that the cancers had anything to do with the atomic testing. He said that they waited until most of the service men were dead before admitting it.
I can remember Life magazine portraying it with a great deal of hoopla. I also remember the farmers, and their sheep that were down wind of the tests. These poor farmers suffered the same fate.
So when you hear those empty words "Support the Troops", it really means support whatever illegal war they are sending our loved ones to die and be maimed in.
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