New Article comes out in the Fort Worth Star-Telegraph.
Marine Veteran is free to tell the story of America's nuclear test subjects.
Marine Veteran is free to tell the story of America's nuclear test subjects.
James D. Tyler stuffed cotton balls into his ears and waited for the announcement.
He was kneeling at the bottom of a 6-foot-deep ditch, bearing every piece of his combat gear, too young at 18 to even consider that this might be the end of his life. If it was going to be, he wouldn't be alone. No one in Company F had any better odds.
Except that Tyler, then a grunt in 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, would not go over the ditch into the teeth of the enemy.
He and everyone else knew their orders -- hug the side of the ditch, close your eyes, put your face in the crook of your arm. Do not raise your head, under any circumstances.
"It was just before dawn," said Tyler, 72, of Burleson. "We assumed that the people in charge knew what they were doing."
The countdown began, and then everything went blindingly white.
