Fort Worth Paper covers the Atomic Soldiers' stories- Oct 9, 2011

New Article comes out in the Fort Worth Star-Telegraph.

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.

Thousand of American Soldiers lasting affects of the US atomic bomb.

My hopes in starting this site is give another collection of the soldiers' stories and the lasting effects on their bodies, their family, and genetic mutation after the USA dropped nuclear bombs a few miles from thousands of US soldiers at Camp Desert Rock (alias Area 22, Nevada Test site, Camp Mercury, [Operation Plumbbob, i.e. Shot Smoky]) Nevada in 1950s. Plus I hope to provide this as collection of resources available for research and my personal reflections upon the event and its legacy.

These veterans have remained silent because of the Atomic Secrets Act that was lifted 51 years later in 1996.

Websites about the Nuclear Testing:

1. Atmospheric Nuclear Testing at the Nevada Test Site 
2.  National Association of Atomic Veterans (Sageland, Houston, TX) history
3. Military & Veterans: Politics for the deserving: National Association of Atomic Veterans
4. Children of the Atomic Veterans
   
5. Atomic Testing Museum, video
6. Nuclear test database Johnston archive
7. What You Always Wanted To Know About Nuclear Weapons But Were Afraid To Ask, Jeremy Bernstein 2009
8. Toxic Agents: Atomic Radiation Exposure
9. The Nuclear Vault: Resources from the National Security Archive's Nuclear Documentation Project
10. The Atomic Heritage Foundation- Veterans History Project
11. Nevada Test Site Oral History Project
    

    In December 1950, President Harry S. Truman approved the establishment of a continental nuclear proving ground 65 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada. Between 1951 and 1992, 1021 nuclear detonations took place at the Nevada Test Site - one-hundred explosions were in the atmosphere and 921 were underground.

Movie-Video:

1. The Atomic Cafe 1982
2. Trinity and Beyond 1995, "331 Atmospheric nuclear test from 1945-1962 until JFK signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty"
3. Youtube.com/nuclearvault

Photos:

1. Nuclear explosions
2. Camp Desert Rock closed in 1964

Studies:

1. Cancer among Military Personnel Exposed to Nuclear Weapons.
2.  The Five Series Study: Mortality of Military Participants in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests 2000
3. Timeline of radiation in the 1950-1960s
4. Effects of Nuclear Testing
5. Veterans' Advisory Board for Dose Reconstruction
6. Department of Energy report on nuclear tests from July 16, 1945 to 1992
7. Indeterminism and the contrastive theory of explanation by Petri Ylikoski, pg 6, discusses radiation, leukemia, Smoky)
8. Analysis of Radiation Exposure for Task Force WARRIOR-Shot SMOKY-Exercise Desert Rock, VII-VIII Operation Plumbbob 1979
9. Mortality and Cancer Frequency Among Military Nuclear Test (Smoky) Participants-Reply by Caldwell et al, JAMA 1984; 627

   We agree that leukemia appears with a latent period between two and 20 years and that the latent period for solid cancers probably exceeds 15 years from the time of radiation exposure. Although we reported a statistically significant increase in the occurrence of leukemia in the Smoky participants, the latent period exceeds 15 years for 63.6% of the cases, as shown in the Table.

book:

1. Exposure to radiation
2. Exercise Desert Rock VII and VIII
3. The Atomic Frontier: Atmospheric Testing in Nevada, The Two Sides By Julie Etchegaray
4. Atomic Midnight by Ken Nightingale
5. Film Badge Dosimetry in Atmospheric Nuclear Tests

Pro bomb propaganda: "I'm not Afraid of the A-Bomb" By Captain Richard P. Taffe 1-26-52