[CPEO-MEF] Rebuttal re Navy's 25mm Phalanx DU Contamination

[dzweifel@earthlink.net]

To all interested parties:

There comes a time when one cannot continue sit idly by & see erroneous
information from any particular source posted on the
Military-Environmental
Listserve without an in-kind response.

I would like to take this opportunity to state a few facts that have
been passed
along to me by what one could depict as military weapons experts.

I've witnessed live-fire demonstrations at Camp Pendleton,CA of USMC
LAV/Light
Armored Vehicles discharging 25mm GE Chain-Gun DU rounds that are
practically
identical to the ammunition the CIWS/Close-in Weapons System or
"Phalanx" fires.
One of these empty shell casings is sitting on my desk as I write this &
has
been for the last 10 years & yours truly is still in relatively good
health for
a 62 year old clapped-out veteran.

The facts are that as long as the rounds/slugs have left the chamber of
the
weapon there is no danger whatsoever of any contamination. So the claim
that the
DD/Destroyer USS Fife is a contaminated ship which includes her ship's
company
is absolutely ludicrous & fallacious.

Only those rounds that actually penetrate & vaporize are hazardous.
Therefore
the vast majority of the Fife's Phalanx rounds could be considered
undetonated/non-hazardous unless they happened to hit a target that was
dense
enough to trigger detonation/ignition.

However on the other hand re the issue of safety, when the rounds in
question
collide with a significantly solid object & begin to vaporize then all
bets are
off. A case in point was during the Iraqi/Kuwaiti conflict/'90-91 Gulf
War.

All damaged or destroyed armor subject to these 25 & 120 mm DU Abrams
tank
rounds were significantly irradiated with alpha & beta radiation. Which
caused
this detritus of war to be quite radioactive when one was within close
proximity
to the vehicles in question.

The technical sources I queried stated categorically that airborne beta
ionizing
radiation from detonated DU rounds is only particularly dangerous if
you're
within approximately 20 feet & down-wind of them & directly inhale the
radio
actively ionized particulate matter/dust particles.

On another note of special interest is that everyone within the above
mentioned
TO/Theater of Operations was warned to stay clear of these carcasses but
few
heeded this directive because of the almost universal desire for
souvenirs

Therefore one could probably surmise that there was quite a bit of
radiation
sickness after the fact. But unfortunately the vast majority of their
resultant
ailments weren't sufficiently diagnosed as such at that time.

My son was a primary gunner on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle in the
aforementioned conflict & he's also a victim of the "Gulf War Syndrome."
His
track or vehicle wasn't irradiated but his crew most assuredly was
because they
wanted to see the damage they had wrought up close.

In summation may I state that the unfired rounds are not intrinsically
dangerous
because the DU/Depleted Uranium core is still encapsulated within the
unfired
steel alloy shell of the slug itself. So being around stored ammunition
is not
significantly hazardous per se but they certainly are very hazardous if
the
slugs happen to have ignited & you're within the AOC/Area of Concern.

Don Zweifel
MCAS Tustin &
MCAS El Toro RAB
charter member

P.S.: Do not speak for the
USAVR/US Army Volunteer Reserve, Lenny.

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