[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION, VETERANS: "Atomic Soldiers"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Atomic Veterans Were Silenced for 50 Years. Now, They’re Talking.
Some of the last surviving soldiers exposed to nuclear-bomb tests share their unfathomable experiences.

VIDEO BY MORGAN KNIBBE
POSTED BY EMILY BUDER
MAY 27, 2019 

Nearly everyone who’s seen it and lived to tell the tale describes it the same way: a horrifying, otherworldly thing of ghastly beauty that has haunted their life ever since.

“The colors were beautiful,” remembers a man in Morgan Knibbe’s short documentary The Atomic Soldiers. “I hate to say that.”

“It was completely daylight at midnight—brighter than the brightest day you ever saw,” says another.

Many tales of the atomic bomb, however, weren’t told at all. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an estimated 400,000 American soldiers and sailors also observed nuclear explosions—many just a mile or two from ground zero. From 1946 to 1992, the U.S. government conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, during which unwitting troops were exposed to vast amounts of ionizing radiation. For protection, they wore utility jackets, helmets, and gas masks. They were told to cover their face with their arms.

…

For the entire article and the 23-minute video, see
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/video/590299/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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