Teach
03-16-2011, 05:48 PM
His arm was blown up five times it's normal size. His arm looked more like that of an animal than a human. You couldn't even distinguish the knuckles on his hand.
I read recently that that the U.S. government had pulled the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan away from Japanese waters because some of the sailors were detected as having been exposed to low levels of radiation. All this reminds me of a video I showed when I was teaching history here in Massachusetts. The name of the documentary was called: "Radio Bikini". The code name for the U.S. government exercise was: "Operation Crossroads".
In a nutshell, it was 1946. WW II was still a fresh memory. We had, at the time, an atomic (nuclear) monopoly. We had, a year earlier, dropped two A-Bombs on Japan, one at Hiroshima, the other at Nagasaki. Our government now decided to do more testing of the atomic bomb and, in my opinion, do a little saber-rattling as well to show the rest of the world, particularly the Soviet Union, of our nuclear capabilities.
But where do we test? We decided on a tiny atoll in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific called Bikini (as in Bikini bathing suits). We gave the Polynesian people who lived on Bikini some excuse that it would not be safe for them to live on their island. We arranged for them to take their outriggers and all their belonging to another island several miles away. Our
government then made preparations to drop an A-Bomb on their tiny island.
Well, a plane took off from Kwajalein and a short time later dropped an A-Bomb in the area of the Bikini lagoon. As I recall, animals, e.g., sheep, goats, etc. ("guinea pigs") were placed on small ships in the lagoon to see the blast's impact on them (They were "fried"). There were also U.S. ships in the area with many sailors on deck to watch the proceedings (I'm not sure how far the ships were from "Ground Zero"; yet, I believe they were relatively close).
As the countdown for the bomb-drop was beginning, the men on the ships were donning welder's goggles to see the blast. The video showed the atomic explosion and the ensuing mushroom cloud. What was also shown was the contaminated sea-water being blown back toward the men as they watched the testing events unfold. Soon, the men were hurriedly ordered to go beneath decks. A while later, the doctors on board began running Geiger Counters on the sailors' clothing. The Geiger Counters were emitting intense readings for radioactivity. The needles on the Counters were nearly "pinning".
In the interim, some of the men had washed their clothes with contaminated water, had caught contaminated fish and even the ships' purification devices were taking in contaminated sea-water for drinking purposes.
I saw this as a lesson. Can we trust all that we are told? Are governments trying to save face? In Japan, why build a nuclear facility on a geologic fault line? I know no one would want a nuclear
facility in their own backyard, but... How safe are our nuclear power plants?
As a final note: my wife's family used to go to Niantic, CT over the summer. There was a nuclear facility, Millstone Point, just across the harbor. My wife had thyroid problems. Thankfully, they were not
cancerous (she did have a portion of her thyroid gland removed). Her sister would die of breat cancer over fifteen years ago. They both frequently swam in the water near Niantic harbor. The nuclear power
plant was looming in the background. I often wondered.
Oh that man whose arm later blew up beyond belief. A short time after the test, he complained of feeling ill. He had been a sailor from Illinois aboard the U.S.S. Mount McKinley. He was diagnosed with radiation sickness. He was
discharged from the U.S. Navy. He was shown later in the video with an arm that looked like it had been repeatedly beaten with a sledge hammer. In the end, this sailor's exposure to the nuclear explosion was the beginning of the end. A few years later, he died.
I read recently that that the U.S. government had pulled the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan away from Japanese waters because some of the sailors were detected as having been exposed to low levels of radiation. All this reminds me of a video I showed when I was teaching history here in Massachusetts. The name of the documentary was called: "Radio Bikini". The code name for the U.S. government exercise was: "Operation Crossroads".
In a nutshell, it was 1946. WW II was still a fresh memory. We had, at the time, an atomic (nuclear) monopoly. We had, a year earlier, dropped two A-Bombs on Japan, one at Hiroshima, the other at Nagasaki. Our government now decided to do more testing of the atomic bomb and, in my opinion, do a little saber-rattling as well to show the rest of the world, particularly the Soviet Union, of our nuclear capabilities.
But where do we test? We decided on a tiny atoll in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific called Bikini (as in Bikini bathing suits). We gave the Polynesian people who lived on Bikini some excuse that it would not be safe for them to live on their island. We arranged for them to take their outriggers and all their belonging to another island several miles away. Our
government then made preparations to drop an A-Bomb on their tiny island.
Well, a plane took off from Kwajalein and a short time later dropped an A-Bomb in the area of the Bikini lagoon. As I recall, animals, e.g., sheep, goats, etc. ("guinea pigs") were placed on small ships in the lagoon to see the blast's impact on them (They were "fried"). There were also U.S. ships in the area with many sailors on deck to watch the proceedings (I'm not sure how far the ships were from "Ground Zero"; yet, I believe they were relatively close).
As the countdown for the bomb-drop was beginning, the men on the ships were donning welder's goggles to see the blast. The video showed the atomic explosion and the ensuing mushroom cloud. What was also shown was the contaminated sea-water being blown back toward the men as they watched the testing events unfold. Soon, the men were hurriedly ordered to go beneath decks. A while later, the doctors on board began running Geiger Counters on the sailors' clothing. The Geiger Counters were emitting intense readings for radioactivity. The needles on the Counters were nearly "pinning".
In the interim, some of the men had washed their clothes with contaminated water, had caught contaminated fish and even the ships' purification devices were taking in contaminated sea-water for drinking purposes.
I saw this as a lesson. Can we trust all that we are told? Are governments trying to save face? In Japan, why build a nuclear facility on a geologic fault line? I know no one would want a nuclear
facility in their own backyard, but... How safe are our nuclear power plants?
As a final note: my wife's family used to go to Niantic, CT over the summer. There was a nuclear facility, Millstone Point, just across the harbor. My wife had thyroid problems. Thankfully, they were not
cancerous (she did have a portion of her thyroid gland removed). Her sister would die of breat cancer over fifteen years ago. They both frequently swam in the water near Niantic harbor. The nuclear power
plant was looming in the background. I often wondered.
Oh that man whose arm later blew up beyond belief. A short time after the test, he complained of feeling ill. He had been a sailor from Illinois aboard the U.S.S. Mount McKinley. He was diagnosed with radiation sickness. He was
discharged from the U.S. Navy. He was shown later in the video with an arm that looked like it had been repeatedly beaten with a sledge hammer. In the end, this sailor's exposure to the nuclear explosion was the beginning of the end. A few years later, he died.