Neil with Charles Clark, a Navy veteran and president of the Radiated Veterans of America, on Memorial Day. The group supports Neil's "atomic" vets bill.
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Neil is sponsoring the "Atomic" Vets bill
U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie has introduced a House bill to revise eligibility requirements that have prevented thousands of those veterans from getting medical treatment for illnesses caused by radiation exposure during their military service.
Below: A recap of Neil's "Atomic Vets" bill and personal stories from some of those veterans who tell stories about tremendous suffering resulting from their radiation exposure. Scroll down for John Broussard's story, which is the latest addition to these accounts.
Video: See Neil's interview with Charles Clark, president of Radiated Veterans of America, which was recorded three days after the bill's introduction. See the video on this Web site or on Neil's YouTube site.
“We must honor our commitment to the surviving 'Atomic' Veterans and honor their service by doing what’s right, and that means tending to their medical needs, " said Abercrombie, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, which oversees the Army and Air Force. "These veterans are dying every day from diseases caused, at least in part, by their service in atomic tests and other nuclear-weapon related activities. This bill, the Atomic Veterans Relief Act, is needed to clear what amounts to bureaucratic barriers that have needlessly prolonged their suffering.”
Abercrombie’s bill would address questions and controversy over the standards, called “dose reconstruction, that are set by the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The agency applies “dose reconstruction” standards to determine an Atomic Veteran’s eligibility to file a medical claim resulting from radiation exposure during military service.
But Abercrombie and Atomic Veterans advocates say the current standards rely on unreliable or incomplete historical data in an almost secretive process that cannot be appealed. The congressional watchdog Government Accountability Office, National Academy of Sciences and Nuclear Regulatory Commission also have raised questions about the standards.
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America’s Atomic Vets Tell Their Stories
Between 1945 and 1962, half a million U.S. military personnel participated in more than 250 atmospheric and underwater tests of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean and at a test site in the Nevada desert.
These military participants have been recognized by Congress as "Atomic" Veterans. Most of them were veterans of the Korean War, and many had served during WWII. Today, there are fewer than 200,000 surviving Atomic Vets. They are entitled to "service-connected" benefits for illness caused by their exposure to atomic radiation while on active duty, but the difficulty has been proving that their illnesses and conditions are service-connected.
Nagasaki 1945 (Photos/Still Picture Records Section, National Archives)
John Broussard: "showered with particulate ash" John Broussard was a U.S. Marine Corps radio operator in April 1953 when his unit, the 2nd Provisional Marine Corps Atomic Exercise Brigade, was moved into five-foot deep trenches at the Nevada Test Site, about three miles from a 300-foot tower holding a 23 kiloton atomic bomb. They were issued no gas masks or protective equipment. When the device was detonated, Broussard says he and his fellow Marines bounced several feet in the air.
“With my eyelids closed, I could see the rocks on the bottom of the trench. When we stood up on command, we could see Joshua trees ablaze behind us. The one Geiger counter was chattering wildly, and we were showered with particulate ash from the towering mushroom clouds. A few minutes later, we boarded helicopters, were flown closer to Ground Zero and marched back. Decontamination consisted of being dusted with whisk brooms.”
Shortly after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999, Broussard saw an Institute of Medicine study reporting that Nevada Test Site veterans had a 20% higher incidence of prostate cancer than the general population. His application for VA benefits was denied. Since then, he has suffered from a type of cataracts associated with exposure to ionizing radiation, skin cancers, and has required an operation to prevent his prostate cancer from spreading. After years of requesting dose reconstruction from the VA, he was granted a 0% service-connected rating for the damage to his eyes.
Charles Clark: 180 skin cancers Charles Clark of Hawaii was one of the first Americans to enter Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped on the city August 9, 1945.
“I entered Nagasaki September 23, 1945, forty-five days after the bombing, to establish ship to shore communications,” says Clark. “We were on the beach five days.”
Those five days forever changed Clark’s life and health. “I have had over 180 skin cancers removed from my face, and they will never stop. I see my doctor every two months, each time with follow up surgery,” said Clark, adding that he will travel to the Mainland this week from Hawaii to visit his daughter, who’s been fighting serious health problems, including cancer, that they believe resulted from his exposure to radiation.
Nagasaki 1945 (Photo/Still Picture Records Section, National Archives)
Bob Wolfe: In a trench three miles from atomic blast After coming home from Korea, Bob Wolfe was assigned to Camp Desert Rock, Nevada in July 1953. Wolfe experienced incoming mortar and artillery fire in Korea. He didn’t think an atomic blast would be too dangerous, even though he was told the blast would be as strong as the one dropped in Hiroshima, because he would be in a trench three miles away.
“It was a sunny morning. We were in the trenches. A loudspeaker told us to kneel down and keep our eyes open. When we saw the white light, we were to stand up and keep our backs to the trench, otherwise the shock wave would knock us down. It was a tremendous explosion and intense light. We were then told to get out of the trench and march to the edge of ground zero.
"Since then I have had kidney cancer in 1988 and the kidney was removed. In 1994, I had prostate cancer and received radiation treatment for this. In May 2004, I had nasal pharynx cancer, but it was too close to the brain and they could not operate. I had about seven weeks of radiation and chemotherapy. In May 2005, I had cancer in my left ear down into the ear canal and underwent surgery for this. The treatment for cancer in my head left me with no appetite and no taste buds. In addition, my upper saliva gland quit working. It is very hard to eat food and I live on nutritional drinks.”
"Operation Cue" nuclear test, Nebraska 1955 (Photo/Still Picture Records Section, National Archives)
James C. Trepoy: 'Just cover your eyes' James Trepoy’s unit was in a shoulder width, four-foot deep trench for the April 1953 atomic bomb test. They were issued no protective clothing or equipment. They were told to cover their eyes and stay in the trench.
“When the bomb went off, the light was so bright I could see the bones of my hands. The desert became hot and the wind blew across our trenches carrying sand and debris eight miles back to our transportation staging area; smashing the windows. We had to stay in the trench because the vacuum created by the initial blast caused the wind to return to fill the void created by the displaced air. We got out of our trench to see the mushroom and the fireball and the two icecaps forming at the top. We then advanced toward ground zero. No one had dosimeters, although there were two Geiger counters in front of the troops. My group was stopped short of ground zero because the radiation was too high, although others did advance all the way. When transport arrived, we swept each other off to get rid of the radiation dust, and upon arrival at the base camp, we took showers.”
Within a short period of time, Trepoy developed a marking with a red tracer that ran up the left side of his back, across the shoulder blade and down the right side of his back just about in the outline of a pack. Years later a physician performed a biopsy on a lump that had developed on his back that was diagnosed as Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
Edward J. Blas: Clean up after 43 nuclear tests Edward Blas of Guam was stationed on Lojwa in the Marshall Islands during the 1977-79 clean-up of Eniwetok Atoll after 43 nuclear tests between 1943 and 1962. The VA denied his claim that he had been exposed to ionizing radiation during the clean-up because Eniwetok veterans were not included in the ionizing radiation program or identified as Atomic Veterans.
“The evidence is overwhelming that we were exposed to high levels of ionizing radiation while we lived on ground zero.”
As a younger man, Blas weighed 220 pounds. He never smoked. Today, his weight is 143 pounds.
“I am on hemodyalisis three times a week, I’m anemic, suffer from diabetes, arthritis with severe joint pain. While I was recuperating from triple by-pass heart surgery, I suffered a stroke."
Frank Bushey: "I saw another Marine's complete skeleton." Frank Bushey served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1952-55. His unit was deployed from Cherry Point, NC to the Nevada test site, and wound up in trenches near Ground Zero.
“We were about 3600 meters from the bomb blast, which threw us side to side like rag dolls. I saw boulders on the trench bottom through my eyelids. Glancing over to my left, I saw another Marine’s complete skeleton. It was a giant X-ray. We were ordered out of the trenches and into a skirmish line attack formation. As we advanced, the winds came up again. This time the wind shifted right into our faces. mall animals were scurrying about, and birds were falling from the sky.”
In 1975 and 1995, Bushey underwent triple coronary artery bypass grafts, In March 1998, he had a cancerous tumor removed from his colon; in 1997, he was treated for a cancerous prostate gland, and in 2001, his prostate was removed.
“Some of my children have had cancers and ovary problems at puberty. One son and two granddaughters were diagnosed with vitiligo, an autoimmune condition that results in a loss of skin pigment. One of my boys had to have his prostate removed at age 49, and his twin brother had a rib removed because of a lesion on the bone. My youngest son had a cancerous tumor removed from his back.”
