“I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
FALLOUT: Intended & Otherwise
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The Chief knew of the potential consequences his exposure could carry. It is assumed his wife Jeanne did as well. There is witness narratives the officers were advised there could be deformities or handicaps, DNA, chromosome, or genetic damage How the fallout would present themselves was the unknown.
The Chief had taken the Naval Radiologic Training courses so it is assumed there was some knowledge of the risk the government was exposing him to, now passed on to me. It was shared consequence that would continue to unfold between us during his 20 years of cancer fights. On the days he watched me suffer with related health issues, his guilt was palatable - but it was a bond we shared from the day I was conceived.
The Chief had served in WWII, The Korean War, The Passage to Freedom and the Vietnam war officially started 6 months before I was born. Even at this young age above, I knew when anyone was asked what my father did, the answer was that it was 'Above Top Secret' and we 'aren't at liberty to discuss it." I had heard that answer as long as I could remember. Not that we ever really knew, but what little we might have caught in passing, we could not talk about pretty much inside or outside the house. These were more innocent days when he was still on active duty and we were having "Duck & Cover" drills in elementary school. The Cold War, the Cuban Missile crisis & the war in Vietnam, Kennedy assassination were the topics of the day.
Early ConsequencesSome might say I was eleven years old when the end of my innocence hit, but the fact of the matter was that I was never really felt innocent. It was jokingly referred to as "a product of The Atomic Age." What I did not know, was how literally they meant that until I was sat down by some high ranking military doctors and told that my father was quite ill and extraordinary care was going to be required for him. It was Top Secret, the project he had been working on that got him sick, so this was to be kept within the household, and that is impacted his reproductive organs, and as such, this discussion included that it's quite possible I should not have children and that they would want to observe me as well.
How scientists secretly used US citizens as guinea pigs
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Protective Gear Appropriated
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Chernobyl Atomic Cleanup Worker
4,200 R/h |
Enewetak Atomic
Cleanup Worker 128,730 R/h |
Fallout Shelters of the 1950's & 60s
Random Interesting Links
U.S. nuclear weapons testing began on July 16, 1945, with the explosion of the "Trinity" device near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Recognizing that future nuclear tests would have to be conducted further from populated areas, the military carried out the next two series of tests--Operation "Crossroads" in 1946, and Operation "Sandstone" in 1948--at the Pacific Proving Grounds.
Concern with the difficult logistics of conducting tests in mid- ocean, as well as worry about the physical security of a proving ground located outside the continental United States, prompted establishment of the Nevada Test Site [NTS] on December 18, 1950, by order of President Truman. A majority of U.S. nuclear tests appear to have been so- called proof tests to determine whether and how well a prototype weapon would work.
Second most numerous were tests meant to determine the effect of a bomb on military equipment or personnel; such tests included biomedical experiments on animals, tests of the psychological impact on troops nearby the explosion, and possibly other human subject experiments.
Starting in the late 1950s, a large number of tests were safety related, reflecting an increased concern with the accidental detonation of a stockpiled nuclear weapon, and the enhanced prospect of a ban on nuclear testing.By its very nature, nuclear weapons testing is an inexact science. Especially in the early days of the nuclear arms competition with the Soviet Union, when entirely new types of experimental weapons were being rapidly developed and tested, it was not uncommon for a particular yield to exceed estimates by 50% or more.
Such was the case in the November 1952 "Mike" proof-of-concept test of the first U.S. hydrogen bomb, and in the March 1954 "Bravo" test of a prototype U.S ICBM warhead. Even as late as the 1970s, the unpredictability of yields led to the unintentional "venting" of radiation from underground nuclear weapons tests. More >
Concern with the difficult logistics of conducting tests in mid- ocean, as well as worry about the physical security of a proving ground located outside the continental United States, prompted establishment of the Nevada Test Site [NTS] on December 18, 1950, by order of President Truman. A majority of U.S. nuclear tests appear to have been so- called proof tests to determine whether and how well a prototype weapon would work.
Second most numerous were tests meant to determine the effect of a bomb on military equipment or personnel; such tests included biomedical experiments on animals, tests of the psychological impact on troops nearby the explosion, and possibly other human subject experiments.
Starting in the late 1950s, a large number of tests were safety related, reflecting an increased concern with the accidental detonation of a stockpiled nuclear weapon, and the enhanced prospect of a ban on nuclear testing.By its very nature, nuclear weapons testing is an inexact science. Especially in the early days of the nuclear arms competition with the Soviet Union, when entirely new types of experimental weapons were being rapidly developed and tested, it was not uncommon for a particular yield to exceed estimates by 50% or more.
Such was the case in the November 1952 "Mike" proof-of-concept test of the first U.S. hydrogen bomb, and in the March 1954 "Bravo" test of a prototype U.S ICBM warhead. Even as late as the 1970s, the unpredictability of yields led to the unintentional "venting" of radiation from underground nuclear weapons tests. More >
ra·di·o·gen·ic
rādēōˈjenik
adjective
rādēōˈjenik
adjective
- produced by radioactivity.
"a radiogenic isotope" - Being a stable element that is a product of radioactive decay.
