X‑Originating‑IP: [207.64.156.2]
From: John DeBusk <atomicvet@xxxx.com>
To: joyeria@walrus.com
Subject: Atomic Tests
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 15:15:44 PST
Hi Joy,
Thanks for your email.
My military unit was the first the government used
as guinea pigs at the
Nevada Test Site when it opened in the early
1950s. We knew we were
being "fried off" there by the radiation,
but we were young and thought
we were invincible. Because the early bombs were
very dirty, not all the
plutonium fissioned, so when detonated, and the
mushroom cloud formed,
it sucked up much of the radioactive particles, the
wind carried the
fallout across the U.S., causing many people to
contract cancer of
various types.
The government denied there was ever any risk involved
with the atomic tests. I would [think] the Japanese would have a different
view, since thousands died at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was a great U.S. experiment too, after all
we spent two billion
dollars on the atomic bomb, and General L. Groves
and the scientists at
Los Alamos had an urge to try it out on some one.
The Japanese were
about to surrender and time was running out for the
big test.
The U.S. killed women and children in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in Japan,
then started in the United States doing the same
thing, but they didn't
care because they had their new toy called the
"A‑Bomb," they felt a
need to develop larger and larger bombs and set them
off as frequently
as time would allow.
This is what happened to us, wife and I: After being
in the nuclear
tests, I was discharged in November of 1953, I
returned home to Texas
and married my high‑school sweetheart. We worked and saved so that we
could provide for our children when they came
along. In 1958 we had our
first child, a daughter. My wife and I had picked out a name, Debbie
Lynn DeBusk.
We had picked out everything we would need for the baby,
cloths, a bed, etc. Our daughter was born with birth
defects and only
lived for 4 days, caused by the radiation I was
exposed to in Nevada in
1951...That's my story, and why I have the web
site.
Best regards,
John DeBusk