Liberals and representatives of many Western NGOs and various foundations for many years with enviable consistency reminded us of the "nuclear" exercises at the Totskoye training ground in the Orenburg region and at the Semipalatinsk training ground, where the ground and airborne troops (the last in Semipalatinsk), as well as pilots The USSR Air Force was exposed to the damaging factors of nuclear weapons.
Common epithets applied to these teachings were “criminal,” “monstrous,” and so on.
True, in recent years, the aforementioned gentlemen have calmed down. And the reason is simple: more and more information about similar experiments in the United States gets into the press, and at the moment there are so many of them, and they are such that any person, at least somehow connected with the United States (and for the "liberals" of the United States, this is the central a symbol of their religious cult, through which they compensate for their psychosexual pathologies - it is worth knowing that there are no normal people among Russian liberals) it is better to keep silent about this.
But we are not liberals and we will not be silent. Today - a story about how the United States experimented with its military, and how it ended.
Having received data on the consequences of the strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the command of the US Armed Forces became keenly interested in the accumulation of statistics on the real impact of the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion. The easiest way to get such information was to expose your own soldiers to these very factors. Then there was a different era, and the value of human life was incomparable with today. But the Americans did everything in such a way that even by those harsh standards of being, it was overkill.
On July 1, 1946, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, the Gilda atomic bomb dropped from a B-29 bomber was detonated as part of the ABLE test. Thus began Operation Crossroads.
Much has been written about this event, but the main thing has been behind the scenes for many years. After the explosions, specially assigned crews in tugs entered the contamination zone and pulled the ships away. Also, specially selected servicemen took out experimental animals and their bodies from the irradiated ships (and there were a lot of them there). But for the first time, American cannon fodder was lucky - the bomb fell past the designated epicenter, and the infection was not very strong.
The second explosion, BAKER, was carried out on 25 July. This time the bomb was attached to the landing ship. And again, the crews of the auxiliary vessels moved into the contamination zone, extinguished the burning aircraft carriers (aircraft with fuel were placed on board the aircraft carriers), the divers descended into the radioactive mud left at the site of the explosion …
This time there was a complete "order" with the radiation.
The sailors were not given any protective equipment, not even glasses, they were simply told in words to cover their eyes with their hands on command. The flash shone through the palms and people saw their bones through their closed eyelids.
It must nevertheless be said that Perekrestki did not set itself the task of putting people at risk - it was just that there was no other way to pull out the necessary samples. But people fell under this blow. And, apparently, then the American "helmsmen" realized what resource they have in the form of young patriots. People who are not afraid of anything and believe in America.
It took some time to make all the necessary decisions, and on November 1, 1951, IT began.
In theory, it was already known then that nuclear explosions, to put it mildly, are not useful for humans. But the details were needed, and the soldiers had to get these details.
Before the tests, the troops underwent psychological treatment. Young soldiers were told how cool it was - an atomic explosion, they explained that they would get impressions that they would not get anywhere else, they said that they would have a chance to take part in historical photos against the background of an atomic mushroom, such that few people would later be able to brag about. They were told that fear of radiation is irrational. And the soldiers believed.
Some particularly courageous people were motivated to “take on special responsibility” and take positions as close as possible to the epicenter of the future explosion. They, unlike everyone else, were given goggles to protect their eyes. Sometimes.
This is what similar events looked like.
[media = https://www.youtube.com/watch? v = GAr9Ef9Aiz0]
Those few participants who lived up to the time when it was possible to tell about everything said that politicians, congressmen, generals were on the trials, but they were many times farther from the explosions than the soldiers.
In elite circles, the first trials sparked a debate about how widely American soldiers can be used for experiments, and how "deeply" they can be motivated to participate in such experiments. And if the facts of these tests on humans are known today, then very little is known about the debates in the highest echelons of power.
Meanwhile, the "teachings" were going on in full.
During the already mentioned exercises Desert Rock I ("Desert Rock 1") of November 1, 1951, 11 thousand military watched an atomic explosion of more than 18 kilotons, then part of the forces made a foot march towards the epicenter, stopping and retreating at mark one kilometer from him.
Eighteen days later, during the Desert Rock II experiment, the troops were already eight kilometers away, and were making throws right through the epicenter. True, the bomb here was much weaker - only 1, 2 kilotons.
Ten days later - Desert Rock III. Ten thousand soldiers, 6.4 kilometers from the epicenter, foot marches through the epicenter two hours after the explosion, personal protective equipment was not used even at the epicenter.
But that was only the beginning. Five months later, in April 1952, the death conveyor really started working.
Desert Rock IV. From April 22 to June 1, four tests (32, 19, 15, 11 kilotons), connections up to 8500 people, different "tests". In principle, it was already necessary to stop at this, in the USSR all the necessary information was collected in almost one test (the second time, at the Semipalatinsk test site, only the possibility of an airborne landing was checked, while several hundred people were involved, no more). But the Americans didn't stop.
It is impossible to get rid of the feeling that at a certain moment these tests turned, rather, into human sacrifices.
Desert Rock V began even earlier than the fourth, March 17, 1952, and ended on June 4 of the same year. 18,000 people were subjected to 11 atomic explosions, with the equivalent of 0.2 to 61 kilotons. Thirty-nine minutes after the last, most powerful explosion, with the equivalent of 61 kilotons, an airborne assault force of 1,334 people was landed at its epicenter.
From February 18 to May 15, 1955 - Desert rock VI. Eight thousand people were exposed to fifteen explosions from 1 to 15 kilotons.
The latest for the Army and Marine Corps was a series of explosions in 1957, collectively known as Operation Plumbbob. From May 28 to October 7, 1957, 16,000 people were exposed to 29 explosions with TNT equivalent from 0.3 to 74 kilotons.
By this time, the Pentagon decided that there was nothing more to take from the infantry. Now the statistics had to be in complete order, at least many tens of thousands of people were irradiated from different distances by explosions of different strengths, ran with their feet along the epicenters, landed in them from helicopters and parachutes, including those that were still hot to burns from a flash the ground, breathed radioactive dust, including on the march, caught "bunnies" in the open space, in the trenches, and all this basically even without eyeglasses, not to mention gas masks, which never got into any frame over the years. It was impossible to do something else with the soldiers, only to fry them for real, but the American military leaders did not agree to this, it would be impossible later to maintain loyalty among the troops.
The fact that all the explosions were airborne, apparently, is not worth talking about.
Nevertheless, America still had people from whom it was possible to take tribute for living in the greatest country in the world - sailors.
By that time, the statistics on "Crossroads" had already been processed, and, in principle, it was clear what radiation was doing to a person on a ship at sea.
But, unfortunately for the American sailors, their command needed more detailed statistics, they needed details about the people under the ship's hull. It's not enough just to know that radiation kills, and after what time it kills. After all, it is desirable to get the details - how much radiation, for example, can the crew of a destroyer withstand? And the aircraft carrier? The ships are different, and everyone is worth irradiating, otherwise the statistics will be incorrect. And who dies first, a sailor from a small ship or a large one? Is everyone's health different? So more people are needed, then individual differences will not spoil the statistics.
At the end of April 1958, Operation Hardtrack was launched. The track was really difficult for the participant. From April 28 to August 18, 1958, on the atolls of Bikini, Evenetok, and Johnston Island, the US Navy subjected its personnel to 35 atomic explosions, of which one was classified as "weak", and the rest in terms of TNT equivalent were in the range from 18 kilotons, up to 8, 9 megatons. Of all these explosions, two charges were underwater, two were launched on a rocket and exploded at high altitude above ships with people, three floated on the surface of the water, one was suspended above ships with experimental crews in a balloon, and the rest were corny exploded on a barge brought out to sea.
As with the ground tests, no one was equipped with personal protective equipment. The servicemen, who were near the windows and on the shore, were told to cover their eyes with their hands.
Dozens of ships of various classes were irradiated, including the aircraft carrier Boxer.
The third major category in which the US experimented with radiation was military pilots. However, everything was very simple here: the pilot or the crew of the plane, over which the experiment was carried out, simply received an order to fly through the clouds of the explosion. There were no special separate exercises for the Air Force - there were enough explosions in Nevada, in the fifties, for everyone.
In addition, there were scuba divers who needed to go down into the water immediately after the explosion, while it was still hot, submarine crews took part in the experiments, and of course, the service personnel, those who later buried the corpses of animals killed by the explosions, filled the funnels. None of them have ever been provided with any personal protective equipment, only a small number of military personnel occasionally received goggles to protect their eyes from flash. No more.
Even China under Mao Zedong treated its soldiers more humanely. Factor of. There is no need to talk about the USSR.
By the end of the fifties, the harvest had been reaped. Almost 400,000 thousand servicemen were exposed to radiation in conditions close to combat. All of them were taken into account, and in the future they were constantly monitored. For each participant, statistics were kept - the action of which bomb and when he was exposed, how he got sick, how much higher than the average in his age group among people who were not exposed to experiments.
These statistics were carried out for practically each of the military personnel who participated in the experiments until their death, which, for quite understandable reasons, often did not keep itself waiting.
Each participant in the tests was warned that the combat mission he was carrying out was secret, that this secrecy was indefinite and the disclosure of information about what was happening would qualify as a state crime.
Simply put, the soldiers and sailors were supposed to be silent about everything. At the same time, none of these hundreds of thousands of military personnel was informed what they were taking part in and what it could potentially be fraught with. These people then, having discovered a tumor or leukemia, reached everything on their own, figuring out the causal relationships between mushroom clouds in adolescence and a couple of different cancers at the same time in maturity.
However, the US government refused to help them and did not recognize them as victims of military service. This continued until the vast majority of the participants in the experiments died.
Only at the end of the eighties, the veterans carefully began to gather and communicate with each other. By 1990, semi-legal associations and societies began to form from those who could survive to this time. At the same time, they still had nothing and could not tell anyone. In 1995, US President Bill Clinton carefully began to mention these military men in public speeches, and in 1996, information about human tests was declassified and Clinton, on behalf of the United States, apologized to these people.
But it is still not known exactly how many there were. Four hundred thousand is an estimate of 2016, but, for example, in 2009, researchers cautiously named the figure of thirty-six thousand people. So maybe there were even more of them. Today, after everything became clear and the secrecy was lifted, these people are called "atomic veterans". There are not many of them left, most likely a few hundred people.
This story illustrates not only the utterly transcendent, inhuman cruelty with which American politicians and generals are able to deal with their fellow citizens, but also how much the average American citizen is able to remain loyal to his government.
Until 1988, all "atomic veterans" were excluded from any benefit programs, the US government basically refused to help former military personnel affected by radiation, demanding from them proof that their illness was caused precisely by radioactive contamination.
However, in 1988, Congress agreed that 13 different forms of cancer in former military personnel are the consequences of their stay in conditions of radioactive contamination in military service, and the government should pay for the treatment of these forms of cancer. In all other cases, the disease continued to be a personal matter of the patient. In 2016, the number of types of cancer, the treatment of which is covered by state support, reached 21. At the same time, evidence is needed that the patient took part in atomic tests as a test subject, otherwise there will be no preferential treatment, only for money. Other diseases are still not considered the effects of radiation and the patient must treat them himself in any case.
Also, only "experimental" ones fall into the privileged groups, those who, for example, were engaged in cleaning radioactive contamination, decontamination, and the like, do not have any rights or benefits. Officially.
The last "broad gesture" on the part of the American authorities to the "atomic veterans" was the assignment of disability pensions to them - from $ 130 to $ 2900 per month, depending on the severity of the disabled person's condition. Naturally, the status of a disabled person must be justified and proven. On the other hand, after his death, the spouse or spouse can receive this pension for themselves.
And most importantly, having allowed some privileges, the American government did nothing to inform anyone about it. Most of the "atomic veterans" simply did not know that they were owed something and simply died of illness, never knowing that it was possible to receive treatment at the expense of the state or a pension. And, the cherry on top - the Pentagon lost a huge number of personal files of "test subjects", or pretended to have lost, and now, in order to receive benefits, the veteran must prove that he participated in the tests as a test subject.
All these things, however, to a very small extent undermined the loyalty of both former test subjects and their family members to the American state. First, it is very revealing how stubbornly the participants in the events were silent about everything. They were told to be silent, and they were silent for at least forty years. They knocked down thresholds in organizations for veterans' affairs, trying to get help with treatment, but when they were refused, they died of cancer, leukemia, heart disease - and did not say anything to anyone. They did not say when their sick children were born.
Secondly, in the main, they are still patriots. For all the horror of how their state treated them (and after all, in those years there was a conscript army in America), they are still proud of their service.
However, they have nothing else to do, Americans cannot doubt America as such, this is practically an Orwellian thought crime that can cause the collapse of identity. Even the journalists describing this forty-year oblivion of the people from whom they made guinea pigs do not even allow unfriendly intonation towards the US authorities, and, apparently, sincerely.
We, in Russia, should still start trying to probe the limits of their loyalty. Look for the line beyond which the American will begin to view the government as an enemy, so that later they can sow enmity in their homes, undermine faith in America's righteousness and its good intentions. The example of "nuclear veterans" shows that it is not so easy, but the further, the more reasons the US government will give, and we must try.
