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Must a society experience horror in order to understand horror? Ours was the only country among the combatants in World War Two that was neither invaded nor bombed.
The term “premature anti-fascist” came into being later. I think it applied to people like us.
The code name of that was called Operation Crossroads. That was in the Marshall Islands and the Bikini atoll. That was the only word that we received. We had no idea. Not only myself, but the rest of the young men that was on board. It was a destroyer called U.S.S. Alan M. Sumner. We were advised there would be nothin’ harmful. Just a lot of excitement and have a lot of fun.
We were standin’ in shorts. I had a T-shirt on, just like this. I had a little sailor hat on and tennis shoes. The brass on the Mount McKinley, they stayed undercover the whole time. They wore heavy clothing all the time. They were protected all the time.
Along about the last of August, I discovered some red burns about the size of a silver dollar, five or six of ’em, on both feet and legs. I went to first aid, and they put a white salve on with a tongue depresser, and put a little piece of gauze on every one of ’em, and they give me bed rest. That disappeared. About a week later, both feet and legs begin to swell. They give me bed rest again. And that went away. But it kept comin’ back on me, while I was aboard ship. I was still unable to wear my shoes, because of the swelling of feet and legs.
Those bombs that destroyed two cities didn’t destroy any military installations, but old men, women, and children. Then seven, eight months later, without getting too much data, went right in and detonated two more. They didn’t even have the proper equipment to gauge the beta or the alpha radiation that I was exposed to. These tests were certainly not on behalf of any of the men involved. I feel personally we were all used as guinea pigs.
It reminds me of Rumpelstiltskin. He stamps his feet and the floor opens up. Somebody stamped their feet and the floor opened up. Unlike Rumpelstiltskin, you can’t get it closed again. The floor that opened up is knowing the magnitude of what we can do and will, under circumstances we can’t foresee, do to one another.
