During the war, the military tested its gases and gear on more than sixty thousand of its own men. These tests were secret. They rarely appeared on service records, and participants were firmly instructed never to speak of them. By and large, the men complied. Although many suffered debilitating aftereffects—cancer, lung disease, eye problems, skin abnormalities, psychological damage, scarred genitals—the extent of the program remained unknown until the 1990s. Some participants told their families only on their deathbeds. After the revelation of the tests themselves came another revelation:
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