Ken Case known as the "Atomic Cowboy" died July 5th, 1985. He would, "ride a herd of cattle and horses over ground zero after a nuclear detonation so that the effects of radiation on wildlife could be measured." He said, "They got cancer and we got cancer, only they were so much closer to the ground that they died faster. I have had eleven surgeries. Tumors."
"We would get over {ground zero} and bang, off-scale {the Geiger counters}. When we went back over about 30 feet off the ground, the sand, it would be melted just like glass. Those ground zeros in the spring, you look out, they bleed a big circle in the snow around ground zero."
In 1989 Carole Gallagher took a tour of the Nevada Test Site. She wrote, "Thinking also of Ken Case, I continued to inquire if there had ever been a program of animal experimentation at the Test Site, say in the fifties, before they knew better. 'Oh, no, we wouldn't do that,' said the tour director."
"We would get over {ground zero} and bang, off-scale {the Geiger counters}. When we went back over about 30 feet off the ground, the sand, it would be melted just like glass. Those ground zeros in the spring, you look out, they bleed a big circle in the snow around ground zero."
In 1989 Carole Gallagher took a tour of the Nevada Test Site. She wrote, "Thinking also of Ken Case, I continued to inquire if there had ever been a program of animal experimentation at the Test Site, say in the fifties, before they knew better. 'Oh, no, we wouldn't do that,' said the tour director."
"I grew up believing I lived a charmed existence. The U.S. government took great steps to assure us that everything was safe and no harm would come to us. When life is good it’s hard to believe that awful things could possibly happen. But they do, something the people living downwind from the test site found out soon after the testing began. We watched loved ones suffer and die at an alarming rate, while the U.S. government continued to deny any wrong doing.
My husband’s father was a uranium miner and died at a young age of lung cancer as a result of working in improperly vented mines. We now know from declassified documents that the U.S. government made a conscious decision not to tell the miners of the illness that would occur from exposure to radon gas, because it needed the uranium to build the bombs.
My father died six months after a brain tumor the size of a lemon was removed. At this time our family doctor suggested that the tumor was the result of the fallout that rained over our homes from the nuclear testing.
As hard as my father’s death was, it was nothing compared to the heartache that would follow. At the age of three, our youngest daughter Bethany was diagnosed with a deadly form of cancer neuroblastoma. We watched this wonderfully lively inquisitive child fight so many struggles to live. After three years of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery she lost her fight. We held Bethany while she died, knowing the horror that we could do nothing but pray that her suffering would end.
Just one month before Bethany died, Cathy, my only sister passed away at the age of 36 from skin cancer. She left behind six small children and a husband. The pain of watching loved ones die is so profound that I too wished for death to end the sadness within me. The nuclear age not only physically killed thousands, but also caused a great many of us the loss of our innocence."
My husband’s father was a uranium miner and died at a young age of lung cancer as a result of working in improperly vented mines. We now know from declassified documents that the U.S. government made a conscious decision not to tell the miners of the illness that would occur from exposure to radon gas, because it needed the uranium to build the bombs.
My father died six months after a brain tumor the size of a lemon was removed. At this time our family doctor suggested that the tumor was the result of the fallout that rained over our homes from the nuclear testing.
As hard as my father’s death was, it was nothing compared to the heartache that would follow. At the age of three, our youngest daughter Bethany was diagnosed with a deadly form of cancer neuroblastoma. We watched this wonderfully lively inquisitive child fight so many struggles to live. After three years of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery she lost her fight. We held Bethany while she died, knowing the horror that we could do nothing but pray that her suffering would end.
Just one month before Bethany died, Cathy, my only sister passed away at the age of 36 from skin cancer. She left behind six small children and a husband. The pain of watching loved ones die is so profound that I too wished for death to end the sadness within me. The nuclear age not only physically killed thousands, but also caused a great many of us the loss of our innocence."
Carole Gallagher wrote, "At 15 {Jay Truman} became very ill with a type of lymphoma, Waldenstrom's disease."
"I was born in December 1951. Testing started in January of 1951. I remember in school they showed a film once called A is for Atom, B is for Bomb. I think most of us who grew up in that period, we've all in our own minds added C is for Cancer and D is for Death. The realization comes that you don't really have a future. I think the most difficult thing for people was the fact that they knew on a personal level, a visual level by going to the church and cemetery for leukemia cases and others, they knew something wasn't right. in order to accept that the government not only did it to them, but was carrying on an extensive con job to show there there was no danger. How do you admit your government is lying to you and is putting you on the receiving end of discretionary genocide?"
"I was born in December 1951. Testing started in January of 1951. I remember in school they showed a film once called A is for Atom, B is for Bomb. I think most of us who grew up in that period, we've all in our own minds added C is for Cancer and D is for Death. The realization comes that you don't really have a future. I think the most difficult thing for people was the fact that they knew on a personal level, a visual level by going to the church and cemetery for leukemia cases and others, they knew something wasn't right. in order to accept that the government not only did it to them, but was carrying on an extensive con job to show there there was no danger. How do you admit your government is lying to you and is putting you on the receiving end of discretionary genocide?"
"We were assured that the bombs would not have any toxic effects. There were articles in the paper. There were civic meetings. Military leaders came to speak, and they all said not to worry about a thing. It was all safe. Now I go back and watch those newsreels and I hear them say, 'This is no big deal for southern Utah.' 'It's routine.' 'It's part of their lives,' as if they are trying to minimize and make it OK. Perhaps they didn't know, but I think they did. They knew what the bomb had done to the Japanese."
His daughter, Sybil, died at age 12 of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
His daughter, Sybil, died at age 12 of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.