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ATOMIC TEST VETERAN IS LAST OF A DYING BREED --
Some say they were used as guinea pigs in these
bomb tests by the Department of Defense.
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http://www.sun-herald.com/
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Atomic War Vet, last of a dying breed
Andy Hawkinson served on Eniwetok in the '50s
Andy Hawkinson is the last of a dying breed. He is one of the last of an
estimated 400,000 American soldiers who took part in atomic bomb testing
during World War II and throughout the Cold War up to 1992.
Some say they were used as guinea pigs in these bomb tests by the
Department of Defense. Worse, they weren't told what medical problems
they would probably have until they started experiencing serious medical
difficulties years later.
"Because of the wonderful advent of the Internet, I found studies done
by the federal government starting as early as 1958 that documented
contamination at bomb sites. Nobody was supposes to know about it,"
Hawkinson said.
"The Department of Defense originally admitted that approximately
287,000 veterans were exposed to atomic radiation, but there were tens
of thousands more," the 67-year-old North Port vet recently explained.
"The VA is required by law to know exactly how many of us are left, but
it won't tell."
Hawkinson was an 18-year-old military policeman in 1957 when he was sent
to Eniwetok, a tiny island in a small group of islands in the Pacific's
Marshall Island Chain, 1,000 miles from anything. It was the epicenter
of atomic and hydrogen bomb testing for the United States in the 1940s
and '50s. He was scheduled to serve a year tour of duty on the desolate
island.
"If it hadn't been for my dad's death on Sept. 25, 1957, I would have
probably been dead by now," Hawkinson said. "I was given compassionate
leave to attend my father's funeral after my first six months on the
island. I never returned."
Although neither an atomic nor a nuclear bomb was detonated while he was
on Eniwetok, by the time he arrived 22 bombs had already been exploded
within a couple of miles of the island. An additional 21 thermonuclear
devices would be detonated in a single month a few weeks after he left
for the funeral.
They were detonated in four different ways, he explained. Some of the
bombs were set off from steel towers, either 100 or 300 feet tall.
Others were dropped by a bomber. Some were detonated under water and a
few were detonated on a barge in the lagoon at Eniwetok.
The fact Hawkinson missed all 43 explosions didn't spare him from a long
list of medical problems he suffers from today. They began cropping up
two decades after he left the contaminated island. The former soldier
said his doctors told him many of his maladies were caused by exposure
to radiation.
"We were there to maintain peace among 500 troops, which was a bit
difficult because Eniwetok wasn't a very pleasant place to be. We were
also responsible for security. We envisioned the possibility Russian
subs were in the area because of the nuclear testing," he said.
Eniwetok consisted of a mile-long strip of sand with a harbor at one
end. It was a typical military installation with prefab buildings that
served as barracks, a mess hall and a power plant. There was a boat
dock, a short paved runway and a single road that ran the length of the
island and curved around the lagoon like a question mark.
"On Saturdays, when a group of us MPs got the day off, we'd borrow a
landing craft, put an Army truck aboard filled with beer and steaks and
sail 10 miles across the lagoon to Sally Atoll. We'd drive our truck
full of food and drink onto the beach, set up a volleyball net, play
ball and have a merry old afternoon. Then we'd sail back to Eniwetok."
Nobody told the MPs their island playground had been ground zero for
three atomic bomb blasts. One of the bombs was a 48-kiloton explosion,
three times as large as the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima.
"We climbed all over what was left of the steel framework where the bomb
sat before it was detonated. Bushes had revegitated themselves on the
island, everything looked fine. There were no warning signs to tell us
Sally Atoll was reeking radiation," he said.
It wasn't until 1977, years after Hawkinson got out of the service and
was the manager of a bank in Santa Fe, Calf., that his radiation
problems hit home one weekend.
"I went to a football game with a friend, Cal was playing the Air Force.
During half time I realized all of a sudden I couldn't see the football
field," he said. "The following week I went to see an eye specialist and
he told me I had cataracts in both of my eyes. I was only 37 years old.
The doctor said it was probably from radiation exposure."
Hawkinson became an Atomic Veteran activist in the 1980s. His
metamorphosis began by learning what had happened to him and thousands
of other young soldiers exposed to radiation from nuclear bombs in the
first two decades after WW II.
He read a newspaper article about Orville Kelly, who established the
National Association of Atomic Veterans in Burlington, Iowa, in the
'70s. A short time later, Hawkinson met Kelly at a meeting of his newly
formed veterans group in California in 1978. Kelly was on his death bed.
Kelly had served in the military at Eniwetok at the same time as
Hawkinson. But Kelly was there during all of the final 21 blasts that
closed out this country's atomic and hydrogen testing programs there in
1957-58. Kelly died shortly after Hawkinson first met him.
"After meeting Kelly I started forming Atomic Veterans chapters around
the nation," he said. Hawkinson quickly became one of the leaders of the
activists group.
"I organized my first chapter at Trinity Methodist Church in Berkeley,
Calf., in 1980. I arranged to have several doctors, a couple of
attorneys, (former) Congressman Norman Panetta and someone from the VA
at the first meeting," he said.
An Atomic Vet's publication during this period noted: "Andy Hawkinson,
our National Coordinator, initiated new chapters in over a dozen states
in less than six weeks. In and out of a state once every three days,
with newsmen on his heels and the Defense Nuclear Agency looking for his
scalp, Andy was instrumental in getting local chapters started in
Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Rhode Island, New
York, Maryland and Massachusetts."
In 1977 Hawkinson sent a claim into the VA to obtain benefits for a list
of medical problems reportedly caused by exposure to radiation
contamination.
"My claim was denied by the VA because it said I was never exposed to
any significant amounts of radiation," he said it told him. "In 1984, I
organized a suit against the VA for the right to be represented by an
attorney and receive VA medical care.
"The VA has continually refused to hear our case and we have taken it
all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Eventually the VA created the
Court of Veterans Appeals and our case was remanded to that court. The
Department of Defense was ordered by this court to help the Atomic Vets,
but the DOD will do nothing for us."
Finally, in 2003, Congress stepped in and forced the DOD to redo the
scientific details involving Atomic War Vets. As a consequence, these
vets are now at the same level of treatment as a regular war vet with
100 percent disability. However, by that time most of these old soldiers
had passed away.
Ironically, Hawkinson has been granted 100-percent medical disability by
the VA, too, but not because of his exposure to radiation. In 2002 the
VA said he was eligible for the compensation because of exposure to
Agent Orange during his Vietnam War service in 1967 and '68.
"I am proud of my 14 years of military service before and during the
Vietnam War. However, it is despicable what the VA and the DOD has done
to veterans like us who need medical treatment and compassion,"
Hawkinson said. "They're still doing it to our servicemen and women who
are serving overseas right now. Someone should be shot over it!"
Asked what the U.S. Government had done for the Atomic War Veterans in
the past half-century, he dropped his head and sat in silence at his
dining room table.
"You're gonna make me cry. You hit the one button that touches a nerve,"
the former soldier said as he looked up at me with tears welling up in
both eyes.
You can e-mail Don Moore at:
moore@sun-herald.com.
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Larry Scott --
