Bernard Stearos, Enewetak Atoll (1978) Glimmer of Lights

Introducing a series of narrative articles about the Atomic Cleanup Veterans of Enewetak Atoll.

The following are first-hand accounts told by comparatively few survivors of the Enewetak Atoll Atomic Debris Cleanup Mission, Marshall Islands; a mission that took place from 1977-1980. Their stories appear as told to T-M Fitzgerald(published author, veteran, veteran advocate) because theirs are tales needing to be known.

Read - H.R. 5980: Mark Takai Atomic Veterans Healthcare Parity Act

Introduction: “Where in the World is Enewetak?”

Enewetak is just one of many atolls and islands in the Pacific Ocean’s Marshall Island chain. Located about 2,365 nautical miles SW of Hawaii (just north of the equator), the Marshall Islands were once a major testing ground for nuclear weapons post WWII. This island chain is also home to the project called Cactus Dome, a 350’- wide blast crater located at the northern end of Runit Island that has become known as the ‘Nuclear Trashcan of the Pacific.’

Between 1948-58, forty-three nuclear weapons were detonated over Enewetak and its sister islands. Among these tests were ‘Ivy Mike’ and ‘Castle Bravo’ (a device 1000X as powerful as the bomb ‘Little Boy’ which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan post Pearl Harbor.)

In 1977, a coalition of United States military forces and civilian support teams were sanctioned to ‘clean’ the islands of residual radioactive fallout. Men, many who were mere teenagers back in the day, were tasked with cleaning the contaminated fallout from the nuclear testing that occurred throughout the previous three decades. Keep in mind, that as recent as 2012, the United Nations reported that the cumulative effects from all that nuclear testing had effectively caused near-irreversible environmental contamination. There was a problem beginning in 1977 and currently, effects from that exposure have begun to manifest, taking toll on many surviving Enewetak vets and contractors today. Four decades later, survivors are telling their stories because the world needs to know.

Personal story by Bernard A. Stearos

Branch: Army MOS: 62N3 Location: Lowja Year: 1978

Quote: “We did for Uncle Sam what he wanted; now he should take care of the ones who are left.”

“I am but one of a few of the survivors of the 1977-1980 Enewetak Atoll Atomic Debris Cleanup Mission that took place in the Marshall Islands. A major focus of this group has been to help one another with information and moral support during some of the challenging times we’ve encountered following our time in service at Enewetak.

A secondary focus/goal is to urge Congress to change current law and recognize Cold War Era soldiers and contractors of the Enewetak Cleanup Mission as “veterans and workers who participated in radiation-risk activities during active service.”

By obtaining their second goal, individuals experiencing health complications resulting from radiation exposure at Enewetak Atoll will be eligible to apply for funds that have previously been set-aside for other Atomic Veterans who have already been recognized and acknowledged for their service.

“I knew about the Marshall Islands and Enewetak before I went down there myself because my father and father-in-law both had been in the Navy. My father-in-law got to spend a weeks’ vacation at Enewetak on his way to the Pacific Theatre, plus I paid a little attention in history class. I actually volunteered to go. A buddy of mine had already been selected to go but he was having some issues he had to deal with at home. He asked me if I would go in his place and he’d sign up and meet me down there later. Needless to say, I went and he never did.”

“As far as knowing what the project entailed before we got there, there was really no knowledge of that; no briefing detailing what the project was going to consist of other than they needed engineers. I figured it would be a good learning experience for a junior NCO.”

“When I first got there, I really didn’t have a job. I was working at the batch plant (where the concrete slurry for the dome that was capping Cactus Crater was being manufactured) They had a rock crusher up there that wasn’t crashing anything. We had to get the pressure unit operational because I knew we were going to need to stockpile aggregate (coral) for the dome. I pushed for them to allow us to start crushing. They gave me basically a squad of personnel and one mechanic (who was a Godsend) and we started blasting the reef: we’d generally blast 800-1200 pounds twice a week. We’d send our heavy equipment out there to collect all of the loose material from the blast site, haul it up to the crusher and produced a very large stockpile. That’s basically all we did. Blasted, crushed. Blasted and crushed…”

“Safety? I think they gave me a decimeter when I first arrived. I turned it in when we were supposed to but I don’t remember ever seeing one again. We were out there working in 110F degree temperatures and creating a lot of dust. We had no protective gear whatsoever: no breathing apparatus of any kind, and you know, the 20-ton dump trucks running back and forth on Runit produced dust: lots of it. Dust would settle in the truck and wherever that truck traveled, dust was released. All those particles of plutonium, and cesium or just basic dirt was inhaled by everybody. The vehicles and equipment as they moved produced particles as well.”

“When you left our end of the island and went toward Cactus crater, the Air Force had set up a little decontamination zone/hot line. We drove straight through there, dumped our loads and drove straight back through the hot line. None of our equipment or any personnel were ever decontaminated. Guys unloading the Maggie boats coming in off the other islands (with heavily ionized debris I assume) did wear the banana suits and the guys working right where they pumped the slurry into the crater, those guys quite often did wear a banana suit but that was all I ever saw.”

“Recently, they’ve had articles out about Chernobyl. What about the atolls of the Marshall Islands? We were told not to eat the fish but what is it that fish eat? The feed off of the coral. I’ve never heard nor have I ever read of any kind of test being done on the coral surrounding the atoll regarding all the radioactive material they may have absorbed. All of that stuff was contaminated and there we were right in the middle of it all.”

“I can’t speak for those on the other islands but Runit was pretty easy to determine. I knew within the first two weeks of being there that something wasn’t quite right. When you went to the hotline and had the Air Force there monitoring you and you notice there were no decontamination procedures in place whatsoever, you knew something was up. You’d watch all the equipment going back and forth all day long and nothing ever got hosed off, all that stuff everybody was breathing in? Well, you know as well as I that you don’t question too many things. You just keep your mouth shut and do your job. That goes all the way up the chain of command. Here’s your job, that’s all you need to be concerned with doing. If you don’t do what you are told, you’re disobeying a direct order. At that point in time, nobody knew anything about the radioactive potentials. This was on Runit. You saw it. But we didn’t think too much about what we were doing.”

“For the most part, because a lot of the younger guys didn’t have any realization of the material they were really working with. You know, engineers are just happy doing engineer-related work. It wasn’t like training on the range. It was real dozer work out there. That reminds me, sometimes to break the boredom of existing down there, some of the guys would go out on the reef and chase sharks on their track vehicles. It was just a game. All those little foot-long sharks would be attracted by the vibrations of the drills. It was actually quite funny. You know, homesickness was the biggest problem for some of those guys. Chasing sharks on the reef was just one of those things that all the farm boys from Arkansas or Mississippi got to experience. It took their minds off of everything going on. A lot of us snorkeled while we were there as well. We had been dumped on a remote island chain where nobody had been for decades before us. And who on the planet has ever got to fight with a coconut crab and watch him snap a broomstick in half with his claw? There were good things going on there, like that and as far as it being an engineer project? It was good. We all learned a lot with all the practical experience we had. Makes me think about a PFC we had. He really hated being down there, but he knew demolitions. That boy could blow up anything and he taught us how to do it right.”

“I first saw the Enewetak group on the internet. I was seeing numbers of how many men had been assigned to the detail, and then where they were also talking about how there’s only like 400-500 of us left. That’s not good. I don’t think normal humans die at the rate our group of veterans appear to be. Over the course of 40 years, a person has to question those kinds of numbers. Are they realistic for a death rate? To me, that indicates a very serious problem. We were just part of a large experiment…lab rats. We were all in this one location, previous Ground Zero and all dying from different kinds of cancer.”

“It’s been amazing to read about some of the stuff we are finding out about this place we lived in all those years ago. We’re just now finding out what exactly we were exposed to. It’s a large bureaucracy; our government. They are making everything worse for themselves. You see it today, we have all these little groups come forward who want to do all kinds of great things for our veterans, and that’s all well and good. But you know what? That’s what the VA is supposed to be doing. You have a guy lose a limb, we discharge them, and that’s it. They’re on their own. ‘Thank you for your service. Sorry about the leg. See ya.’ That’s NOT the way it’s supposed to work and that’s what they are doing with all of us from Enewetak.”

“If I could convey one message to the world? Get rid of all weapons of mass destruction. The accidents, population, all of the ignorance. People don’t understand the concept of half-lives. Nobody really has any idea of what would happen if the whole world entered into nuclear war. The contamination is going to be in everything. We are not going to be okay. Everybody’s going to be polluted and all the various types of cancer are going to be prevalent. Whoever is left is going to die from these weird types of cancer.”

“People who have served in our military know. We have a job to do, we do things and we get things done. No matter the circumstances or the end cost. What is that saying? ‘We have done so much with so little for so long, we can now do anything with nothing.’ If you were on Enewetak, you believe that. There was no supply chain. If you went through the proper channels, by the time you got the stuff you needed, it was too late. We did a lot of wheeling and dealing. Whatever we had to do to make things work, we did it. We had to. The mission required it.”

“We preach ‘No man left behind’. Make movies about it and of course we have all of our Team 6’s, Special Ops and Ranger groups saying, ‘We don’t leave anybody behind.’ Well, maybe we have. What we did down in the Marshall Islands? We did that for Uncle Sam. We did what he wanted. Now, all these decades later, he should take care of the ones who are left.”

The primary focus for this group is to urge Congress to change legislation and recognize soldiers of this seemingly forgotten cleanup mission as “veterans who participated in radiation-risk activities during active service.”

Follow our cause: Atomic Veterans of Enewetak Atoll