Johnny Deardorff, 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 Veteran 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 Johnny Deardorff

Branch: US Army: A-Co., 84th Engineers MOS: 62G Quarry Machine, Heavy Equipment Operator Location: Lojwa Basecamp Year: 1978

Quote: “We were used. The cost of lives wasn’t worth the efforts to ‘clean’ that place. We didn’t change a thing, except shorten our lives.”

“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 of the Enewetak Cleanup Mission as “veterans 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 had just graduated AIT at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri: honor grad such I was, so they made me an instructor. They told me, “We’re sending you to Hawaii.” I ended up out on Enewetak and Lojwa in the Marshall Islands. I knew absolutely nothing about the place or what we were supposed to be doing down there.”

“Protective gear? Well mine started out as an anti-c suit (anti-contamination suit) but after about an hour in that thing, you’d pass out. The suit was soon paired down to just a paper mask and a pair of rubber galoshes. And in that heat and with all the sweat? That little paper mask didn’t do any good. At the end of the day, the Air Force guys would come in and take the daily gear and drum it up every day then send it out. But after that, what they did with it? I don’t know.”

“I was at Schofield in 1977. I’d left Missouri (Ft. Leonard Wood) in a green wool uniform and was sent to Hawaii. I was in-processed and was to work/open up an old World War II Era rock quarry. They told us there that we were going out to The Marshalls to do some clean-up work. Gave us a little physical and off we went Prior to going out there, that was the only in-processing I had to go through.”

“I started thinking there was something more to our duty than what we had been told when we were given Geiger counters when we were out picking up debris. We went on policing details (cleaning) on the beach and were told, ‘If it sets off your Geiger counter, pick it up and put it in your gunny sack.’ At the end of the day, they just threw all those gunnies into an old bunker like it was regular trash. I remember civilian contractors coming up from Enewetak to Runit every day to give us our assignments. They’d come in, land, talk and then leave. Once things really started getting ‘hot’ though,(reference to radioactivity) we never saw them anymore. They’d do fly-overs but would never land.”

“I had a lot of time to think about everything while we were out there.” After a moment of quiet thought, Deardorff continued. “After we’d gone down there and come back, people asked a lot of different questions. ‘Weren’t you afraid of the radiation?’ To me, it’d just been a job that we had to do. In the military you go where you’re told to go and do what you’re told to do. Years after I was there, I learned more about what we had been in. It really bothered me when it came to the birth of my daughter. I wondered how my experience at Enewetak might eventually affect her.” Deardorff paused before quietly continuing, “She was 22 years old when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.”

“I was making radioactive concrete the day I turned 20 on the atoll. It was so hot down there, I mean, we were pretty much spot on the equator and it really became a problem for us. My job entailed working directly with ‘hot’ (radioactive) material 6-7 days a week. The crazy part about it was that we had to turn in film badges every month. These badges showed how much radiation we were exposed to. My rad (unit of measurement to radioactive exposure) reading always came back as ‘0’ even though I was sifting through radioactive soil and debris daily. We became especially aware of the radiation issue when somebody would run across some sort of WWII relic or artifact and want to keep it. The Air Force guys would measure that stuff for contamination and quite often, it was too ‘hot’ to keep. And the badges still read ‘0’? I’ve had radiation sickness multiple times; exposed to over 400 rads of radiation in one months’ time when once you hit 25 rads you were supposed to rotate out. That didn’t happen, and some people even went back for multiple tours. You know what else? In the National Atomic Museum in Las Vegas, they don’t even have examples of the film badges like we used in Enewetak.”

“Asking me about health issues cropping up resulting from the time I spent there, let me just tell you what my health is like. I’ve had multiple aortic spasms, TIAs, unexplained seizures since the age of 24; I’ve been gray since the age of 23, lost my teeth by the time I was 30, my liver is going bad for whatever reason and I’m in the process of ruling out melanoma. I started having blackout seizures which put me out of the military. And when I received a parting flu shot that led to Guillain-Barre. So imagine being paralyzed but fully conscious and otherwise awake for nearly a year. Six years after leaving the atoll was when my problems really began. Doctors everywhere were telling me I was faking all of it. I ended up developing double pneumonia before they decided to send me anywhere to treat it.”

Mr. Deardorff’s interview session wasn’t without emotion. When asked if there was a message he would like to share about his experience in the Marshall Islands, he did not answer right away. “That’s a tough one. It gets a little hard. I’m proud of serving my country. I just wish they were as proud of me as I am of my service. You know, at one point, they informed me that my military service between ‘76 and ‘80 didn’t even exist. My records had been classified after I left. I had to get a Congressman involved.”

“Only a handful of us knew how ‘hot’ all that debris we worked with was. The government used dirty fission testing. (There are still two explosions carried out that nobody will talk about.) A lot of dirty testing was done that left a lot of dangerous things out there. We were used as guinea pigs, plain and simple. The government wanted to know if this country came under nuclear attack, how long would it take to clean up and then how long would it take for people to die? We were used. The cost of lives wasn’t worth the efforts to ‘clean’ that place. We didn’t change a thing, except shorten our lives.”

"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