Dan Mace, Enewetak Atoll (1978-79) Glimmers of Light

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 Dan Mace

Branch: Air Force MOS: Nondestructive Inspector Location: Enewetak/Lowja Year: 1978-1979

Quote:“They didn’t know about the long-term effects back then and don’t want to admit anything now.”

“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 was stationed at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. What I knew about the mission in the Marshall Islands amounted to absolute zero. A person from our shop had already gone down and was coming back and we had to replace them, so I was voluntold to go. I remember the heat feeling like a blast furnace as we got off the plane in Enewetak. I couldn’t believe the heat. I mean, you could literally see it rippling across the entire flight line.”

“We operated the hot lines and I was working on Runnit and (Aoman) Sally. Anybody who went onto Sally, when they came out, we had to check them for radiation. The only thing that we did if we picked up any radiation though, was take nasal swipes. (We never got any of the results back, by the way.) I remember one time when we picked up readings on our meters. Normally we’d never pick up anything, but this one time when we called in, we were told it was nothing, that it was probably just radiation from the ocean. Other than that we never got any feedback. As far as protective equipment, we had shorts, t-shirts and our boonie hats. That was it.”

“We had a civilian drilling team that we monitored on Sally. I first realized the work environment wasn’t right when I picked up a rock that our drill had brought up and a nearby Army Captain screamed at me for picking it up. I’d also wondered why the Air Force had sent a Nondestructive Inspection specialist to this place since part of our job was to X-ray aircraft for defects. We already had the possibility of radiation exposure in our daily jobs. I was told we were sent because we had already been trained to use radiation detecting equipment. When I returned to camp and was talking to the other guys, I told them about the incident and they said that he was probably worried that I had picked up something radioactive. That’s when I first suspected something was up but I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and went on about my business. We were on a mission and there wasn’t much I could do about it anyway. The only thing we could do about any possible contamination was take nasal swipes which we mailed off and we only took like ten of those that I can remember because we hated doing it. The typical way of decontaminating was just having people go jump in the lagoon. As far as my own health issues, I’ve had prostate cancer and but have no family history of cancer at all. I also get squamous cell carcinomas on a frequent basis and have Type II diabetes to contend with as well.”

“I really hadn’t thought too much about Enewetak until I discovered the website. Ours was a classified mission and we couldn’t talk about it until the Clinton Administration. One of the things I remember quite well was that when I was there, a typhoon came through. It knocked down all lines of communication for a short time. My wife was told that we’d probably not survived the typhoon. She actually believed I was dead for three days. I was out there when the guys went out in the sailboat and never returned. On New Year ’s Day, we were all out there doing a body search, but we never found them. I’d also heard about one guy getting crushed by heavy equipment, but that happened right before I got down there.”

“One night at the movie theatre they had set up outside, the rats were running over our feet. You got used to that. But I’ll never forget the movie; Hugo the Hippo. As soon as they put that up on the screen, the guys started rumbling. A big riot broke out and I think they actually tore down the screen. And here’s something else. The Air Force guys, we had our own little hut. Well, the Army guys were always mad at us because whenever we’d pick up radiation, we’d make them put on the banana suits. So it ended up that whenever they’d walk by, they’d throw rocks at our hut. On Runnit, they had the bananas suits on the hot line work stations but on Sally, we didn’t have them to issue even if they needed them.”

“If I could command a State of the Union address, I would ask the politicians why they are always so quick to make these decisions in cleaning up the messes we make with absolutely no thought about or consideration for the people that have to actually do the job. They need to start making their decisions based on the fact that maybe if their own children would be the ones having to do such work, maybe then they wouldn’t be so quick to ‘send in the military’. The government doesn’t think about the military personal themselves. We’ve all been guinea pigs for different shots and different missions and all sorts of stuff. We signed up to fight for our country, to defend our shores, not to do this type of thing. From what I have learned since, I don’t believe I’d ever go back. They didn’t know about the long-term effects back then and don’t want to admit anything now.”

"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.”

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