The Day After
9/11 The Day After
On this day September 12, 2001 it was the "Day After" 9/11, the Twin Towers in New York were now a massive pile of rubble but 2,977 lives lost on 9/11 were not to be the last. Approximately 8,000 Americans were tasked with cleaning up the aftermath. These cleanup workers wearing protective suits were exposed to hazardous materials such as construction debris, glass, cellulose, asbestos, along with detectable amounts of lead and mercury.
In 1978 I was also a cleanup worker and I was tasked with cleaning the debris of what could be the "Ultimate Day After". It was the Marshall Islands Atomic Cleanup, our task was to "clean" the aftermath of atmospheric nuclear weapon tests, missile tests , a space rocket explosion and biological weapon experiments. Just as 9/11 cleanup workers we too were once approximately 8,000 Americans. The atomic cleanup workers were not provided protective suits, we only wore a pair of shorts and used our t-shirts as dust masks. Our toxic exposure was astronomically beyond the rubble of the Twin Towers, not only was it radioactive we were exposed to a long list of deadly toxins that would exceed the imagination of a mad scientist.
The photos above are of two of the many cleanup workers that died of cancer and related illnesses. Luis Alvarez a cleanup worker who spent 3 months working in the rubble of 9/11 and Paul Laird a cleanup worker who spent 6 months working in the rubble of nuclear weapon tests. But here is where the comparisons stop, the 8,000 9/11 cleanup workers were granted a $5.5 Billion Dollar Fund for healthcare, compassionate pay and for their children's future. The Atomic Cleanup workers have not received anything at all, even denied a certificate of Atomic Veteran Service.
When Paul Laird and I were featured in an American Legion Magazine article Paul Laird made the front cover. We would speak with each other with such excitement and high hopes for this article. We believed our story was finally being heard and our sacrifice would at last be recognized. Paul died just days after the above photo was taken never to see recognition. Please take a look for yourself and see what Paul Laird looked like on the magazine's front cover taken just 18 months before he died.
Here's a link; https://archive.legion.org/handle/20.500.12203/9985
Why would one be recognized and the other not? Recognizing the 9/11 cleanup workers supports the multi-trillion dollar war industry's narrative for more spending, whereas the inconvenient truth of the nuclear weapon testing legacy is bad for business. The profiteers and their army of lobbyists are far more than just a threat to the atomic cleanup workers recognition, their multi-trillion dollar industry is placing all life on earth in danger.
Unlike the 9/11 cleanup workers there will be no recognition, no parades, no applaud in congress, no waving flags and never a monument. The truth about the futile attempt made by the Atomic Cleanup is not part of the war industry's narrative and not on their path to profit. Atomic cleanup workers are not alone in a nuclear legacy of denial, there are our children and the children of the atomic weapon testing workers whose damaged chromosomes continue to be passed down, uranium miners, weapon production workers, downwinders and even nuclear refugees such as the displaced Marshallese Islanders.
There are so many more stories like mine that will never be heard. Please share this post and my other "On This Day" posts as these are my firsthand accounts and not the sanitized version of the nuclear testing you will find in history books.
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