Atomic veterans

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the opening blasts in a new type of warfare. The Soviet Union and the United States began a race to develop more powerful nuclear weapons systems as well as more effective and accurate delivery systems. In the early years of the atomic weapons race tests of the actual weapons were done in the atmosphere. The South Pacific atoll of Enewetak was the site of more than 40 atomic weapons tests from 1948 to 1958. Exploding nuclear weapons in the atmosphere left radioactive waste at the test sites rendering them unusable.

Approximately 6,000 U.S. troops were sent to the Enewetak test site to clean up radioactive materials including soil and sand from 1977 to 1980 before releasing control to the government of the Marshall Islands.

U.S. Army veteran Paul Laird served with the 84th Engineer Battalion performing radioactive material clean up. The 59-year-old veteran has fought cancer three times and believes it is the result of exposure to radioactivity. Laird is one of the veterans seeking to have the Veterans Affairs list cancers that could be tied to exposure to radioactivity and then have these cancers classified as presumptive conditions. Without this classification, veterans of the radioactive clean up would need to prove where and when they were exposed and prove that exposure was the cause of their cancer.

At the Military.com news service, the status of legislation was discussed. "The bill, H.R. 3870, is called the Atomic Veterans Healthcare Parity Act, and was introduced in November by U.S. Rep. Mark Takai, D-Hawaii. It was referred to the House Subcommittee on Health on Nov. 6 and has not advanced any farther on its legislative path." It is predicted that the bill will not get out of committee and will die there because of intentional neglect. Remember this when you hear members of Congress talk about how they support military veterans. Talk is cheap.