Survivors of the Enewetak atomic cleanup project looking for answers.

[Crabber85]

My mom decided to look up some information on the Enewetak clean up project that started in 1977 and ended in 1982 as my dad who has recently passed away was a part of that cleanup effort from 1979 to 1982 while he was in the Navy.According to the information we were able to obtain the kind of cancer he died from has been linked to exposure to radiation and he was exposed to radiation from the time he deployed on Enewetak in 1979 until he came state side in 1982, there are at least two atomic vet groups specifically designated for the guys and girls who served on Bikini and Enewetak during this time frame and according to these groups there are only a hand full of them left as most have died of some form or forms of cancer due to the exposure they received which means these vets are dieing quickly once the cancer/s have been noticed just like my dad by the time we knew he had it it was much much to late to do anything about it.There are now a small group of survivors who served as security personnel on the Atolls, Airmen, Navy, Army and Marine servicemen who were a part of the clean up effort who are now showing signs of radiation exposure and are wanting to know what to expect and get this they said they were told the estimated time of first signs is when your in your early to mid fifties if we'd known that years before now we might have been able to at least get my dad screened regularly for the kinds of cancer associated with radiation exposure but none of this information was available until just recently.Needless to say these guys and gals are dropping pardon the expression like flies and our doctors are at a loss as to how to treat these extremely rare and aggressive kinds of cancers which is leaving our men and women in the lurch with little to no help...

[jenok]

So sad that little to nothing can be done at this time.

[BalderRask]

Unfortunately, little is still known about long-term exposure to weapons-grade nuclear material.So far what we really have knowledge of is fuel-grade material because of accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima.Yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were blasted with weapons-grade material, but completely different material. These were made with uranium 235 and Plutonium 240, what your dad was most likely exposed to was both of those, Deuterium (heavy hydrogen), Tritium (hydrogen-3), and other ions of Hydrogen.The difference in all of them is how powerful they are. I don't know all the details, but Hydrogen has some of the most immense destructive power.Fat Man had a blast yield of 21 kilotonsLittle Boy was 16 kilotonsthe 3 bombs in Operation Sandstone were between 18 and 49 kilotonsthe 4 in Operation Greenhouse were between 45.5 and 225 kilotonsthe 2 in Operation Ivy were between 500 kilotons and 10.4 megatonsOperation Castle had 1.69 megatonsOperation Redwing's 11 bombs had between 190 tons and 1.9 megatonsthe 22 bombs in Operation Hardtack 1 had between 0 and 8.9 megatons (some of the bombs failed)These are so powerful that less than ten could probably wipe out the entire united states.This is why we've banned them -- it's too much power to be held by anyone.The numbers I got from wikipedia, but a lot of the information I knew already from curiosity years ago.