Welcome back to SNAFUBAR, the show about American military history and our country's national myths. Today’s episode is from our “Canary in the Coalmine series,” only today we won’t be talking about birds, but about the Atomic Era in the United States. We’ll be focusing on the Nevada Test Site and the servicemen that worked at this facility. World War II was over, but the Cold War was just getting started, and in turn, the arms race.
Between 1946 to 1962, the United States conducted hundreds of nuclear detonation tests. Four hundred thousand servicemen served and worked at these facilities, sometimes at ground zero of the testing sites, with limited protective equipment. At the time, nuclear testing was projected as an endeavor necessary for keeping democracy and liberty alive across the free world. Servicemen who participated in nuclear testing during this atomic age were an instrumental part of this. However, after their service, veterans exposed to harmful levels of radiation faced many obstacles securing health benefits from the VA, an issue that persists today among the military community for a variety of different health related issues.
Research and writing for the show is done by Liam Salcuni, lecturer with the history department at Cal Poly Humboldt, and Roman Sotomayor. Salcuni is a guest host on today's episode.
SNAFUBAR is produced by Abigail Smithson and brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Works Cited:
- ACHRE Report: Chapter 10: Human Research at the Bomb Tests
- Andrew Bacevich, Ballpark Liturgy: America’s New Civic Religion: Cheap Grace at Fenway
- Atomic Veterans Were Silenced for 50 Years. Now, They're Talking.
- Clyde Haberman, Veterans of Atomic Test Blasts: No Warning, and Late Amends, 2016
- Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire
- Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb
- Department of Defense: Atomic Veterans Commemorative Service Medal.
- History of the Nevada Test Site and Nuclear Testing Background
- Hidden History: America’s Atomic Veterans
- Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb
- National Association of Atomic Veterans: Newsletter
- National Association of Atomic Veterans, Minnesota’s Atomic Veterans Day, 2021
- Nuclear Tourism: When Atomic Tests Were a Tourist Attraction in Las Vegas, 1950s - Rare Historical Photos
- New York State Department of Health, Radiation and Health
- Operation Buster Jangle, 1951
- Operation Plumbbob, 1957
- Operation UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE, 1953
- Pamela Engle, America Came To A Standstill During The O.J. Verdict — Here's Everything That Stopped, 2014.
- Shot Hood Nuclear Test, Plumbbob series, 1957
- Smedley Butler, War is a Racket, 1935
- Tales from the Atomic Age - Pigs in Uniform | Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity
- These Atomic Bomb Tests Used U.S. Troops as Guinea Pigs
- The Atomic Soldiers: U.S. Veterans, Used as Guinea Pigs, Break the Silence - The Atlantic
- "The Clan of One-Breasted Women" by Terry Tempest Williams, 1991
