Again, I urge you to call your Congressman and Senators asking for their support of the Atomic Veterans Medal Act of 2007.
Below is an example of the bureaucratic BS that our veterans endure to prevent their just compensation for service-connected conditions. An instant exposure to radiation in the military service may show no instant effects, but mutations can grow over time with consequences as deadly as a bullet:
Testimony of Charles L. Clark, president
Radiated Veterans of America, Inc.
To
Veterans Advisory Board on Dose Reconstruction
Las Vegas, Nevada
March 7 & 8, 2007
The POISON MUSHROOM
Chairman Zimble and Board Members:
My name is Charles L. Clark. I am the president of Radiated Veterans of America, Inc., a non-profit organization recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501 (c) (19) Veterans Service Organization. Our membership is more than 90% statutory war veterans. I am a World War II U.S. Navy veteran of the occupation of Nagasaki, Japan, arriving there soon after the bomb was dropped in August 1945.
We are here to discuss the radiation Dose Reconstruction program. Your committee is charged to determine how to fix it. My organization is here to suggest that the only fix is termination of this expensive and time consuming prejudicial program that purposeful or not is but an extension of a radiation denial program that began even before the nuclear weapons program was begun.
It all started in 1939 when two refugee physicists at Columbia University were having an informal discussion on splitting uranium atoms. They were Italian exile Enrico Fermi and Denmark's Neils Bohr who spoke two words (“assist” and “cover up”) to the New York Times reporter William L. Laurence that would change mans’ destiny forever. (See the book 'NEWS ZERO', by Beverly Ann Deepe Keever)
It was the onsite reporting of Laurence at the Trinity Test Site, July 12, 1945, committing the sin of omission, when he and the photo editing staff covered up the government's lie about the presence of radiation. This began the sin of misleading the public about the true dangers and effects of radiation.
Laurence had agreed to be the embedded reporter for General Leslie Groves and served as an agent for the “atomic curtain for propaganda”. In doing so the author and the New York Times served to legitimize a government policy that would early on deny the existence, persistence and menace of atom bomb radiation and thus withheld vital information from readers.
Today, some 67 years later, the exposed Atomic Veterans remain under the ominous cloud of the mushroom. It was the military, and its contractors, both in academia and industry, that introduced the contamination into our lives and they must be brought to task by we that have been exposed! I say this, because unfortunately, the government, including this Committee, has failed to do so to date!
Attempting to create a “fix” to the broken Dose Reconstruction (DR) issue is not the way to bring justice to exposed Atomic Veteran, their families and survivors. Playing with statistics based on poor original data, and fudging to come up with an “upper limit” is plain poor science … especially when baseline (lower limit) exposures cannot be adequately computed as to effects on the human body. Identifying only certain cancers for purposes of a politically determined presumption of cause, while good for those who have the “right illness”, simply cheats others who must go through the unproven DR for conditions many in the medical community state can or may be caused by exposure to low-level radiation.
If it is true that no amount of radiation is safe, then the only issue for the Atomic Veteran, and the government, should be “was he/she there” and if so there is no need for a DR. The program should be terminated, and we strongly suggest this Committee should recommend such termination.
The history of radiation readings has never been consistent in methodology or measurement criteria. For example, radiation values as reported and recorded with Geiger counters for future study are now out of date and style since the advent of film badges and computer fractions (I personally have received ratings in three decimal points ie .025 and .075 rem). Yet the scientific community still is not able to determine single or multiple individual radiation doses.
In attempting to “recreate” a dose the only reference used by the DTRA’s contractor SAIC is to group activity participation or environmental conditions, when these are known, and oftentimes even these factors were poorly recorded.
This creates “uncertainty”, the term used in so many reports. Attempts to “guesstimate” upper limits of exposure are simply window dressing.
Dose Reconstruction, as a pseudo science, results in creating resentment against the DTRA and Veteran's Administration, and even worse, disenfranchisement for many Atomic Veterans.
Also, many in the Atomic Veteran community feel completely alone and frustrated because they are NOT kept abreast of the continuous changes being negotiated between the government and the Dose Reconstruction contractor SAIC, resulting in undue expense and wasted time. And as the Logo for my organization, Radiated Veterans of America, states, “Time is Running Out” for those in the Atomic Veteran community.
Thus again we must ask the age old question: why are we the tax payers paying such exorbitant costs for nothing, or at best, so little?
Atomic Veterans have no priority position that gives them a say on matters of their personal plight. As an, example, the VA recently notified some Atomic Veterans with pending claims that their cases were being transferred to Jackson, MS, to who knows who, or with what expertise, to decide compensation claims.
The continued distorted communications coming from the BVA makes for resentment. As a personal example I received a correspondence dated 25 October, 2006, stating the following: "troops participating in the occupation of Japan did not receive a dose from neutron radiation". This statement cannot be accepted because it cannot be proven. Can the writer prove that I didn't ingest or breathe neutron radiation while in Nagasaki. Or is the statement just another cover up, as so many statements made to Atomic Veterans appear to be?
If justice is to prevail the Atomic Veteran must ask the question "when"? It is very difficult to attempt to answer family notices of the death of a father and they didn't know that he, the father was exposed to radiation because no one cared to give the veteran the benefit of the doubt.
The growth of the poison mushroom must stop, We, the Atomic Veterans, desire and demand the full light of day. Code 500 another atomic veteran! Code 500 another atomic veteran.
Respectfully submitted
Charles L. Clark
President Radiated Veterans of America, Inc.
Please help Charles Carr in his quest for justice by forwarding his message to your friends. Also visit the website through my link Atomic Veterans Rad Vets.
Thanks, Bill Ricks of Soperton
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