Ill Veteran Seeks Aid for Nuclear Witnesses : Oxnard: A man who saw Navy bomb testing in the Marshall Islands helps other afflicted military personnel get government medical benefits.

Richard Jenkins recalls staring with wide-eyed wonder as one gigantic mushroom cloud after another fanned into the blue skies above the western Pacific’s Marshall Islands 33 years ago.

At the time, Jenkins, now an Oxnard resident who builds custom boats in Ventura, did not realize that the explosions would cast a pall over his life.

As a Navy radio operator aboard the U.S. destroyer Mansfield during the military’s nuclear test operation called Operation Hardtack I, Jenkins was within a 30-mile range when 30 nuclear bombs were detonated in 1958.

At 52, he now suffers from leukemia, and liver and kidney disorders and has undergone surgery for cataracts. He has also battled digestive tract problems and chronic fatigue off and on for the past 20 years.

But it was not until 1988--when the Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledged that radiation from those explosions could cause leukemia and 12 other cancers--that he found what he believes is the root of his medical trouble.

Now, he wants to find other so-called atomic veterans so they can get help from Veterans Affairs.

“If I can get just two guys to the VA hospital, then my years of collecting information will be worth it,” Jenkins said. “I want to see my shipmates get the treatment they deserve.”

Jenkins was one of about 200,000 military personnel who participated in 235 atomic blasts detonated after World War II in the West Pacific and Nevada. According to government reports, only about 1,700 people were exposed to doses of radiation higher than the level now allowed under federal occupational guidelines for radiation workers.

A federally funded study released in 1985 showed that military witnesses of a single 1957 atom bomb explosion suffered abnormally high death rates from leukemia. But the report, which was denounced by veterans groups, also concluded that scientists “cannot convincingly either affirm or deny” that the leukemia deaths were radiation-related.

Nevertheless, special legislation was passed in 1988 that established a link between veterans’ radiation exposure and health problems, naming leukemia and 12 other types of cancer for which the veterans can receive treatment and benefits.

Because Jenkins and other atomic veterans had injuries that did not show up for decades after their discharges, they would not otherwise have been eligible for Veterans Affairs benefits unless they were indigent, VA officials said.

Jenkins and national veterans groups now want the VA to expand the list of cancers that it will treat for atomic veterans and remove the 30- to 40-year deadline by which the veterans must contract the cancers to be eligible for treatment.

A provision to expand the list of cancers eligible for treatment is part of a proposed bill by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) scheduled for Senate committee hearings next month.

“In 1988, Public Law 100-321 seemed a cause for celebration,” said Oscar Rosen, a semi-retired history professor who serves as the national commander of the National Assn. of Atomic Veterans. “But the VA has interpreted that law very narrowly. They are absolutely cruel in the way they treat members.”

Rosen’s organization has hired a public relations firm to develop radio announcements asking other radiation-exposed military personnel to contact the association.

Jenkins, Rosen and the other 4,000 association members contend that they were used by the government as human test animals in experiments designed to measure their reactions to radiation exposure.

“We feel we were used as guinea pigs,” Rosen said. “The military calls them tests, but we call them experiments.”

“Our whole reason for being there was to see how close they could get us before something would happen to us,” Jenkins said. “We had no military reason for being there.”

But federal officials deny that the government was performing such experiments on the sailors.

The military admits that it was testing the sailors’ psychological responses to the mushroom clouds that they watched take shape, said Navy Capt. William J. Flor, who heads the government’s effort at the Defense Nuclear Agency in Washington, D.C., to contact atomic veterans.

But while the military monitored the sailors’ exposure to radiation during the nuclear blasts, the government does not acknowledge that tests of their physical endurance were being conducted.

“Physical tasks were tested to see if a person is too stressed out to perform their function in combat,” he said. “But we were not allowed as a government to do . . . experiments on human survival.”

Operation Hardtack I was a series of 35 nuclear tests in 1958, all but two of which were detonated at the Enewetak and Bikini atolls in the Marshall Islands, Defense Nuclear Agency documents say.

Jenkins’ battle group included eight Navy destroyers, including Jenkins’ ship. Jenkins was among about 300 of the ship’s personnel who were issued protective sunglasses and badges with film to register exposure to radiation.

The sailors were ordered to assume their battle positions, many of which were on deck, and were allowed to watch atomic bombs explode from as close as 15 miles away, Jenkins said.

“We could feel the heat on our faces,” Jenkins said. “So they moved the ship closer and told us to go to the other side of the ship.”

When they returned to the side closest to the blast, paint had been peeled back from the heat, Jenkins said.

The sailors were required to wear the film badges on cords around their necks at all times. When the film turned from black to a reddish color, Jenkins said, the sailors were taken off duty, washed down and “detoxified.” Then, Jenkins said, they were issued new badges and were sent back to work.

The sailors’ exposure was measured while they were on active duty, but no further records were kept after their discharges.

About 10 years after the tests, Jenkins said, he began experiencing severe mood swings and losses of physical energy. He said he was puzzled by the physical problems, because he was still in his 20s and was an avid motorcycle and boat racer.

He began to suffer severe stomach pain and was diagnosed with a digestive tract disorder. A few years later, he started to have kidney and liver problems. By 1988, he was fatigued, sick and baffled at the barrage of medical problems. But his doctors could give him no sound reason for the trouble.

After the 1988 law was passed, newspaper article in hand, he went to the Veterans Affairs hospital in Sepulveda and asked to be given a full battery of tests for radiation-related illness. That’s when he was diagnosed as having leukemia and given a flurry of medications.

Since then, Jenkins has been able to keep his blood and organs regulated with the several medications prescribed by VA doctors. But he would like to save other veterans the anguish that he suffered in searching for a reason for his maladies.

“I just can’t believe they didn’t keep track of us after we were discharged to find out what kinds of medical problems we all had in common,” Jenkins said.

He applauded recent moves by the government to make records of radiation exposure available to veterans upon request. But still, he and Rosen say, the Defense Nuclear Agency is only half-heartedly attempting to contact atomic veterans.

The agency means to placate veterans until they die from old age or disease, Rosen said. “In 20 years, 90% of us will be gone, and it will all be moot,” he said.

But Flor said the government is sincerely trying to help atomic veterans. It has sent out bulk mailings, provided speakers for veterans conventions and granted interviews for countless newspaper articles, he said.

“Our whole purpose is to get information to veterans that they need to have their claims processed by the Veterans Administration,” he said. “We’re not involved with determining whether this veteran or that is deserving of benefits.”

Earlier this year, Jenkins was denied disability compensation by the Department of Veterans Affairs. His letter of denial said he was ineligible, since he had not developed symptoms of any of the 13 eligible cancers while on active duty.

Jenkins still considers himself a pro-military patriot but now sympathizes with those who protest nuclear proliferation.

“When you see the bumper sticker that says, ‘One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day,’ I’m living proof. It’s ruined 20 years of my life.”

FYI

Veterans who want more information on military nuclear test blasts should call or write: The Defense Nuclear Agency, RARP/NTPR, 6801 Telegraph Road, Alexandria, VA 22310-3398. Phone: (800) 462-3683. Or the National Assn. of Atomic Veterans, Oscar Rosen, national commander, P.O. Box 4424, Salem, MA 01970-9998. Phone: (508) 744-0306.