Our Message

“The earliest memory that I have…was sitting on my father’s knee, moments before dawn and watching an A-bomb go off. I was about three years old. It scared me very much, and that’s a fear I guess that never left…there’s a stamp. I always called from childhood on, the bomb, the testing, ‘the demon.’”

“We were patriotic Americans who believed our government when it assured us, “there is no danger.” Our government not only lied to us for decades, but considered us expendable. We have paid and continue to pay an enormous price. A government that knowingly harmed its own citizens has a moral responsibility to take care of those harmed.”

“That was my first introduction to cancer. Little did I know that additional occurrences would become commonplace in my small community of fewer than 10,000 people, where the incidences of cancer continue to be too numerous to count. I can tell you, however, that in my immediate family of four, every one of us was a victim of cancer.”

“The AEC chose the Nevada location because they considered the nearby inhabitants ‘a low use segment of the population.’ I was considered dispensable, part of an experiment and a Cold War victim. But really it was the entire country.”

“[My husband] John was the 13th member in his family to die from cancer. His mother died from uterine cancer and his father died from complications of colon cancer. He lost aunts, uncles, cousins, and his brother-in-law. His sister had colon cancer [and] is the only family member of that generation to survive. There is now a genetic factor involved where cancer is being passed down through generations.”

“The grief and emptiness I felt for decades about the loss of my parents turned to shock and rage when I read an article in the local newspaper in 2017 linking the Trinity Test of 1945 with increased cancers.”

“The people of Guam were exposed to nuclear fallout from the Pacific Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1962 when 66 Nuclear and Hydrogen bombs were detonated. It was without their knowledge and consent that throughout those years they were exposed to ionizing radiation such as Iodine 131, Strontium 90, and Cesium 137.”

“My husband, Greg Pino, was 6 and lived with his family on a cattle ranch about 30 miles from the Trinity test. His family lived off the land, fallout covered their crops, their cattle, and was in their water. He died at age 68 from a rare radiation-related stomach cancer.”

“I always heard all my aunts and uncles talk about the bomb that went off in N.M. but I didn't really realize the severity till I was older. All 7 of my aunts and uncles died of cancer, a few of their children also died from cancer and I worry about us, the 2nd generation, succumbing to this awful disease.”

“Even when the cancer rate in Vegas and nearby communities (notably St. George, Utah) rose to as much as 20 times the national average, the government refused to take responsibility, claiming that there was no way to prove direct causation between radiation exposure and an individual’s illness. So the autoimmune disease that plagued me throughout my childhood, and my father dying of bladder cancer, depriving him of years of retirement and time with his family — these were just unfortunate coincidences.”

“I raised four children in Weldon Spring from 1992 to 2012. All attended and graduated from FHHS. I was diagnosed with PMR (a geriatric Autoimmune Disease) at 47 years old and have had numerous overlapping autoimmune diagnoses since. Myself and two of my three daughters had surgery for endometriosis, mine ending in total hysterectomy. My son was diagnosed with MS at the ‘unheard of’ (according to his neurologist) age of 19, in 2005, one year after graduating FHHS.”

”While we were in the Max Pyne house in Orem, Utah, the atomic testing was going on in Nevada, with the testing of the Atomic Bombs. It was a big thing on the news at the time and there were soldiers that were put on the test site to see how the radiation would affect them. As we found out later, there were serious health consequences that came about as a result of the testing and the radioactive fallout. I look back and remember while playing in the streets around our home, that I would observe white government vans traveling slowly up and down the street by our house…”

This short documentary shares the harrowing experiences of veterans that participated in above-ground nuclear tests in Nevada, and then were sworn to secrecy for decades.

“It haunts me to think of what I had witnessed and not realized at the time the import of what we were doing…actually serving as guinea pigs.”

“When she was dying, I promised my daughter I would never give up advocating for the abolition of nuclear weapons. At 98, I admit I’ve slowed down a bit, but I hold out hope our elected officials can come together to do the right thing. By extending and expanding RECA, our government can take an important step towards rectifying the harms caused by U.S. nuclear weapons.”

“On detonation there was this great flash and everything was brighter than the sun…. I couldn’t believe my eyes, something I had never seen before. To me it was a wondrous sight, this great big mushroom cloud, the top rolling in on itself, all the colours of the rainbow…. How was I to know the devastation this would bring to so many veterans and their families.