'We were the first victims of the atomic bomb'

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/we-were-the-first-victims-of-the-atomic-bomb/a-18634395

Seventy years after atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, New Mexicans say they’re still waiting for the US government to recognize them as the first victims. Teri Schultz reports from the US state of New Mexico.

'We were the first victims of the atomic bomb'
Teri Schultz
09.08.2015

Tina Cordova's grandfather Reynaldo Cordova was killed in Germany's Hurtgen Forest in December 1944, one of hundreds of thousands of Americans who died fighting Nazi-led Germany and its Axis partners in World War II.

So if anyone would cheer the memory of Japan being brought to its knees and a surrender by nuclear bombs, it would be logical to think it would be those soldiers' families. Yet when the August 6 and 9 anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings roll around each year, Cordova says she feels nothing but sadness - and empathy for the Japanese civilians who suffered in the attacks. Who suffered "too," as Cordova puts it.

"We were the first victims of the atomic bomb," she says. Her parents were among the estimated 40,000 New Mexico residents who lived near the Trinity test site, which saw a bomb similar in size to that dropped over Nagasaki secretly detonated on American soil, just a handful of miles from inhabited land, on July 16, 1945. That's why, Cordova explains, she takes "no particular celebration in the fact that it was a nuclear device that led to the end of the war and that people other than us were harmed by this."

No one in the vicinity of the Trinity site was warned to stay inside that day, nor to avoid eating livestock or produce that would be contaminated by the radiation. In fact, no one has to this day been warned about anything related to the explosion.

[guillaumeb]

1. It was very important, and still is, for the US government to deny the effects

of radiation exposure. Especially the deliberate exposure of US civilians.

The same thing happened with the incident downwind of the Dugway proving grounds:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/250010322/Toxic-Utah-A-land-littered-with-poisons.html?pg=all

http://www.sltrib.com/news/1742056-155/dugway-chlorine-amp-radiation-tests-test

A national sacrifice area.