National Association of Atomic Veterans Portland Area Atomic Veterans Operation Crossroads VA denies benefits to victim of atomic test debris From The Oregonian Tuesday May 24, 1983 (PM Final) By Ashley Halsey III Mulberry, Tenn. -- The wheelchair that is John Smitherman's anchor to reality purred into gear as he rolled across the living room searching for a copy of an oath he once held sacred. "We signed an oath before we went there that we wouldn't discuss this," he said as he searched the shelves for a book about the atomic bomb."Being from the country, you're brung up that your word is your bond. I wouldn't say anything about it for love or money -- never did say anything about it." He is that sort of man, this coal miner's son who grew up poor in Appalachia and left those mountains to join the Navy at war. He was tall and rock hard at 17, his sailor cap pulled to a jaunty tilt over blue eyes that locked steady to their mark. Those unflinching eyes and a solid handshake are about all that remains of the man John Smitherman was when he left the mountains to go to war. He came home again this month to find that a wet spring had arrived in the foothills of rural Tennessee while he lay in the hospital. Hospitals come more often than the spring in his life these days, and with each visit there is less of him to carry home. First they cut off his left leg, then his right leg; in April the surgeon carved a chunk of flesh from his back. They have offered to take his left hand, swolen to the size of a cantaloupe, whenever he is ready to part with it. John Smitherman says his government did this to him. His government says it did not. At 18, he twice saw an expanse of the South Pacific turned into a ball of fire by 20-kiloton atomic bombs. At 54, he has a lymph system somehow gone haywire, and he firmly believes the rain of nuclear waste that peppered his naked chest as he stood on the fantail of a Navy destroyer almost 37 years ago is to blame for his failing health. There are those who share his belief. "There is little doubt that the damage to Mr. Smitherman... resulted primarily from a large exposure to high-energy beta radiation," wrote Karl Z. Morgan, an internationally recognized expert in the effects of nuclear radiation who served as a safety officer at the tests in which Smitherman participated." "Radiation exposure...sustained by Mr. John D. Smitherman during his participation in the atomic bomb blasts initated and caused damage to the lymphatic system," wrote Thomas F. Mancuso, another expert in the field of radiation exposure." 'Smitherman's case is a good example of the way that our government occasionally uses and abuses its citizens' said U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., Smitherman's congressman.. "John Smitherman's case is a tragic example of government insensitivity," said Sen Jim Sasser, D-Tenn., Smitherman's senator. But the Veterans Administration and two independent consultants who each received $200 to study his case see things differently. Five times since 1977, when his failing body rendered him unfit work, Smitherman has asked the VA to award him disability pay. Five times the VA has rejected his claim, and a decision on his sixth appeal is expected any day. "I think they're gonna turn me down again," he said last week. It was a broiling summer day off Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific when a farm boy from Big Stone Gap, Va., saw the most amazing sight that he would ever see. "They said they were going to drop a bomb and there really wasn't anything to it." John Smitherman remembered last week. "They told us to make sure that we didn't look directly at the bomb when it exploded." But the curiosity of youth was overwhelming. "It was just a huge ball of fire -- just looked like a whole section of the ocean was actually on fire -- big rolling balls of fire started going up in the air." The sea welled up and surged forth from ground zero, tossing about the destroyer Allen M. Summer beneath Smitherman's feet. Hours later, he recalls, the Summer -- one of more than 100 ships taking part in an exercise called Operation Crossroads in 1946 -- steamed into the lagoon where unmanned target ships had been anchored to test how they would weather the blast and to determine if they could later be rid of nuclear contamination. They called me to go help fight a fire on the aircraft carrier Independence, which was one of the target ships. We went up there three times." Fighting the fire was hot work. "Right after that, we all went swimming in the lagoon there," Smitherman said. "There were dead fish around there, lots of them, but they said,"Nothing to worry about, no harmful effects,' and there were not restrictions to us whatsoever." Later he witnessed a second, and more powerful, blast, from the fantail from the Sumner. "We got peppered with those little debris,"he said. "We were sittin' there -- I didn't have a T-shirt on, just shorts and tennis shoes." John Smitherman is president of the National Association of Atomic Veterans, a group of about 8,000 veterans who participated in the 235 atomic tests staged by the military between 1945 and 1963. For many of those veterans, it was years before medical problems they blame on that exposure began to surface. For Smitherman, the inklings came early. "We were still out there when I began to get some burns on my feet and legs, about the size of silver dollars," he recalled. Doctors on board the Sumner dabbed a little salve on them, but that was not enough. Seven months later he was hospitalized in Hawaii, and seven months after that he received a medical discharge from the Navy. They told Smitherman that kidney problems were causing his legs to swell. 'We were still out there when I began to get some burns on my feet' For years -- according to Smitherman, his family and acquaintances -- the periodic swelling continued. Now the doctors say his lymph system has turned against him. He traveled to Japan, where doctors in a Hiroshima hospital that specializes in treatment of radiation victims said there was no doubt that the exposure triggered his ills. But the VA has continued to reject his disability claim. He figures if they granted his disability claim, dating back to 1977, it would mean a single lump-sum payment of about $30,000 and monthly checks slightly in excess of $1,000. More important, it would mean a small pension for his wife of 22 years once he is gone. "My wife has stood by me in everything," he said,"and she's suffered far more than me from watching me waste away." Three decades and counting since the country boy went off to war, he retains a boyish faith in his country. "If they called me tomorrow to help defend my country, I would. I love my country and I love my government. But I don't think there's any compassion at the VA." Operation Crossroads [ Home Page || What's New || Email || Family Mail Call || Notes and Hints ] [ Atomic Veterans, Atomic Test Series and Dates ] [ T-Shirts || Videos ] Information about the National Association of Atomic Veterans [ The NAAV Story || NAAV Medical Data Base Information ] Atomic Veterans History Project © 1997-2000 For use of the material found on this web site, please send us an email with your request.