Operation Teapot
US Atomic Veterans
Thomas D. Judd
From: "Thomas D. Judd" thojud@msn.com
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Atomic Vets: Ten Seconds Forever Etched
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007
Dear Keith; I'm am sharing a poem with you I wrote sometime back. Writing seems to help me vent frustrations from time to time. Here it is!
Ten Seconds Forever Etched
Tingling sensations raced my spine
and shivers controlled me.
Static noises cracked on speakers
with a countdown, "minus five, four, three.."
Then silence, dead silence, no sound at all;
suddenly flashed the brilliance of a light
numerous times the brightness of the sun,
and clothed the area in a yellowish-white.
A thunderous blast violently rolled out
across Nevada's Yucca Flat that day,
forcing and pushing a fireball about
and into shape as it went its way.
The earth shook; shaken dust filled my mouth,
a million flashbulbs glazed my eyes,
as flash-heat brushed my face
and the bones in my fingers I could see.
A small band of Marines, Atomic Vets;
Guinea Pigs by another name,
Dying in a time of peace, amidst denial,
Servants of a Government's shame.
By Sgt. Thomas D. Judd, July 2004
Email: ThoJud@msn.com
Keith Whittle
February 12, 2007
From: "Thomas D. Judd" ThoJud@msn.com
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Code Name: Operation Teapot
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001
"Dawn, not just the unfolding of another day, but the unfolding of the rest of our lives" --Nelouise Fisher Judd.
A thunderous blast rolled out across the flat Nevada desert forcing and pushing a spherical-shaped fireball in all directions. As I lay out in the open, on the crest of a hill, I saw the first wave touch the ground and a secondary wave ricochet upward and outward rolling and churning, destroying everything in its path. The light of a million flashbulbs ripped across my eyes. I could see the bones in my hands.
The spherical-shaped fireball moved toward me. I pulled down on my helmet and pressed myself to the vibrating earth. Everything appeared freeze-framed. The whole area was an over-exposed x-ray. The desert brush and small trees appeared as arteries and veins reaching out of the heart of the earth.
My name is Thomas D. Judd. I enlisted in the United States Marine Corp in Ogden, Utah on June 28, 1954. I was 18 years old. Shortly after Bootcamp and Combat training at Camp Pendleton, California, I was assigned to MCTU#1 and was soon thereafter sent to Atomic, Biological and Chemical school while stationed at Camp Horno.
In March of 1955, MCTU#1 was sent to participate in Desert Rock VI for a exercise scheduled to coincide with a series of nuclear experiments, code name, "Operation Teapot." [Sounded like a gathering of little ladies for tea rather than a group of young Marines for a nuclear bomb test]. My unit was involved in Shot Bee, an eight kiloton, weapons related, tower bomb test.
Somewhere in the Nevada desert, at a place called Yucca Flat, I was shocked into the real world. The longest ten seconds of my life may have ended that day, but a lifetime of problems had just begun. Truly! This dawn, was not just the unfolding of another day, it was a defining influence on the rest of my life.
Thomas D. Judd
USMC
Lakewood, Co
Email: ThoJud@msn.com
Operation Teapot
Keith Whittle
December 23, 2001