By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Veteran's life changed in a flash in the desert
11705a.jpg
Times photo: Brenda Steurer Francis Beers, New Glarus, witnessed an atomic explosion while a Marine in the 1950s. Beers said he and other soldiers were at the explosion site so the military and the government could see how the explosion affected them. We were guinea pigs, Beers said.
NEW GLARUS - It took Francis Beers several years before he no longer saw the brilliant flash of light from an atomic bomb explosion in the Nevada desert. As a 20-year-old United States Marine in 1956, Beers, now 73, was among a group of soldiers ordered to observe the test.