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.
It was a time of fear, he remembered. Long gone was the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union that had defeated the Germans in World War II.
The two countries were in a Cold War for decades after the war ended. The U.S. military and the government worried about an attack from the Soviet Union; some American Legion posts in the Midwest even paid high school students 50 cents to watch for Russian planes, Beers said.
As a 20-year-old United States Marine in 1956, Beers, now 73, was among a group of soldiers ordered to observe the test.
Neither he nor any of the other men in his platoon questioned the idea of being 1,500 yards away from a bomb four times larger than the one that exploded over Hiroshima in 1945.
It was his duty to follow orders, he said. If that meant he would be in the Nevada desert, he had no other choice. He was a Marine, making $42 a month to do as he was told.
Details of that day in June stand out in his mind.
"They told us to wear our field jackets over our fatigues because of the heat (from the explosion)," he said. "They put us in cattle cars, basically, and took us out to the trenches."
The soldiers were told to kneel in the trench and keep their left arm over their faces. They were told to close their eyes, hold their weapons to the side and wait.
When the countdown reached "10" the soldiers were "jerked into reality" of what was about to happen.
Then the countdown reached "one" and the bomb exploded.
When the bomb exploded, Beers said, he could see his skeleton. Even with his eyes closed and his arm over his face the flash was so bright he could see through his skin.
And then there was a roar. It was a noise impossible to describe to anyone who hasn't heard it, he explained. It rolled over the troops, hit the mountain behind them, rolled over them again, hit the mountain on the opposite side of where they were kneeling and roared back over them again.
The earth shook and sand rained down, he said.
Some of the men in the trench were buried by the sand. Beers, who was third from the end of the trench line, was lucky not to be covered.
When the soldiers were able to look up, all they saw was a huge hole in the ground that continued to smoke.
One corporal, who witnessed the blast from a hill nearby, felt his helmet get blown from his head. He was fine, but he never did find his helmet, Beers said.
"They charged him $9 to replace it," he said with a smile.
When the test was over, the Marines were loaded onto trucks and taken back to the base.
For years, Beers didn't talk about what he saw that day, until he began to learn about how the test affected other soldiers and he learned firsthand how it affected him.
"For decades I never talked to anyone about it," he said.
He battled cancer for the next 50 years of his life and he learned about other soldiers who suffered from cancer as a result of being so close to the explosion. The military and the government wanted to see what would happen to people near an explosion site so the Marines were sent in.
Beers is proud of his service in the Marines and takes part in veterans' organization, but he remains angry at what the government did all those years ago, he said.
"We were guinea pigs," Beers said.
He has talked to high school students over the past few years to tell them about his service to the country and what he saw that June day in 1956.
Talking about it helped him slowly overcome the nightmares, he said.
It will take more time to overcome the anger, however.
"The government never acknowledged that what they did was wrong," he said.
It was a time of fear, he remembered. Long gone was the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union that had defeated the Germans in World War II.
The two countries were in a Cold War for decades after the war ended. The U.S. military and the government worried about an attack from the Soviet Union; some American Legion posts in the Midwest even paid high school students 50 cents to watch for Russian planes, Beers said.
As a 20-year-old United States Marine in 1956, Beers, now 73, was among a group of soldiers ordered to observe the test.
Neither he nor any of the other men in his platoon questioned the idea of being 1,500 yards away from a bomb four times larger than the one that exploded over Hiroshima in 1945.
It was his duty to follow orders, he said. If that meant he would be in the Nevada desert, he had no other choice. He was a Marine, making $42 a month to do as he was told.
Details of that day in June stand out in his mind.
"They told us to wear our field jackets over our fatigues because of the heat (from the explosion)," he said. "They put us in cattle cars, basically, and took us out to the trenches."
The soldiers were told to kneel in the trench and keep their left arm over their faces. They were told to close their eyes, hold their weapons to the side and wait.
When the countdown reached "10" the soldiers were "jerked into reality" of what was about to happen.
Then the countdown reached "one" and the bomb exploded.
When the bomb exploded, Beers said, he could see his skeleton. Even with his eyes closed and his arm over his face the flash was so bright he could see through his skin.
And then there was a roar. It was a noise impossible to describe to anyone who hasn't heard it, he explained. It rolled over the troops, hit the mountain behind them, rolled over them again, hit the mountain on the opposite side of where they were kneeling and roared back over them again.
The earth shook and sand rained down, he said.
Some of the men in the trench were buried by the sand. Beers, who was third from the end of the trench line, was lucky not to be covered.
When the soldiers were able to look up, all they saw was a huge hole in the ground that continued to smoke.
One corporal, who witnessed the blast from a hill nearby, felt his helmet get blown from his head. He was fine, but he never did find his helmet, Beers said.
"They charged him $9 to replace it," he said with a smile.
When the test was over, the Marines were loaded onto trucks and taken back to the base.
For years, Beers didn't talk about what he saw that day, until he began to learn about how the test affected other soldiers and he learned firsthand how it affected him.
"For decades I never talked to anyone about it," he said.
He battled cancer for the next 50 years of his life and he learned about other soldiers who suffered from cancer as a result of being so close to the explosion. The military and the government wanted to see what would happen to people near an explosion site so the Marines were sent in.
Beers is proud of his service in the Marines and takes part in veterans' organization, but he remains angry at what the government did all those years ago, he said.
"We were guinea pigs," Beers said.
He has talked to high school students over the past few years to tell them about his service to the country and what he saw that June day in 1956.
Talking about it helped him slowly overcome the nightmares, he said.
It will take more time to overcome the anger, however.
"The government never acknowledged that what they did was wrong," he said.