Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American People.
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Speaker 1: From nineteen forty five to nineteen ninety two, the United
Speaker 1: States conducted one thy fifty four nuclear tests as a
Speaker 1: part of the nuclear arms race with Soviet Russia. Many
Speaker 1: of these tests were conducted in Nevada, where soldiers were
Speaker 1: sent to be tested on by military scientists and upper
Speaker 1: brass trying to figure out the psychological and health effects
Speaker 1: brought on by the use of nuclear weapons. One of
Speaker 1: those soldiers was Tobi Madrid. Here's listener Richard Munez, who
Speaker 1: worked with Toby with the story of this atomic Marine.
Speaker 2: The only two people I know I ever heard this
Speaker 2: story is myself and his son Jr. As far as
Speaker 2: Jr knows, he never told his story to anyone else.
Speaker 2: Toby was in the Marines and in nineteen fifty one
Speaker 2: to nineteen fifty seven out the Nevada Proving grounds. It
Speaker 2: a small camp. It's called Camp Desert Rock, and it
Speaker 2: was barricks and mess halls and things like that. But
Speaker 2: it had one mission, one purpose. It was to support
Speaker 2: military personnel while tests involving the atomic bomber conducted. Remember
Speaker 2: Sheriff Toby to Madrid. We were in his office if
Speaker 2: you can call a broom closet with a light and
Speaker 2: a desk and an office. He had a cup of
Speaker 2: coffee in his hands, and he has feet up on
Speaker 2: the desk. I mean, it was totally laid back attitude,
Speaker 2: but I could see the tension in his job. The
Speaker 2: funny part about it was he wasn't looking at me,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't looking at Jr. He was looking at
Speaker 2: the wall. I had this distinct impression that if he
Speaker 2: bothered to look at either one of us, we'd never
Speaker 2: hear the story. He said, they stuck us out in
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere, And if you've ever been out
Speaker 2: that section of Nevada, it's pretty much the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: And he went on to say that they told us
Speaker 2: we're to be part of an atomic bomb test. Now,
Speaker 2: the name of these tests that I looked up later
Speaker 2: on was called the Desert Rock Exercises, and this is
Speaker 2: what we call Desert Rock for Operation tumblr Snapper. Well,
Speaker 2: he said they took him out there and they were
Speaker 2: there for several different several days beforehand, the sheriff said,
Speaker 2: they took him out there, had the trenches, they built,
Speaker 2: the defensive fortified positions, all that stuff. Now, the idea
Speaker 2: was they were to be able to stand in these
Speaker 2: or squat at them some cover. And then he said,
Speaker 2: I remembered as we were digging, there were trucks carrying
Speaker 2: tanks and jeeps and things like that. Some of the
Speaker 2: vehicles were towing artillery pieces out there, and some of
Speaker 2: the marines he was with went out with them, and
Speaker 2: they came back to saying how they'd set up dummies
Speaker 2: that were in uniform and some of them were standing up,
Speaker 2: some were lying down. That kind of stuff. Now, I
Speaker 2: went on to research a little bit more, and this
Speaker 2: seems to be that he was out there for what
Speaker 2: they called the Shot Dog nuclear test, and this happened
Speaker 2: on May one, nineteen fifty two, and involved the dropping
Speaker 2: of what we call a Mark seven bomb. Now, the
Speaker 2: Air Force was doing the drops and they were using
Speaker 2: either B fifties or B forty five to do these.
Speaker 2: So he said the day of the test, they got
Speaker 2: them up, they had breakfast, and they took them out
Speaker 2: there to the site and they got in their trenches
Speaker 2: and what they were told to do. They were told
Speaker 2: to crouchs below the rim of the trench, have their
Speaker 2: faces down, their eyes closed when the blast happened. Now,
Speaker 2: they would get plenty of warning beforehand that this was
Speaker 2: going to happ happened, you know, give him a warning.
Speaker 2: The bomber was to hear the bombers coming in sot
Speaker 2: like that, and they needed to be doing this. She said.
Speaker 2: Along around eight thirty or so, they heard the aircraft
Speaker 2: coming in, and that's when the warning happened. So they
Speaker 2: climbed to the trenches and they got the position they
Speaker 2: were told to get into. He had said he was
Speaker 2: pouched down, he had his head down, his eyes closed,
Speaker 2: and even with this, all of a sudden, he said,
Speaker 2: there was light. He seriously felt that he had actually
Speaker 2: seen the blast of the bomb. Now what he had
Speaker 2: witnessed here was the debtonishing of a nineteen kiloton bomb,
Speaker 2: and it exploded about a thousand meters above the ground.
Speaker 2: And then he went on to say that the light faded,
Speaker 2: but as it faded, there was thunder like they'd never
Speaker 2: heard before. And then there was wind. I mean, the
Speaker 2: wind just came up and it was so intense that it
Speaker 2: rocked him back against the back of his u and
Speaker 2: then the wind reverse directions came back and pushed him
Speaker 2: face forward into into uh the front of the trench.
Speaker 2: And so then the second few seconds later came to
Speaker 2: order to leave the trenches. So they climbed out, and
Speaker 2: as he put it, we've all seen movies of the
Speaker 2: mushroom cloud and atomic bomb generates, but he says, seeing
Speaker 2: that in real life, it was like it just wasn't real.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't you can't wrap your mind around
Speaker 2: something like this. And you sat there and look at
Speaker 2: it and say, something humans built generated this. And he
Speaker 2: said it was already towering up into the sky, and
Speaker 2: he compared it to something that was like a cloud
Speaker 2: that was bowling up from Hell. And they told him
Speaker 2: to start walking forward, and they did. He went on
Speaker 2: to relate that as they moved along, he started seeing
Speaker 2: some of those things have been so a few days before, Like,
Speaker 2: for one location, remember seeing the Sherman tank and he said,
Speaker 2: look like the Shrimann tankers had been swatted aside by
Speaker 2: some giant's hand. And then he started encountering some of
Speaker 2: these dummies had been set up. Some were almost burnt
Speaker 2: up entirely, others were smoldering. So they kept walking. They
Speaker 2: got within about three quarters of a mile of where
Speaker 2: the bomb had exploded, and they stopped him. They turned
Speaker 2: him around and marched him back out of there. And
Speaker 2: he said, remember hearing somebody saying that it had gotten
Speaker 2: it was too hot to go much further, and well
Speaker 2: that basically mean was too radioactive. Then Marsha to a
Speaker 2: certain site. There they swept them off, hosed them off,
Speaker 2: and he says, actually surprised by how much dust came
Speaker 2: off of him in his up Latombe. And rather keep
Speaker 2: the uniform he had been wearing, he wadded it up
Speaker 2: and threw it away. Like I said, that's the only
Speaker 2: time that we know of as myself and Jr. That
Speaker 2: Toby actually ever talked about the day of the bomb.
Speaker 2: A lot of people wound up getting sick and dying
Speaker 2: because of exposure to fallout. The thing is, I don't
Speaker 2: think a lot of the Peo people knew what they
Speaker 2: were headed for. They were had a pivotal moment of history,
Speaker 2: and they didn't realize it. I know the chef didn't.
Speaker 1: And this is why we routinely celebrate our veterans on
Speaker 1: this show because our soldiers serve in so many distinct
Speaker 1: and dangerous ways, and you just heard about one, the
Speaker 1: story of Toby Madrid, the Atomic Marine. Here on our
Speaker 1: American Stories, Folks, if you love the stories we tell
Speaker 1: about this great country, and especially the stories of America's
Speaker 1: rich past, know that all of our stories about American history,
Speaker 1: from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to
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Speaker 1: where students study all the things that are beautiful in
Speaker 1: life and all the things that are good in life.
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Speaker 1: to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more.