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Sailors: 'We
were used'
Vets exposed to toxic agents want answers, justice By Alan Snel FLORIDA TODAY When Navy veteran Jim Brocklebank served as a radioman on the USS Power in the 1960s, he was intrigued by civilians in masks and body suits doing tests on his destroyer. "We asked, 'We'd like to know what you're monitoring,' " recalled Brocklebank, now 61 and living in Palm Beach Gardens in north Palm Beach County. "They just told us, 'None of your business.' They never told us a thing for 37 years." Brocklebank and the surviving members of the 250-man crew of the USS Power -- including John Luliak of Sebastian -- were used as human test subjects to see how vulnerable American ships were to war chemicals and biological agents. Eventually, sailors like Brocklebank and Luliak would learn of a dozen monitoring stations on their old World War II vessel. It was part of a secret Cold War testing operation from 1962-1973. The U.S. Department of Defense has declassified records showing it sprayed naval ships and land sites, including one in Yeehaw Junction in Central Florida, with chemicals such as sarin nerve gas and tear gas; biological agents like bacteria; and simulants that would mimic the dispersion of substances like anthrax. Some of those toxins have been linked to infections, cancer and heart and lung problems. Now, the Department of Veteran Affairs is trying to catch up with former servicemen who were exposed during the tests. In a November letter sent to 3,137 veterans, the VA said the military had declassified documents on the testing and is "offering a thorough clinical examination" to all exposed veterans. In addition, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida plans to re-introduce a proposed veterans-right-to-know legislation in the spring in hopes of forcing the military to disclose the extent of all testing. "We didn't know," Luliak said. "We were amazed they would use us as guinea pigs without any consultation. We were used." Luliak says his health is OK. But another USS Power sailor, Jim Druckemiller of Topeka, Kansas, says he wasn't so lucky. After Druckemiller was exposed to chemicals on the USS Power, the junior corpsman suffered lung and skin ailments. He said he also had growths on the instep of his foot and on the back of his head. Druckemiller, who was 21 at the time of the tests in 1965, also suffered a heart attack at 36. He's among a group of veterans who have sued the federal government, alleging a military testing coverup and benefits denials.Project 112The military's secret tests came under the general name of Project 112, which included the testing of Navy ships such as Brocklebank's vessel and a test in Yeehaw Junction in 1968. The Project experiment in Yeehaw Junction tested biological weapon system chemicals on wheat crops from Oct. 31-Dec 1, 1968. The Project 112 sea testing had its own name -- Project SHAD, which stood for Shipboard Hazard and Defense. The testing on sailors and soldiers was publicly exposed for the first time in a CBS news investigation in 2000. The Defense Department has identified 42 such Project 112 experiments and is investigating another 30 reports, DOD spokesman Austin Camacho said. "We're having problems finding the records," Camacho said. "Finding the completion data is very challenging." The 134 planned Project 112 tests included 37 planned Project SHAD tests. Of the 37 planned SHAD tests, 18 actually took place. The names of the SHAD tests on the naval ships -- which involved spraying clouds of nerve gas, bacteria, decontaminants and simulants at sea -- included pleasant-sounding monikers such as Autumn Gold, Eager Belle, Shady Grove, Purple Sage, Copper Head and Fearless Johnny. In the case of Brocklebank's ship, the USS Power, the chemicals -- bacillus globigii (a live bacteria) and zinc cadmium sulfide -- were sprayed near Newfoundland in early 1965. The vessel passed through the two clouds of chemicals, which were used because they're supposedly similar in size and has the same dispersal characteristics as anthrax. Bacillus globigii bacteria has been associated with acute infections of the inner ear, urinary tract, lung, heart valve, and bloodstream in people whose health has already been compromised, Defense Department records on the tests show. High concentrations and prolonged exposures to cadmium are associated with lung cancer. 'We were not told'Of the VA letters mailed in November, 204 were sent to veterans in Florida, VA spokesman Jim Benson said. One of those vets was Luliak, 58, of Sebastian. "We don't really know what they sprayed us with. I was talking to (former shipmates) and they had different problems. That raised my eyebrows quite a bit," he said. Luliak says his health is OK. Luliak served on the USS Power and two other ships in the 1960s. "We were not told about this. As a radiomen, we received all the messages, even the top-secret ones. So any communications came on board must have come encrypted," Luliak said. "In other words, it came in secret." Besides spraying chemicals at sea as part of Project SHAD, the military also conducted tests at Florida sites in Boca Raton, Ocala and Panama City, Ret. Lt. Col. Bill Sutey said. Sutey is Sen. Nelson's staff military adviser. "America needs to come clean with all chemical, biological and radiological testing to find out if veterans were exposed to these toxins, agents, and simulants," Sutey said. A few weeks ago, former USS Power crewman Druckemiller met with Nelson's staff in efforts to put more teeth in the proposed legislation. He thinks an independent organization should audit the test documents. Today, the Defense Department is doing the audits. "That's like the fox telling what he found in the henhouse. He won't tell you everything," said Druckemiller, now 58. Plaintiffs file suitBrocklebank, Druckemiller and the Vietnam Veterans of America are three of the 22 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against officials of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran Affairs. The lawsuit claims 5,000 to 10,000 military personnel were used as unwitting test subjects in biological and chemical warfare experiments. And it says the exposed veterans have been denied disability, medical treatment and other compensation because the "defendants illegally concealed, and continue to conceal, the medical records, and other relevant information necessary to obtain such compensation." The plaintiffs' lawyer, Douglas Rosinski of Washington, D.C., argued for a law that would require the DOD and VA to tell all veterans whether they were exposed to biological or chemical agents. "DOD has completely ignored previous congressional mandates to do so," said Rosinski, who grew up on Merritt Island. Defense Department spokesman Camacho said the military would not respond in the news media to allegations in a lawsuit. He did note, "The Department of Defense needs to have better record-keeping if they do this again." The experiences of one of the plaintiffs, former USS Navarro crew member Robert Bates of Vancouver, Wash., best exemplifies the military's misleading comments on the experiments, said Eric Longabardi, an independent news producer who exposed the testing for CBS in 2000. Bates served during the Autumn Gold test of 1963. He made a VA benefits claim in 1980, asserting his health problems were caused by exposure to biological and chemical agents 17 years earlier. But the VA denied Bates' claim later in 1980 and denied the test ever happened. In July 2000, Bates filed to reopen his compensation claim. But in August 2002, the VA rejected it, even though VA officials conceded that he suffered from "pneumonia and respiratory distress" during the Autumn Gold experiments, the lawsuit says. The Mulindwas
communication group
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