US Navy Sailors Zapped by Fukushima Disaster

Here is a revealing story about something which happened to the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan during rescue operations after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/12/u-s-navy-sailors-sue-tepco-over-cluster-fukushima-snafu/

According to individual reports, the Navy passed out iodine pills to officers and pilots, but not to most of the crew. The Navy also required crew members, before they could go on shore leave later in Thailand, to sign papers stating that they were healthy and couldn’t sue the Navy. Clearly that would be mitigating for the Navy, even if it meant abandoning people whose potential radiation injuries wouldn’t be showing up for months or years.

Obviously they knew something about the risks involved or they would not have passed out the iodine pills. Since one would expect that the ship had enough pills for the entire crew, it's unconscionable that only officers and pilots (all of whom are officers) were so protected.

Recalling my days in the nuclear navy (30 years ago), we did not have radiation detectors which would have immediately alerted us to contaminated water and air outside the ship. Once outside air entered the ship it would have been sampled by internal air detectors, but I don't remember any detectors which would have picked up radiation in contaminated water ... until it evaporated inside the ship to produce airborne contamination.

I participated in an event similar to what happened to these sailors. We were at sea when the ship received information that dosimeters being used to record radiation doses received by the crew were not as sensitive as previously thought ... meaning that our doses might have been higher than what was being recorded. They made everyone, officers and crew, sign documents stating that we understood the risks of these higher radiation doses and chose to continue with our mission ... like we had any real choice in the matter, being hundreds of miles out to sea.

I also recall a somewhat related incident on another ship on which I sailed. We went on a long cruise, and during the cruise several members of the crew happened to receive routine physicals during a prolonged port visit. Doctors performing the physicals discovered that nearly everyone on the ship had symptoms of poisoning from heavy metals and other types of shipborne toxins. Nothing of the sort had been reported by our usual doctors during physicals done in our home port, which made me suspect that they had suppressed such information "for the good of the service".

This all reminds me of Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, Balkan Syndrome, and the poisoning of troops by the fumes of burn pits. Our men and women in uniform are routinely subjected to unnecessary hazards by ignorant or uncaring commanders ... and then left to rot and die afterwards. If you get shot they'll pin a medal on your chest. But if you get sick, they'll do whatever is necessary to throw you under the bus.

It's good thing we patriots love this country, or many of us would no longer put up with this kind of shit.