HEAVY Things Are Happening......finally.....

[J.B. Stone]

PROPER PRIOR PLANNING PREVENTS PISS POOR PERFORMANCE........!!!.....

How pixelated uniforms turned soldiers into walking targets
By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – Wed, Jul 4, 2012EmailShare0PrintThe U.S. outrages vets by shelling out $5 billion for ill-conceived camouflage that reportedly makes soldiers more visible
The military has a major pixelation problem, and it doesn't involve computers. New reports suggest that the U.S. Army's pixelated camo uniform, introduced in 2004, is actually a monumental $5 billion blunder. Industry insiders are calling this a "fiasco," and many are enraged that the Army took eight years to address the issue. (See the uniforms at right and below.) Here's what you should know:

What's wrong with the uniforms?
The pattern is too easy to spot. Though the camouflage is supposed to help mask soldiers' presence in the desert and more moderate terrain, soldiers everywhere are criticizing the pixelated gray-green Universal Camouflage Pattern, or UPC, "for standing out almost anywhere it's been worn," says Erik German at The Daily. The mixture of the Army's gray-green color scheme with the pixel pattern turns out to be quite eye-catching — not a good quality in camouflage.

What kind of problems did these uniforms cause?
It's an "epic mistake that cost billions of dollars," says Molly Oswaks at Gizmodo, "and, ostensibly, many lives." Think about it, says Ubergizmo. Not only are the pixelated camouflage uniforms highly visible in their own right, but because the U.S. was bogged down fighting two wars, supply lines dragged, and many Army soldiers had the new pixelated gray-green fatigues, but old-school gear. So "soldiers were running around with desert-colored clothing, but their backpacks, vests, and body-armor would be colored differently with black or green," essentially telling enemies where to shoot. "At rifle distances," says German, "the problem posed by the dark gear over light clothing was as obvious as it was distressing."

How did this happen?
Apparently, Army commanders were "envious" of the dust-colored pixelated camouflage being developed for the Marine Corps, and rushed to demand a similar pattern in their own colors, instead of playing it safe with the classic cloudy globs traditionally used for Army camouflage. Things went haywire when officials insisted on using the Army's traditional grey-green color scheme, which, when paired with the pixels — not to mention darker gear — turned soldiers into walking targets. "Brand identity trumped camouflage utility," says military journalist Eric Graves. "That's what this really comes down to."

What happens next?
In Afghanistan, soldiers have been given replacement uniforms that offer better cover. But soldiers outside of Afghanistan are out of luck — at least until next year when the Army swaps out pixelated duds for state-of-the-art UPCs.

[J.B. Stone]

I GUESS IT TAKES ALL KINDS.............

Five Men Agree To Stand Directly Under An Exploding Nuclear

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/ ... mb?ps=cprs

by Robert Krulwich

Updated July 18, 2012: We have added an update to this post, which you can find below the original. Click here to read about what happened to the men.

They weren't crazy. They weren't being punished. All but one volunteered to do this (which makes it all the more astonishing).

Atom Central/YouTube

On July 19, 1957, five Air Force officers and one photographer stood together on a patch of ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They'd marked the spot "Ground Zero. Population 5" on a hand-lettered sign hammered into the soft ground right next to them.

As we watch, directly overhead, two F-89 jets roar into view, and one of them shoots off a nuclear missile carrying an atomic warhead.

They wait. There is a countdown; 18,500 feet above them, the missile is detonated and blows up. Which means, these men intentionally stood directly underneath an exploding 2-kiloton nuclear bomb. One of them, at the key moment (he's wearing sunglasses), looks up. You have to see this to believe it.

Who are these guys? And why is the narrator joyously shouting, "It happened! The mounds are vibrating. It is tremendous! Directly above our heads! Aaah!"

This footage comes from our government's archives. It was shot by the U.S. Air Force (at the behest of Col. Arthur B. "Barney" Oldfield, public information officer for the Continental Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs) to demonstrate the relative safety of a low-grade nuclear exchange in the atmosphere. Two colonels, two majors and a fifth officer agreed to stand right below the blast. Only the cameraman, George Yoshitake, didn't volunteer.

The country was just beginning to worry about nuclear fallout, and the Air Force wanted to reassure people that it was OK to use atomic weapons to counter similar weapons being developed in Russia. (They didn't win this argument.)

The Silence

Watching this film, there are many things to wonder (and worry) about, but one of the stranger moments is how the bomb bursts in complete silence. We see a sudden white flash. It makes the soldiers flinch. Then there's a pause, a pregnant quiet that lasts for a beat, then another and then — there's a roar. ("There it is! The ground wave!"), after which the sky above seems to go black and the air turns to fire.

Basic physics explains the pause. Because light travels quicker than sound, you see light first, you hear sound later. In most movies (even in government-released atomic bomb blast films), the sound is artificially time shifted to make the flash and the sound appear simultaneous.

'A Long, Thundering Growl'

But that's not what it's like if you are actually there. Science historian Alex Wellerstein has found an undoctored and deeply frightening recording — which he just posted on Restricted Data; The Nuclear Secrecy Blog.

He got it, he says, from "a Russian correspondent" who was searching the U.S. National Archives. (Why not? Our past is open to all.) The Russian found a recording of an American atomic test in 1953, which shows an enormous flash of white, so white it blanks out the entire sky, then thick clouds of ash (or maybe dirt?) tumble up, a fireball appears — all of this in total quiet. Thirty seconds pass. And then, says Wellerstein,

Put on some headphones and listen to it all the way through — it's much more intimate than any other test film I've seen. You get a much better sense of what these things must have been like, on the ground, as an observer, than from your standard montage of blasts. Murmurs in anticipation; the slow countdown over a megaphone; the reaction at the flash of the bomb; and finally — a sharp bang, followed by a long, thundering growl. That's the sound of the bomb.


It's a sound you would never want to hear in real life, but this a safe way to eavesdrop. Just one warning: For the first two minutes of this video, nothing happens, nothing I could hear, anyway. Then there's a countdown, and at 2:24 from the top ... the bomb bursts; at 2:54 the blast hits.

Operation Upshot-Knothole ANNIE nuclear test, 1953

A Postscript: What Happened To The Guys In The Bomb Video?
By ROBERT KRULWICH & ALEX WELLERSTEIN

A lot of you wrote in to ask what happened to the five men in the blog post above, who, in 1957 stood under an exploding atomic bomb. Did they get cancer? Did they suffer later on? Are they still with us?

We checked, of course. I did find a list of the people who were in the film.

Col. Sidney Bruce
Lt. Col. Frank P. Ball
Maj. Norman "Bodie" Bodinger
Maj. John Hughes
Don Lutrel
George Yoshitake (the cameraman, not seen)


Googling through the list, we quickly discovered (as did many of you) that George Yoshitake, the cameraman, was alive, at least as of two years ago. In 2010, he was interviewed in the New York Times and talked about his fellow cameramen who took pictures of atomic bombs. "Quite a few have died from cancer," he told reporter Bill Broad. "No doubt it was related to the testing." Yoshitake's nephew also wrote in and didn't mention his uncle's passing, so I'm guessing that he's now 84 years old and still with us.

As for the others, that's trickier. It's hard to know if a match in names is a real match and I didn't want to make an awkward mistake. I turned to my sleuth friend, science historian Alex Wellerstein (now at the American Institute of Physics) for help here. He told me "Military folks who have died can be found in the Department of Veteran's Affairs Gravesite Locator — and since we think all the video guys were Army and all World War II veterans, we might find some matches.

Alex looked, and here's what he found:

Col. Sidney C. Bruce — died in 2005 (age 86)
Lt. Col. Frank P. Ball — died in 2003 (age 83)
Maj. John Hughes — very common name, but I'm guessing he is Maj. John W. Hughes II (born 1919, same as the above) — died in 1990 (age 71)
Maj. Norman Bodinger — unclear (not listed in the database), he may still be alive?
Don Lutrel — I think this is a misspelling of "Luttrell." There is a Donald D. Luttrell in the DVA database, US Army CPL, born 1924, died 1987 (age 63). Seems like a possibility.


If any of you reading think we've messed up, and someone we call dead is alive or alive is dead, please write me immediately. But this is our best effort.

Then there's the matter of perspective. It's a mistake, I think, to focus on six people as if they represent everyone who was exposed to bomb radiation. As Alex said in an email to me, it's more complicated than that.

..lots of people associated with Nevada Test Site operations got cancer over the years, some $150 million has been paid out in compensation to 2,000+ "onsite participants" of nuclear testing, under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

The thing is, in that particular explosion, those guys would have been in a pretty safe position. The bomb itself was a small one (by nuclear standards — 2 kilotons) and it was way, way above their heads. They weren't in a zone to be too affected by the immediate radiation. The bomb was small enough and high enough that it wouldn't have sucked up dust to produce much fallout. The remaining cloud would have been full of (nasty) fission products, but it would have been extremely hot and most of it would have stayed aloft until it cooled down, by which point it probably would have been spread more diffusely.


At least the folks in the films volunteered to be there (George excepted) and were given some pre-film training (not terribly useful, but still). That was not the case for a little community downwind from the Nevada Test Site, a place called St. George, Utah.

The folks in St. George were repeatedly hit by uninvited fallout. Alex wrote me that in 1953, one test, codenamed "Harry" actually deposited quite a lot of fallout on St. George, to the point where residents were forced to stay inside for many hours, and prohibited from washing their cars until they became less radioactive.

Over the years, says Alex, the U.S. government has paid some $813 million to more than 16,000 "downwinders" to compensate them for illnesses presumably connected to the bomb testing program. So it is clear that tests like these — often done to demonstrate the safety of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere — were not safe at all.

Some of you may have noticed the nuclear missile video says the explosion took place 10,000 feet above our group of soldiers. Apparently, the video is wrong. The Natural Resources Defense Council checked the numbers and says the explosion, part of Operation PLUMBBOB, was actually at 18,500 feet. The second explosion can be found in its original form in the National Archives here.

[J.B. Stone]

IS THERE NO END...........???

US Government Ran Chemical Experiments on Military Veterans Under Operations MKUltra, Bluebird and Artichoke
Thursday, July 26, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) The United States, for its warts, has achieved much in its short 230-plus year history. It is a benevolent world superpower, for the most part, that serves as a beacon of hope and freedom for an increasingly oppressed world, even as it serves as a guardian against tyranny for as many as half of the world's nearly seven billion people.

But a few chapters in our history - slavery, oppression of the Native American tribes, causes of the civil rights movement, and moments of unconstitutionality on the part of our elected leaders - serve as more than simple blemishes on an otherwise admirable record of defending liberty and freedom. One such stain is the way we've treated some of our nation's military veterans.

The maltreatment is summed up in a recent federal case. In late July, a group of veterans managed to win a court order forcing the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to hand over a trove of documents detailing the department's alleged Cold War-era drug experiments on Vietnam vets. What's problematic about this case isn't the decision - the VA owes these veterans any answers they are seeking - but the fact that the case had to be filed at all.

'Project Paperclip'

According to court documents, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, in Oakland, Calif., said in her ruling that the documents requested by the veteran-plaintiffs were "squarely relevant" to their claim that the government, through the VA, did not adequately notify veterans of chemicals they were purposely exposed to during experimentation, and - perhaps more importantly - what effects that exposure might have had on their physical and mental health.

Details of this sad episode in our history were contained in a 2009 class action suit. Filed by the Vietnam Veterans of America and individual soldiers, the suit charges the U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency, with the help of former Nazi scientists, of using at least 7,800 vets as guinea pigs to test the effects of as many as 400 different types of drugs and chemicals. They included mescaline (psychedelic alkaloid), LSD (psychedelic drug), amphetamines, barbiturates, nerve agents and mustard gas.

The suit also says the government worked to cover up the testing and the nature of its experiments, which began in the 1950s under such exotic code names as "Bluebird," "Artichoke" and MKUltra."

The government launched "Project Paperclip," the suit alleges, an all-out effort by the Army and CIA to allegedly recruit former Nazi scientists to help test various psycho-chemicals, as well as develop a new truth serum using the nation's own vets as test subjects, Courthouse News Service reported.

"Over half of these Nazi recruits had been members of the SS or Nazi Party," said the class-action suit. "The 'Paperclip' name was chosen because so many of the employment applications were clipped to immigration papers."

According to Colin A. Ross, a psychiatrist and author of "The CIA Doctors," said he pored over more than 15,000 documents he received from the nation's premier spy agency detailing the "mind control" operations which he said took place between 1950-1972 "at many leading universities including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Stanford."

The goal, simply, is mind control

In a report posted on the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International's Web site, Ross said "MKUltra and related programs had several over-lapping purposes."

"One was to purchase mind control drugs from suppliers. Another was to form relationships with researchers who might later be used as consultants at the TOP SECRET level," he wrote. "The core purpose of these programs was to learn how to enhance interrogations, erase and insert memories, and create and run Manchurian Candidates."

Ross said all of that is documented "clearly and explicitly" in the declassified CIA documents he obtained, though he said it was merely "a glimpse into the tip of the iceberg of CIA and military mind control."

"The experimental subjects were not told the real purpose of the experiments, did not give informed consent, were not afforded outside counsel and received no meaningful follow-up," he wrote. "As described by the psychiatrists in published papers, experiments with LSD and other hallucinogens, combined with sensory deprivation, electroshock and other interrogation techniques, resulted in psychosis and death among other 'side effects.' The purpose of these experiments was to see how easily a person could be put into a psychotic state or controlled."

In a review of the MKUltra program, which was launched in 1953, Wired.com said its goal was, simply, mind-control.

"1953: The agency launches one of its most dubious covert programs ever, turning unsuspecting humans into guinea pigs for its research into mind-altering drugs," said the report, which said then-Central Intelligence Agency director Allen Dulles authorized the program.

"Dulles wanted to close the 'brainwashing gap' that arose after the United States learned that American prisoners of war in Korea were subjected to mind-control techniques by their captors," said Wired.com.

Programmable assassins

"Loathe to be outdone by foreign enemies, the CIA sought, through its research, to devise a truth serum to enhance the interrogations of POWs and captured spies. The agency also wanted to develop techniques and drugs - such as 'amnesia pills' - to create CIA superagents (sic) who would be immune to the mind-control efforts of adversaries."

The creation of so-called Manchurian Candidates - a programmable assassin, essentially - was also a goal of the program.

Besides drug and chemical experimentation, the program included the use of radiological implants, hypnosis and subliminal persuasion, electroshock therapy and isolation techniques, the report said.

In their suit, the vets level similar charges - that the government was attempting to develop and test substances capable of inducing mind control, euphoria, altered personalities, confusion, physical paralysis, mania, illogical thinking and other effects.

Many of the experiments, the suit says, were conducted at Army facilities at Edgewood Arsenal and Ft. Detrick, Md. Some left a number of veterans saddled with debilitating health problems for decades to follow. Worse, the veterans say the government has neglected to provide follow-up medical care to mitigate the damages.

Some soldiers died from the testing, while others suffered physical and mental ailments including seizures and paranoia, an earlier ruling in the case noted.

In this latest bid for full disclosure, the VVA sought documents from the government that reveal the VA's processes of identifying and notifying soldiers who may have been exposed to the chemical and biological tests.

No relevant medical purposes

In arguing against releasing the documents, attorneys for the VA said the agency should be exempted from doing so by the deliberative process privilege, which aims to shield the decision-making processes of government agencies.

Judge Corley did not buy the argument, ruling instead that that veterans group and others "have demonstrated a sufficient, substantial need to overcome the qualified deliberative process privilege."

"The Court agrees that considerable discovery has been provided on this subject; however, having reviewed the thousands of pages of documents submitted for in camera review, the Court notes that these processes are far from clear or consistent, and in fact, seem to have undergone numerous modifications over time," she wrote.

Corley ordered the VA to release more than 40 documents, which she said were "both relevant and unavailable from other sources given that the documents reflect processes which have evolved over time."

Writes Ross, "The purpose of mind control experiments is controlling human behavior: making enemy combatants open up during interrogation; protecting secret information by erasing memories; making spies more resistant to interrogation because secret information is held by hidden identities and making people more prone to influence, social control and suggestion.

"The mind control experiments and operational programs violate basic human rights and all codes of medical ethics," he said.

The government should never use American citizens or others for any sort of experimentation, at least without first getting consent. Using those who protect and defend us for the same is unspeakable.

Sources:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/07/23/48617.htm

http://www.cchrint.org/tag/project-bluebird/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/01 ... a-lawsuit/

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/09/45455.htm

[J.B. Stone]

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.............!!!


Supreme Court rejects Havre man's unusual medical marijuana appeal

By SANJAY TALWANI Independent Record

The Montana Supreme Court Tuesday turned to the lyrics of Bob Dylan in denying the appeal of a Havre man who mentioned counter-culture comedians Cheech and Chong in his appeal of a conviction for growing and intending to distribute marijuana.

Shawn M. Stoner was charged with the felonies after authorities found five marijuana plants, additional marijuana, a digital scale and other paraphernalia in his residence.

Some time after being charged, Stoner sought and received a card from the state authorizing him as a medical marijuana caregiver for one particular patient, and another certifying him as a patient under the state’s medical marijuana law in place at the time.

In March 2011, Stoner asked a District Court to dismiss that charge, citing the provision in the law that a “qualifying patient” may use that defense in a criminal case.

That court disagreed, noting that he did not possess the card at the time of the crime, and said he could bring that argument before a jury but warning that his burden of proof would be “fairly high.”

He pleaded guilty in an agreement with prosecutors but reserved his right to appeal on the basis of the medical card, but the high court upheld the lower court’s ruling.

“They’ll stone ya when you’re trying to make a buck,” Associate Justice Beth Baker wrote for the unanimous five-judge panel, quoting a Dylan song from 1966. “They’ll stone you and then they’ll say, ‘good luck.’”

Stoner acknowledged to the high court that it was not the intent of the law “to allow unfettered use of marijuana to every stoner and reject from a Cheech and Chong casting call,” referring to comedians Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, who built their careers on marijuana-oriented humor.

“Nor, however, was it (the law’s) intent to allow this Stoner, or others like him, an avenue for legalization of their creative endeavors,” Baker wrote. “Unfortunately, though clever, his argument cannot prevail. Perhaps Stoner’s ingenuity will turn a legitimate profit in the future.”

[J.B. Stone]

LOOKS LIKE IT'S TIME TO SUIT UP ONCE MORE............

Syria’s neighbors braced for chemical threat. Assad warns Turkey on Stingers

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 17, 2012, 10:14 AM (GMT+02:00)

http://www.debka.com/article/22285/Syri ... n-Stingers

The US and its allies are discussing a worst-case scenario that could require up to 60,000 ground troops to go into Syria to secure chemical and biological weapons sites following the fall of the Assad government, an unnamed American source said Thursday night, Aug.16.

This scenario postulates the disintegration of his security forces, he said, leaving chemical and biological weapons sites vulnerable to pillaging. It assumes the sites could not be destroyed by aerial bombings in view of health and environmental hazards.

“There is no imminent plan to deploy ground forces,” the source insisted. This is just a worst-case scenario.
debkafile’s military sources find in this disclosure a bid to psychologically prepare the world for the prospect of chemical warfare, as the dialogue between Bashar Assad and his neighbors gains in violence.

The American special forces deployed on the Jordanian-Syrian border and in bases in Israel and Turkey clearly perceive a chemical-biological weapon threat. Military and medical preparations are being quietly put in place. Reconnaissance teams from potentially targeted countries have infiltrated Syria. They are on the lookout for any chemical missiles being moved into firing positions, although it is taken into account that Assad may be shifting decoys and that not all the real launchings can be stopped.

The Syrian ruler may also decide to transfer chemical explosives to Hizballah in Lebanon. Israel is on record as warning it would prevent this.

Medical preparations are also in place. The US and France are flying special military hospital facilities trained in the treatment of chemical weapon injuries to Turkey and Jordan.

Israeli hospitals are on war alert and have begun opening fortified emergency wards and making them ready for patients.
Tuesday, Aug. 14, IDF Home Front Command units embarked on a series of chemical attack drills in the towns of the northern district down to Afula, which is 52 kilometers east of Haifa and 110 kilometers north of Tel Aviv.
The soldiers taking part those drills wore new anti-contamination suits.

In Tel Aviv, city hall announced underground parking spaces would be available in an emergency as bomb shelters for up to 850,000 people.

Wednesday, August 15, Bashar Assad’s violence again broke new ground:
Syrian air force bombers struck Azaz not far from the Turkish border – for the first time with the aim of razing a complete Syrian town. More than 80 people were killed and 150 wounded. He was telling the Free Syrian Army rebels who had been using Azaz as their command post and logistical hub for the Aleppo battle that the gloves were off and the same punishment would be meted out to any urban areas hosting them.

The Syrian ruler also warned Ankara through back channels that if any more Turkish FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles were supplied to the FSA, he would arm the 2,500 Turkish rebel PKK Kurdish fighters allowed to deploy on the Syrian-Turkish border with Russian SA-8 anti-air missiles for use against Turkey.

Ankara shot back: That will be war.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that Assad is resolved more than ever to stand fast after the shot in the arm he received last week from Tehran.

Iran’s National Security Adviser Saeed Jalili visited Damascus Aug. 6-7 to ascertain that Syria would strike Israel and US military targets in the region with all its might if they attacked Iran.

Assad was ready to offer this pledge, but demanded in return that Tehran guarantee to exercise all its military capabilities to save him from any military or covert attempts to end his rule - whenever it was requested.
Jalili promised him that guarantee. He also held a similar conversation with HIzballah’s Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.

[J.B. Stone]

LOOKS HOPEFUL, WE'LL SEE

Tuesday, August 21, 2012
US Veterans Suffering From Head Trauma May Become Violent and Dangerous, Says DoD
Susanne Posel,

US Army statistics show that the suicide rate among military personnel is rising exponentially. Last July, an estimated 38 suicides were “confirmed or suspected” by soldiers making that month the deadliest time in Army history.

Active duty suicides have climbed up to 22% with 116 deaths so far in 2012. Veterans are in most danger of committing suicide. While the Army has traditionally viewed younger soldiers as “at risk” for suicide, since the majority of deaths are occurring with veteran and older soldiers, that assumption is shifting.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, US Army vice chief of staff, said:

Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army. And, it’s an enemy that’s killing not just soldiers, but tens of thousands of Americans every year. That said, I do believe suicide is preventable. To combat it effectively will require sophisticated solutions aimed at helping individuals to build resiliency and strengthen their life coping skills. As we prepare for Suicide Prevention Month in September we also recognize that we must continue to address the stigma associated with behavioral health. Ultimately, we want the mindset across our force and society at large to be that behavioral health is a routine part of what we do and who we are as we strive to maintain our own physical and mental wellness.

Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary testified before Congress about solider suicides, saying “that this is an epidemic . . . something’s wrong.”

Doctors have classified Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) as an incurable brain disease that soldiers returning from war suffer from. After having injured the brain during battle, soldiers are being touted as displaying large bursts of anger and depression while having their vital motor skills and memory impacted. With CTE, veterans can be singled out as suffering from this condition which is being linked to massive suicides occurring in the military.


CTE is a progressive and degenerative disease which manifests from repetitive brain trauma (i.e. constantly being hit in the head), triggers progressive degeneration of brain tissue. The effects can come months or even years after the last traumatic event. Symptoms of CTE are recognized as memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia.

Air Force Lt. Col. Randall McCafferty, chief of neurosurgery at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, explains: “We don’t fully understand the incidence of CTE with the occurrence of traumatic brain injury. But we may be able to learn that early treatment of the initial acute [brain] injury may avoid this cascade from brain injury to CTE.”

US veterans, being diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are being tracked by the Department of Defense (DoD) because they may display personality changes that could come on without warning and effect their ability to acclimate back into American society.

Researchers are claiming that even mild TBI can develop into CTE, which will cause veterans to possibly become a danger to themselves and those around them.

Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist and co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy in Boston, says that microscopic evidence of protein build up in the brains of military veterans show that this mental effect is “a problem”. McKee said:

Four years ago we really did not understand this injury at all. Now we know it exists. But we have no idea of the level of risk. All we can say is we have identified it and it is a problem with some individuals.

McKee’s focus on this “progressive disease” is devising pre-emptive measures to treat the disease “so [that] we don’t have individuals who suffer these injuries coming down with a devastating disorder later in life.”

The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke are working on clinical trials for head injury effects on personality and mental capacity. Correlating head injury, brain trauma and mental deterioration is a major point of this project in an effort to create the prospect that US veterans may become a danger to society.

At Fort Detrick, the Army Combat Casualty Care Research Center is conducting clinical trials on 2,000 patients to devise a medical procedural test to detect an individual’s propensity of developing CTE by measuring biomarkers. More clinical trials are being performed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

The Army is expecting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve their clinical test for TBI/CTE. Army doctors want soldiers identified with TBI/CTE to be treated by recovery centers provided by the US armed forces.

The University of Indiana School of Medicine was given $3 million to come up with a pharmaceutical to combat suicides in the armed forces. Dr. Michael Kubek, associate professor of neurobiology developed an anti-suicide nasal spray that releases a neurochemical called thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) that is touted as being euphoric, calming and has anti-depressant properties.

This spray utilizes “nanotechnology delivery systems” that may extend to the civilian population as well as become a staple for the US armed forces. TRH can cross the blood-brain barrier when administered through the nasal passages. Human clinical trials using soldiers is slated to start soon. The NIH are interested in the findings of the human trials and have already allocated funding to use TRH to treat the general population who are diagnosed with bipolar and other depressive disorders.

Kubek explains: “This is far from a soldiers-only solution. Potentially, if this works, we have an entirely new type of pharmacology.”

While patients taking Zoloft or Prozac wait 3 weeks for the drugs to take effect, this nasal spray may have more immediate results that would “stabilize them right away, while they wait for the [antidepressants] to do their job,” according to Kubek.

This therapy is purported to replace spinal taps that soldiers have been forced to undergo in order to inject anti-depressant medication to reduce suicides.

[J.B. Stone]

AND THE STORY SLOWLY UNRAVELS.........

The History of US and Russian Open Air Biological Weapons Testing

http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2012/09 ... s-testing/

biological weapons testing

In 1977, the U.S. Army conducted a full review of it’s biological warfare program. The report was published on February 24 of that year, and detailed the Army’s role in Biological Warfare research for review by Congress. (1)

Since the U.S. Army was in charge of the work done at Fort Detrick in Maryland, the report provided a great deal of information about the stockpile of biological agents produced by the United States there.

Many U.S. citizens are not only unaware of the sheer volume of deadly diseases and germ agents produced by the United States, but they are also unaware of the often careless open-air testing that the military conducted over populated civilian centers.

The author of the report made a concerted effort to downplay the ethics of the biological warfare program by asking readers to take the beliefs, politics and culture of the time period into account.

The report reads:

“In preparing a comprehensive review of the Army BW programs, it is crucial that the activities be portrayed in the context of the times and circumstances in which they occurred. For this reason, the events have been related to the appropriate period of national security activity. It has been difficult, at times, to provide finite data as some of hte detailed working papers have since been destroyed; however, much data is available and every attempt has been made to use primary documents or the most credible derivative data.”

I believe the authors of the report made a sincere attempt to accumulate solid, verified evidence of elements of the biological warfare program that really took place, rather than distributing information based on anecdotal or otherwise flimsy evidence.

All of the information in the Army report is undisputed – it is not the work of a conspiracy theorist’s mind. Basically, everything you’re about to read is absolutely true.


U.S. Responds to Japan’s Biological Weapons Program

At the end of World War II, after the United States discovered the sheer size of the Japanese biological weapons program, the Secretary of Defense established an Ad Hoc Committee on CBR Warfare to investigate and review the topic.

Less than a year later in 1950, the Committee recommanded that the U.S. should take a more proactive approach to defending against biological weapons. Part of that defense involved establishing facilities to produce and test biological weapons.

The 1950s saw the first major “vulnerability tests” in the United States, including all of the following.

–> An open air test in San Francisco using “the stimulants BG, SM and fluorescent particles”
–> Tests with pathogenics at Dugway Proving Ground in 1950
–> Biological weapons test against animals in 1951 at Eglin AF Base in Florida.

Stimulant testing involved micro-organisms similar to the microbiological agents under study, but incapable (at least believe to be incapable at the time) of causing infection. As far as the Army believed, all test agents were considered “medically safe” to operating personnel and surrounding communities.

Most common stimulants included Serratia Marcescens (SM) and Bacillus Subtillis Variant Niger (Bacillus Globigii – BG). The flourescent particle used was zinc cadmium sulfide.

biological weapons testing
The Project 112 Working Group

In 1961, the DoD established the “Project 112 Working Group”, which developed a plan for moving the U.S. BW program forward. Project 112 led to the development of the Deseret Test Center at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah, with the intended purpose of testing biological and chemical weapons.

By 1969, scientists discovered that some of the agents used could actually be infectious in large exposures and for people with a weakened immune systems.

Project SHAD – an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense – was one effort under Project 112 during the 1960s, when 46 tests were conducted using deadly biological agents on U.S. military personnel.

The Department of Defense hid evidence of these tests – even after military personnel suffered greatly from the physical effects of those tests – over 40 years after the tests were conducted. Agents used in those tests included VX nerve gas, Sarin and Q fever biological agent Coxiella burnetti.

Up until 1998, the Department of Defense denied that the project even existed, and when information started coming out about the tests, the DoD assured government representatives that only “stimulants” were used in the tests. Until a full inquiry into the Project finally took place, led by the efforts of U.S. Representative Mike Thompson, those that suggested such a project were treated like like conspiracy theorists.

In a prepared statement for the U.S. Senate Subcommittee inquiry into Project SHAD in 2002, Thompson wrote:

“My own personal experience with this issue began over 3 years ago when a constituent of mine, Jack Alderson, asked me to investigate something he called Project SHAD. I am honored that Jack is here today and that he will be sharing his knowledge with you. He is a great patriot who has refused to disclose classified information regarding these tests until the DOD has acted. He has not broken the promise he made to his country nearly 40 years ago, despite hearing of crew illness and experiencing illness himself.” (2)

The tragedy of this situation is that while patriotic veterans like Jack Alderson respected the honor code of his military oath, the DoD portrayed no honor at all in attempting to cover up the biological weapons testing inflicted upon human beings during those tests.

Thompson continued:

“Jack was the commander of five tugs used in these experiments. At first the Department of Defense told us that Project SHAD did not exist. Then we were told that it did exist but only simulants were used in the tests. Finally, after 3 years of pressure, DOD not yet 5 months ago revealed that these tests involved harmful chemical and biological agents, the worst of which included VX nerve gas and Sarin nerve gas.” (2)

Thompson demanded that the government needed to appropriately care for the veterans that were harmed by those tests, and demanded that the DoD release a list of all agents used in the tests, the lasting health effects of those agents.

project 112
Biological Weapons Tests Against Civilians

Not only military personnel were exposed to the biological agents over the course of Project 112′s activities. Project SHAD included open-air tests “done on American soil and overseas” during the 1960s and 1970s. According to Thompson’s statement, but the information finally declassified by the DoD revealed biological weapons tests that exposed American and overseas civilians to the agents.

“Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Utah, Canada, and England were the locations used and DOD claims that civilians were only exposed to simulants. Keep in mind that some of these simulants are still live biological agents and may be harmful. It appears that not only were soldiers put at risk but the civilian population the DOD is charged with protecting may also have been put at risk.” (2)

It is the belief of Top Secret Writers researchers that the negative health effects that veterans were experiencing were not the extent of the repurcussions from Project 112.

It is an ongoing research project here at Top Secret Writers to explore a number of mysterious human illnesses and the relationship of those symptoms to the long-term health effects caused by those agents in the areas of the country and the world where the BW tests took place.

biological weapons testing
The Soviet Response to Japan’s Biological Weapons Program

A 1961 SECRET document published by the CIA titled “The Soviet BW Program” details how the post-WWII revelation of Japan’s extreme biological weapons research also sparked fear and anxiety in the Soviet Union regarding what other countries might be up to – such as the United States.

That fear and anxiety might have sparked Russia’s own BW test program similary to that of the DoD.

The CIA wrote that the Soviets had the Soviets will have a wide range of organism tested for BW application by 1965.

“Possible agents for standarization by the Soviets in this time period include those of anthrax, plague, tuleremia, foot-and-mouth disease, finderpest, the encephalitides viruses, and botulinum toxin.”

The CIA recognized what sparked Russian interest in ramping up their own BW research program – just like the U.S. did with Project 112.

“It now appears likely that the notoriety following the Khaborovsk investigation in 1949 of alleged Japanese BW activities and the widespread charges of U.S. employment of BW during the Korean hostilities provided the stimulus for much of this writing…” (3)

What is especially disturbing in light of the tensions and potential hostilities between the U.S. and the Soviet Union is the fact that in the late 1950s, the CIA noted that “considerable emphasis” in Soviet research was focused on aerosol delivery systems for “pathogenic bacteria, viruses , and microbial toxins dispersed as clouds.”

Given the reality the the DoD actively tested biological weapons on U.S. personnel and on regular civilians during open-air tests, in an upcoming article we will examine Soviet tests of biological weapons, and the possibility that the Soviet Union might have covertly released such agents on U.S. soil.

[J.B. Stone]

.......AND, SOME THINGS ARE NOT HAPPENING.......

Backlog of Veterans' Disability Claims Increases 179% Under Obama
By Matt Cover
October 4, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – The backlog of veterans’ disability claims has jumped by 179 percent during President Barack Obama’s first term in office, reaching 883,949 outstanding claims, according to Veterans Administration (VA) statistics. (Click Oct. 1, 2012 link.)

The backlog of claims is at near-record highs, with 65.8 percent of claims being backlogged for 125 days or more.

The total claims include disability claims by veterans as well as from surviving spouses, children, or parents. As the VA explains, these claims are "based upon the effects of disabilities, diseases, or injuries incurred or aggravated during military service." And the claims by spouses, children, or parents are based "upon the Veteran's death due to service-related causes." (Click Oct. 1, 2012 link.)

When Obama took office, there were approximately 390,000 outstanding claims, of which only 22 percent had been pending for more than 180 days.

That number had been falling during the second George W. Bush administration, despite the military being heavily engaged in two wars. At the beginning of Bush’s second term, the VA had about 480,000 outstanding claims, with only 21 percent backlogged for more than 180 days.

That number fell by almost 100,000 claims by the time Obama took office

In a speech to the American Legion in August, General Eric Shinseki, secretary of Veterans Affairs, said that the VA was working hard to try to process all the claims, noting that “no one is standing at parade rest.”

“The backlog is real, but no one is standing at parade rest,” he said. “This is a dynamic process, and as we pushed 2.9 million claims out the door, 3.5 million claims came in.”

Shinseki promised that his agency would end the backlog by 2015.

Shinseki said the VA had been carrying a backlog “for decades” and added that recent decisions to grant claims related to Gulf War Syndrome and Agent Orange exposure had increased the backlog.

“Three-and-a-half years ago, we were also still grappling with some unresolved issues from past wars -- the Gulf War, over 20 years ago, and the Vietnam War, nearly 50 years ago now,” he said. “We didn't take care of business when we should have decades ago, and some Veterans were dying without benefits.”

However, the backlog problem has more than doubled in the past two years alone. In January 2012, pending claims stood at about 880,000, with 64 percent backlogged for more than 125 days. That number was up approximately 116,000 over the previous year.

The claims are for veterans with some kind of service-related disability such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or some kind of physical disability caused by injury. Once processed and rated by the VA, veterans receive compensation to help offset the cost of their disability. However, so long as their claims are backlogged, they have no access to compensation.

[J.B. Stone]

WE MAY EVENTUALLY REACH THE TRUTH...........OR NOT.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myTcA9ri2CE

Upcoming documentary about Project 112

For the first time ever, see footage from the Vietnam War era chemical and biological warfare tests designated Project 112. Is the government at fault for sickening soldiers? Veterans say yes - the government says prove it.

Trailer includes test film footage from 65-4 Magic Sword (SHAD), 65-12 Devil Hole I, 66-5 Purple Sage (SHAD) and 66-6 Scarlet Sage (SHAD).

[J.B. Stone]

o: J.B. Stone
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/ ... s-lab-rats

Soldiers As Lab Rats
By Jordan Bloom • December 11, 2012, 12:12 PM
Apropos Lewis Lapham’s article yesterday about government efforts to keep people from taking drugs, Raffi Khatchadourian has a memorable New Yorker piece about the Army giving them to people. Specifically the Edgewood Arsenal experiments in which soldiers were routinely dosed, in pursuit of a chemical weapon that could incapacitate but not kill, with substances like LSD and a particularly nasty-sounding dissociative referred to as BZ. The experiments have been under intense scrutiny due to a forthcoming lawsuit on behalf of the victims:

The lawsuit’s argument is in line with broader criticisms of Edgewood: that, whether out of military urgency or scientific dabbling, the Army recklessly endangered the lives of its soldiers—naïve men, mostly, who were deceived or pressured into submitting to the risky experiments. The drugs under review ranged from tear gas and LSD to highly lethal nerve agents, like VX, a substance developed at Edgewood and, later, sought by Saddam Hussein. Ketchum’s specialty was a family of molecules that block a key neurotransmitter, causing delirium. The drugs were known mainly by Army codes, with their true formulas classified. The soldiers were never told what they were given, or what the specific effects might be, and the Army made no effort to track how they did afterward. Edgewood’s most extreme critics raise the spectre of mass injury—a hidden American tragedy.


And this:

Once the volunteers arrived at Edgewood, they were given medical and psychological examinations, and were divided into four groups. The least healthy would be used to test equipment. The top twenty-five per cent—the Astronaut Class, as Ketchum once called them—would typically be prepared for the most dangerous chemicals. Doctors informed the volunteers in generalities and asked them to sign a consent form—usually long before any specific test was announced. The forms were designed to offer few details; as one version was drafted, the words “mental disturbance or unconsciousness” were replaced with “discomfiture.” Sometimes a little more information would be provided just before the test began, but not always. Van Sim later confessed that researchers testing nerve gas would tell volunteers that the drug might give them a “runny nose” or a “slight tightness of the chest.”


The Army still hasn’t officially admitted it did anything wrong:

In 2008, the British Ministry of Defence issued a statement to the subjects in its own drug-testing program: “The government sincerely apologizes to those who may have been affected.” That the U.S. Army is unwilling to do such a thing is a source of pain for former subjects. John Ross, the soldier who was given an overdose of nerve agent, struggled for years to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs that he was even at Edgewood. “It’s too late for me,” he said. “I just want an official apology. It was like a con job.”


Read the whole thing. While Col. James Ketchum, the main subject of the piece, won’t defend many things that went on at Edgewood, he still believes that in the context of the Cold War and because the goal was a less-deadly weapon, the tests were justifiable. What do you think?

[J.B. Stone]

HEY, MERRY CHRISTMAS...........!!!

Were US Marines Used as Guinea Pigs on Okinawa?
Friday, 21 December 2012 20:59 By Jon Mitchell, The Asia-Pacific Journal | News Analysis

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Growing evidence suggests that the U.S. military tested biochemical agents on its own forces on the island in the 1960s.

Newly discovered documents reveal that 50 years ago this month, in December 1962, the Pentagon dispatched a chemical weapons platoon to Okinawa under the auspices of its infamous Project 112. Described by the U.S. Department of Defense as "biological and chemical warfare vulnerability tests," the highly classified program subjected thousands of unwitting American service members around the globe to substances including sarin and VX nerve gases between 1962 and 1974. [1]

According to papers obtained from the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the 267th Chemical Platoon was activated on Okinawa on Dec. 1, 1962, with "the mission of operation of Site 2, DOD (Department of Defense) Project 112." Before coming to Okinawa, the 36-member platoon had received training at Denver's Rocky Mountain Arsenal, one of the key U.S. chemical and biological weapons (CBW) facilities. Upon its arrival on the island, the platoon was billeted just north of Okinawa City at Chibana — the site of a poison gas leak seven years later. Between December 1962 and August 1965, the 267th platoon received three classified shipments — codenamed YBA, YBB and YBF — believed to include sarin and mustard gas. [2]

For decades, the Pentagon denied the existence of Project 112. Only in 2000 did the department finally admit to having exposed its own service members to CBW tests, which it claimed were designed to enable the U.S. to better plan for potential attacks on its troops. In response to mounting evidence of serious health problems among a number of veterans subjected to these experiments, Congress forced the Pentagon in 2003 to create a list of service members exposed during Project 112. While the Department of Defense acknowledges it conducted the tests in Hawaii, Panama and aboard ships in the Pacific Ocean, this is the first time that Okinawa — then under U.S. jurisdiction — has been implicated in the project. [3]

Corroborating suspicions that Project 112 tests were conducted on Okinawa is the inclusion on the Pentagon's list of at least one U.S. veteran exposed on the island. "Sprayed from numbered containers" reads the Project 112 file on former marine Don Heathcote. Heathcote, a private first class stationed on Okinawa's Camp Hansen in 1962, clearly remembers the circumstances in which he was exposed.

"I was assigned for approximately 30 days to a crew in the northern jungles of Okinawa," Heathcote says. "I sprayed foliage with chemicals from drums with different-colored faces. As we did this, a guy came by with a clipboard and made notes. How better to run a test than to color-code each barrel?"

Heathcote believes the chemicals were experimental herbicides, including Agent Purple, a forerunner to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange. He says the spraying killed large swaths of the jungle — and took an equally devastating toll on his own health.

"Soon after I returned home, I underwent an operation to extract polyps from my nose. The doctors removed enough to fill a cup. Plus they diagnosed me with bronchitis and sinusitis connected to chemical exposure," said Heathcote.

The records of the 267th Chemical Platoon were first uncovered by Michelle Gatz, the Minnesota-based veterans services officer who has also been at the forefront of investigations into the usage of Agent Orange on Okinawa. Gatz suspects that Heathcote may have been exposed to substances even more dangerous than defoliants. "Project 112 had thousands of sub-projects testing a variety of poisons, drugs and germs. It has been compared to an octopus with its tentacles all over the place — and one of those places was Okinawa."

Gatz and Heathcote are attempting to persuade U.S. authorities to disclose details of Project 112 tests on the island, but so far to no avail. The Defense Department was approached for comment on Nov. 5; as of Dec. 13, the Pentagon said it was still investigating the issue.

Due to the controversial nature of its Cold War CBW program, which many countries alleged breached the 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawing such toxic agents, the U.S. government has been reluctant to divulge details of Project 112 and similar tests. This reticence is particularly apparent in relation to Okinawa, where the U.S. military still controls approximately 20 percent of the main island, and where many residents oppose its presence. However, thanks to an investigation spearheaded by Gatz and Florida-based researcher John Olin - who uncovered the smoking gun of the Pentagon’s storage of Agent Orange on Okinawa [4] - the true history of America's CBW program on the island is gradually becoming clearer.

No sooner had the ink dried on the Treaty of San Francisco — the 1952 agreement ending the U.S. occupation of Japan while granting it continued control of Okinawa — than the Pentagon began to stockpile chemical weapons on the island. This was at the height of the Korean War. The island - in particular Kadena Air Base - was already operating as a launch pad for the conflict and the first consignment of its toxic arsenal was shipped to Okinawa under orders from Col. John J. Hayes, chief of the U.S. Army's Chemical Corps. [5]

At the same time as this top-secret delivery, the Chinese media began to allege that the U.S. Air Force was dropping biological weapons, including typhus and cholera, on North Korea. [6] Thirty-six captured U.S. airmen admitted to flying more than 400 of these sorties; many said the missions originated from American bases on Okinawa. [7] After the 1953 ceasefire, the U.S. military maintained that the confessions had been extracted by torture, and the now-repatriated prisoners renounced their claims. For its part, China countered that they'd been forced to backtrack under threat of U.S. court martial.

While the jury may still be out on Korean War CBW sorties from Okinawa, there is no disputing the island's role in the Pentagon's biochemical program in the ensuing years. Publicly available records show that the U.S. conducted bioweapons tests on Okinawa geared towards depriving potential enemies of food sources, particularly the staple crop of Asia's peasant armies: rice. In 1961, the U.S. military on Okinawa staged tests of rice blast, a highly infectious fungus that can decimate entire harvests. According to Sheldon H. Harris in his authoritative history of CBW, "Factories of Death," the tests on Okinawa were so successful that they led to a further 1,000 military contracts for herbicide research. [8]

One former U.S. Marine who believes he was unknowingly exposed to this batch of experiments is Gerald Mohler. In July 1961, at the age of 21, Mohler was ordered to participate in an unusual mission in the jungles near Camp Courtney, in present-day Uruma City.

"We were told to erect tents at a five-acre brown spot devoid of vegetation and sleep there for a few days. We received no training during that time. We just sat around and did nothing," Mohler said in a recent interview. "Nearby we discovered a stash of approximately 40 50-gallon (190-liter) barrels of defoliants. The odor was unmistakable."

Today Mohler has pulmonary fibrosis — a scarring of the lungs caused by exposure to toxic chemicals — and Parkinson's disease. "Were we marines used as guinea pigs on Okinawa?" asks Mohler. "I think so."

The Pentagon denies that herbicidal chemical agents such as the ones Mohler described were ever present on Okinawa.

In 1961, as the Cold War deepened, the U.S. initiated a comprehensive overhaul of its defensive capabilities in more than 100 different categories; No. 112 on this list was the study of CBW. Envisaged by President John F. Kennedy's secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, as "an alternative to nuclear weapons," Project 112 proposed experiments in "tropical climates" and, to evade laws regulating human testing in the U.S., it suggested the use of overseas "satellite sites." [9] Fulfilling both prerequisites, Okinawa must have seemed a perfect choice. In particular, the Northern Training Area in the island’s Yanbaru jungles must have been a particularly tempting target for U.S. scientists since it was (and continues to be) the Pentagon’s prime tropical guerrilla training center.

Throughout the late 20th century, rumors of Project 112 were widespread among U.S. veterans, but they were quickly dismissed by an American public unwilling to believe its government would test such substances on its own troops. However, following a series of TV news reports by CBS, the Pentagon admitted to the existence of Project 112 and promised to come clean on the issue.

That disclosure began in 2000, when the Pentagon claimed that there had been 134 planned tests, of which 84 had been canceled. The experiments it admitted carrying out included the spraying of troops in Hawaii with E. coli, subjecting sailors to swarms of specially bred mosquitoes, and exposing troops in Alaska to VX gas. The Pentagon stated that no participants had been harmed in these tests. [10]

Almost immediately, skeptics accused the Pentagon of attempting to pull the wool over the public's eyes. These allegations were supported by the General Accounting Office, [11] the congressional watchdog, which found the Department of Defense had not attempted to "exhaust all possible sources of pertinent information". One of the major omissions was its failure to try to retrieve CIA records - the Agency has long been suspected of being involved in Project 112. Even when the Pentagon did bother to investigate, for example at the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, the department checked only 12 out of 1,300 boxes of documents

The Pentagon's failure to fully investigate Project 112 creates an immense hurdle for those seeking the truth about tests on Okinawa. "After more than 50 years of lies, secrecy and ever-changing stories, one cannot rely on any information the Department of Defense provides to Congress or the public. It is not known exactly what happened on Okinawa or which of these hazards might have been present on the island," says Olin, the researcher.

Olin believes the U.S. military has been too quick to dismiss Okinawan civilians' worries that they too may have been affected. His suspicions are supported by the GAO report which states, “DOD did not specifically search for civilian personnel -DOD civilian employees, DOD contractors, or foreign government participants - in its investigation."

During the 1960s and '70s there were a number of unexplained incidents on the island, including chemical-like burns suffered by more than 200 Okinawans swimming near U.S. installations on the east coast in 1968 and, two years later, a fire at Chibana munitions depot that sickened employees at nearby Zukeyama Dam.

Throughout the Cold War until 1969, Washington adhered to a strict policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of CBW on Okinawa. In all likelihood, it would have continued to do so, were it not for the events of July 8 of that year. On that day, American service members were conducting maintenance on munition shells at the Chibana depot when one of the missiles sprung a leak. Twenty-three troops and one civilian fell sick from exposure to the missile's contents — likely VX gas — and were hospitalized for up to a week.

Considering the toxicity of such weapons, those exposed escaped lightly. Nevertheless, when the accident was reported, its ramifications were far-reaching: The Pentagon was forced to acknowledge its chemical arsenal on Okinawa — infuriating local residents — and promised to remove the entire stockpile before the island's reversion to Japanese control in 1972.

Operation Red Hat, the mission to transport the weapons off the island, was organized by the same man who had brought them to Okinawa two decades previously: John. J. Hayes (by then a general). It also involved the 267th Chemical Platoon, which had been renamed the 267th Chemical Company. During two separate phases in 1971, the military shipped thousands of truckloads of sarin, mustard gas, VX and skin-blistering agents from Okinawa to U.S.-administered Johnston Island in the middle of the Pacific. The consignments totaled 12,000 tons — a terrifying amount considering that many of these substances' fatal dosage is measured in milligrams. After the final shipment had left the island, Hayes assured journalists, "Every round of toxic chemical munitions stored on Okinawa has now been removed." [12]

The involvement of Hayes and the 267th company appears to tie the tale of Okinawa's CBW into the kind of neatly knotted circle loved by historians. However, new evidence has surfaced that Operation Red Hat was only the latest round in a long game of smoke and mirrors contrived by the Pentagon to hide the true extent of its CBW arsenal.

In 1972, one year after Operation Red Hat, marine Sgt. Carol Surzinski participated in a defense readiness class on Okinawa's Camp Kuwae, in Chatan Town. The training involved barrels of what appeared to be chemical weapons and, initially, she was told that the classes would help to identify substances that might be used against the U.S. military in times of war. Such practices were common on U.S. installations at the time, but what the trainer told Surzinski toward the end of the two-week course disturbed her. "The instructor finally admitted that we had to stay one step ahead of the enemy. We needed to learn what worked against them — and use it against the enemy if need be," she says.

Surzinski's account appears to contradict the Pentagon's claims that it had removed its entire CBW stockpile from Okinawa in 1971. In addition, it raises another question: What has happened to the barrels in the intervening years? Considering the U.S. military's poor environmental track record on the island, it seems likely they were buried. On the marines' Futenma Air Station in 1981, for example, a maintenance crew unearthed more than 100 barrels — some apparently containing Agent Orange — that appeared to have been buried at the end of the Vietnam War.

This year marks 60 years since the first delivery of chemical weapons to Okinawa; this month is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Project 112 on the island. However, the continuing illnesses suffered by U.S. veterans including Heathcote and Mohler suggest this problem is far from a purely historical matter — and only now are potential correlations between toxic munitions and illnesses among Okinawan residents coming to light.

In the near future, Washington plans to return a number of U.S. installations on Okinawa to civilian usage. However, just as former U.S. CBW storage sites elsewhere — such as the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Johnston Island — remain dangerously contaminated, Okinawan land is likely to be handed back in a similarly toxic state.

Under the current U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, the host government is solely responsible for the cleanup of former bases — a task that's expected to set Japanese taxpayers back hundreds of millions of dollars. With the true cost in terms of health and capital yet to be determined, there is a real risk that these weapons of mass destruction will poison not only the soil but also the Okinawan people and American-Japanese-Okinawan relations for decades to come.

Notes

1. The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains a partial introduction to Project 112, and its accompanying CBW tests aboard ships, Project SHAD, here

2. “Organizational History - 267th Company” has now been uploaded for public access here

3. Factsheets describing some of the tests to which the Pentagon has admitted can be read on this Department of Defense site here. The site was last updated in 2003 - and Okinawa does not appear on it.

4. Jon Mitchell, "Agent Orange on Okinawa - The Smoking Gun: U.S. army report, photographs show 25,000 barrels on island in early ‘70s," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 40, No. 2, October 1, 2012.

5. Albert Mauroni, “Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Reference Handbook”, ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, 2003.

6. For a concise summary of these allegations, see here.

7. Sheldon H. Harris, “Factories of Death”, Routledge, London, 1994, 129.

8. Ibid., 233.

9. Ibid., 232.

10. See information on the Department of Veterans Affairs homepage here.

11. The full text of the GAO report is available here.

12. “Operation Red Hat: Men and a Mission” - a 1971 Department of Defense documentary detailing the removal of these munitions - can be watched here.

[J.B. Stone]

OH, BOY ............HERE WE GO AGAIN............!!!

Operation Red Hat generally refers to the highly publicized U.S. military action taking place in 1971, which involved the redeployment of the 267th Chemical Company and all chemical weapons from Okinawa, Japan to Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.[1][2]

Originally classified, the code name "Red Hat" was assigned by the Pentagon on November 12, 1962, during the planning to deploy the 267th Chemical Platoon and chemical and biological agents to Okinawa[1] for the ultra-secret Project 112 biological and chemical agent overseas test program.[3] Project 112 activities on Okinawa have never been officially acknowledged by the US Department of Defense.[4] The "Red Hat" nickname remained in use to some extent for decades throughout the storage and demilitarization at Johnston Atoll (JA).[2]

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A LENGTHY READ, BUT CHOCK-FULL OF DETAILS AND REFERENCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Hat

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deployment

On April 17, 1963, President Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 235 (NSAM 235) which approved:

Policy guides governing the conduct of large-scale scientific or technological experiments that might have significant or protracted effects on the physical or biological environment. Experiments which by their nature could result in domestic or foreign allegations that they might have such effects will be included in this category even though the sponsoring agency feels confident that such allegations would in fact prove to be unfounded.[5]

Project 112 was the United States, portion of a four-way agreement between the U.S., Britain, Canada, and Australia to conduct a highly classified military testing program which was aimed at both offensive and defensive human, animal, and plant reaction to biological and chemical warfare in various combinations of climate and terrain[6].

The 267th Chemical Company was activated on Okinawa on December 1, 1962, as the 267th Chemical Platoon (SVC).[3]According to a previously unknown document, the mission of the 267th Chemical Platoon was the "operation of Site 2, Project 112," on Okinawa, for the Department of Defense (DoD) which was conducted under a guise of Project Red Hat.[3][7]
The 267th Chemical Platoon had the mission of operation of Site 2, Department of Defense Project 112 on Okinawa.[3] Project 112 activities on Okinawa have never been officially acknowledged by the US Department of Defense.[4]

Just as NASM 235 was signed, incremental shipments of chemical projectiles, rockets, bombs, mines, and Bulk 1-ton containers reported to be Sarin (GB), and distilled mustard agent (HD) left from Concord, California in three secret shipments code named increments YBA, YBB, and YBF,[8] which included the accompanying rail moves from Edgewood Arsenal (EA), Maryland[1], Tooele Army Depot (TEAD), Utah[8], Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA), Colorado[8], Umatilla Depot Activity (UMDA), Oregon[8], and Pueblo Depot Activity (PUDA), Colorado[8] to the port of departure, Concord Naval Weapons Station (CON) though, this description is incomplete.[8]


Increment YBA – USNS Private Leonard C. Brostrom (T-AK-255) carried the first movement of chemical weapons to Okinawa from the Continental United States arriving in April 1963. This was also referred to increment YBA DoD Project 112.[3]

Increment YBB – USNS Private Leonard C. Brostrom carried the second movement of chemical weapons to Okinawa arriving in October 1963.

Increment YBF – USNS Private Francis X. McGraw (T-AK-241) carried the final movement of chemical weapons to Okinawa arriving May 1965.

During shipment (YBF), while the USNS Francis X. McGraw was moving out of San Francisco harbor and carrying air to ground rockets and artillery projectiles of distilled Mustard and Sarin, another ship turned across its bow resulting in a near collision. The ships cleared each other by approximately 600 feet.[8]

Although many details of Operation Red Hat have been released, official records are incomplete[8] or still classified, and it is not known which exactly which chemical, biological, or toxin agents that munitions transfers YBA, YBB, and YBF actually delivered. According to a biography of General John Joseph Hayes, the commanding officer responsible for overseeing Operation Red Hat, the chemical and biological agents brought, stored, and later removed from Okinawa, had been present on the island since at least 1952.[9] It is strongly suspected that additional shipments were planned or executed. Munitions transfers labelled 'YBC', 'YBD', and 'YBE' potentially fit into both the deployment transfer operation naming convention and the 1964–1965 timeframe. Additionally, evidence within the released information indicates that the deployment of Operation Red Hat agents to Okinawa from Concord, California, required only three shipments while the removal of chemical weapons from Okinawa to Johnston Atoll in 1971 required six shipments.[8]

Last, though agent VX was widely reported in the Wall St. Journal and The Japan Times to have leaked and been removed, the declassified records contain no official mention of incapacitating agents such as chemical Agent BZ (BZ) or lethal VX nerve agent (VX), being shipped to Okinawa during a time period in which they were deployed elsewhere. The majority of documents pertaining to both the movements of chemical weapons and Operation Red Hat are still classified. The stockpile, held at Chibana Ammunition Depot in an area known as the Red Hat Area, was reported to contain over 13,000 tons of chemical weapons, consisting of 2,865 tons of mustard weapons, 8,322 tons of Sarin weapons, and 2,057 tons of VX weapons.[10][11]

In 1999, the traces of chemical agents detected in clean up material removed from Okinawa in 1971, including Sarin (GB), sulfur mustard (HD), Lewisite, and breakdown products of VX scientifically confirmed the presence of Agent VX on Okinawa as reported in newspaper accounts at the time.[12]

[J.B. Stone]

LARRY RICHARDS, SHADEE........LAST NIGHT

I thought I would let you know that Larry was admitted to hospice this morning. His body couldn’t tolerate dialysis and with out it he won’t survive. He gave it his all and can never be considered a weak person. In hospice they will keep him symptom free and pain free. He was up all last night struggling to breathe before we could get him in hospice. He refused to let me call 911 and go back to the hospital. So we sat up all night and just kept each other company until they could admit him. I will send you a note when I know something. He was pretty out of it when I left a little bit ago. Prayers are always appreciated. God bless you all.
Bonnie

[styky]

LARRY RICHARDS, SHADEE........LAST NIGHT

I thought I would let you know that Larry was admitted to hospice this morning. His body couldn’t tolerate dialysis and with out it he won’t survive. He gave it his all and can never be considered a weak person. In hospice they will keep him symptom free and pain free. He was up all last night struggling to breathe before we could get him in hospice. He refused to let me call 911 and go back to the hospital. So we sat up all night and just kept each other company until they could admit him. I will send you a note when I know something. He was pretty out of it when I left a little bit ago. Prayers are always appreciated. God bless you all.
Bonnie

May God Bless him. He's in my prayers.

[J.B. Stone]

Larry Richards left us all at 10:00 last night. Pray for Bonnie, his wife. They were friends since they were both 8-YEARS OLD.........!!!!

Bonnie's a doll. She helped me get through some tough times of my own when I was fighting to get my disability claim approved.

J.B.