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Show DOWN WINDER FROM THE MUSHROOM CLOUDS BY VICTORIA BURGESS It snowed a lot today for the first time this winter (Sunday 10 November 2012). I looked out my balcony window sitting at the computer, writing this story and recovering from my second breast cancer surgery. The falling snow reminded me of when I was a child, and I watched the white mushroom clouds of radiation form in the sky from the testing of atomic bombs. I lived in Southern Utah. I thought then that the mushroom clouds looked as beautiful as the snow does today. From 1951 to 1958, I remember observing those clouds a dozen times or more. They resulted from military experiments in the desolate and far away deserts of Nevada and the Four Corners Area. We had no warning at all for these events. From the back porch of our home, we watched as the white cloud formed like an ice cream cone in the sky. We all gawked in amazement. We were very naïve about them. Little did we know what was in our future! We are called Down Winders. Most of the world does not know what this means. It means we lived downwind from the atomic bombs being tested by the government of our country. As a result of this exposure, our bodies were exposed to lethal radiation at a very young age. During the summer of 1962, when I was seventeen years old, I worked at Bryce Canyon National Park in Southern Utah as a waitress and singer. At night, I hiked the trails with co-workers to see the explosions that were rumored to be happening. We would actually seek out these events and watch them, exclaiming over their power and beauty. A few years later, at the reunion of my High School Class of '63, a high percentage of our classmates were suffering with serious illnesses or were dying and we wondered why. By our fortieth class reunion in 2003, one third of our classmates had died from radiation poisoning and various related diseases as a result of the atomic bomb testing. The Atomic Energy Commission's written report said that they justified their decision to release the atomic bomb near our area because we were "low functioning members of society." Needless to say I was very upset when I read this report. My children said "give it up Mom." I replied, "This is one thing that I cannot give up." My Father was a cattle rancher and he raised all the feed for his cattle on the ranch. He graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Animal Husbandry. He was very successful, financially and otherwise. I began working on the cattle ranch when I was five years old. Before I learned to drive a tractor forward, he taught me how to back it up, pushing a wagon full of baled hay into the feed yard. I bless my Father to this day as I can back up a vehicle almost as easily as I can drive it forward. My Mother supported my desire to be on the ranch and wear cowboy boots. Her only requirement was that I wore a long sleeve shirt and a wide brim hat. I am grateful to her to this day for that requirement because my skin is white and smooth except where I kept the top button of the long sleeve shirt unbuttoned. I am grateful to my parents who both respected me and allowed me to be who I am. Speaking of "low functioning," my parents were friends with Scott and Norma Matheson who had lived in Southern Utah in a small town next to ours. Scott Matheson became the governor of the State of Utah, but he later died of bone marrow cancer doubtless from exposure to radiation from being a Down Winder. I think being a governor is fairly high functioning. This year, I saw Norma Matheson at a party commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the blast of atomic tests in the Four Corner Area. Norma looked beautiful. She was in her nineties and had an inner glow about her (which I hope was not nuclear). She said she continually still suffers from the effects of atomic radiation. If all of that is not high functioning, try the inventor of the television, Philo Farnsworth, from the neighboring county of Millard. He died from the effect of radiation from being a Down Winder. So much for excuses for choosing the location of the bombing. Seven years ago, I was operated on because I had cancer in my right breast. Radiation and chemo therapy was all the doctors of Western Medicine knew. I declined it because I believe dying of cancer from radiation is better than being treated with more radiation. In 2002, a dental assistant, who was cleaning my teeth, discovered a spot of cancer on my tongue. Although it was removed, I felt discouraged, like the plague had migrated to another part of my body. Recently, an MRI showed cancer in my left breast. Thus, I had an exculistgionary bioscopy. I feel helpless, hopeless, discouraged and depressed. My breast still hurts from the surgery, and nothing in Western Medicine can take the effects of radiation out of my body. Thus Cancer will likely kill me-no matter what I do. As an older woman, I am doing the important things that I have found in my study of 100 people over the age of 85 and other studies of successful aging. I have good genes. I take good care of myself and eat well. Part of this is also from exercising an hour and a half a day and meditating twenty minutes twice a day. I have eliminated much of the stress in my life. I did not renew my Clinical Psychologist License this year, and I do not associate with people and organizations which that are not supportive of me. For several years, I have attended an annual radiation screening clinic in Southern Utah. I find it interesting that the study compares us to the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan. Look what we did to those survivors and then we turned around and did it to ourselves. Coincidentally, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed in 1945, the year of my birth! On a positive note, I did get victims' reparations for my exposure to radiation. I sincerely appreciate all of the work that people did in this country in order that I could receive those reparations. I was a young single parent at the time, but I still feel guilty, having not been involved in rallies and other events for the victims of the atomic bomb experiments. I was an innocent child on a ranch when I saw the mushroom clouds fill the sky. During the Cold War, the Atomic Energy Commission rationalized its actions, withheld information and made false claims about us "low functioning" Down Winders. In my opinion, the leaders of the country were so gripped by fear and misguided by military might and the need to the development of atomic power that they lost sight of the importance of protecting our lives. I sincerely and profoundly hope my story and others like it will help to prevent this type of thing from ever happening again. Writing this helped me feel better and less stressed about what happened and what is happening to me. NOTE: Dr. Victoria Burgess holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, a Master's Degree in Psychology and a Doctorate from Northwestern University in Psychology. She is the Mother of five, highly functioning children, an author of nine books, a former Clinical Psychologist, a veteran of Desert Storm and a retired Colonel of the US Army. |
