In Nevada, a landlocked state in the western United States, there is a flight test training area under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force, where a series of test sites are located, including Area 51, where the US military conducts secret nuclear weapons tests. Not far northwest of Area 51, there is a Tonopah test site, also known as Area 52, where the U.S. military has tested a great deal of military technology, especially those related to the aerial delivery of nuclear weapons.
According to US media reports, a US Air Force veteran recently came forward to tell that he and many colleagues fell ill due to a large amount of radiation during their work at the Air Force test site, but the US government ignored them.
Dave Crete is a U.S. Air Force veteran who was stationed at the Tonopah Test Site from 1983 to 1987, where his unit provided security for the F-117 stealth fighter. He himself had a tumor and his children were born with birth defects. Dave Crete said that was because while working at the Air Force Test Site, they were exposed to severe radiation.
U.S. Air Force veteran Dave Crete: The main thing is plutonium-239, mainly from the test campaign, because the test site is right in our line of sight, right outside our gates, and then uranium, depleted uranium, beryllium and various other substances. These things come from all kinds of experiments they have conducted there since World War II.
Dave Crete found that his family's situation was not unique, and that among the veterans and Defense Department staff who also worked at the Tonopah test site, countless people had serious health problems, and many had even died. What they find most unacceptable is that the government, knowing that there is a radiation risk in the area, never informing them, not only refusing to provide them with medical subsidies, but even denying that they have ever worked in the radiation area.
U.S. Air Force veteran Dave Crete: They absolutely knew the radiation risks there, and I had a 1975 government report that my base was built in 1979, and they said in 1975 that there was plutonium contamination at the Tonopah test site, and they had three different options, and they chose to solve the problem later because they felt that these were the costs that had to be paid, and that's what the government report said. What upsets me and other veterans and Defense Department workers is that they had planned to sacrifice us.
Dave Crete said that if the U.S. government decides to poison thousands of service members and their families, it should take responsibility and give them the care they deserve, rather than simply denying what happened to them under the guise of secrecy.
U.S. Air Force veteran Dave Crete: It's not right to send people there, knowing that it will expose them to radiation, but ignore what happened to them, and say under the guise of secrecy, "We don't have to take care of you because you've never worked there." My child has a neurofibroma, which is not right. If you're going to do something, at least stand up and be responsible, the government is accountable to us, and there are thousands of people like me.
Source: CCTV Finance