Fighting for their health

While today's soldiers are battling a known enemy in the deserts of Iraq, a group of U.S. veterans are fighting their own battles against an invisible foe - more than 40 years after ending active duty.

Robert Ruyle of Lincoln was a 20-year-old sailor in the U.S. Navy when his lifelong battle - a battle for information - began.

Ruyle served in the Navy from July 1953 to July 1957 aboard the USS Uvalde (AKA-88), then the USS Navasota (AO-106) and finally the USS Kermit Roosevelt (ARG-16).

Ruyle was a radioman on the Navasota when his ship participated in testing the atomic and hydrogen bombs during May, June and July 1956. The testing was known as Operation Redwing.

Ruyle, who is a Liberty High School graduate, has spoken recently to several groups about his experience, including those gathered for the Veterans Day Ceremony in Plymouth on Saturday.

Ruyle shares his experiences on the Navasota during Operation Redwing, an operation the U.S. government kept classified for years.

It was about a year ago, more than 40 years after the operation Ruyle's boat participated in was completed, that the first pictures of those tests were released.

Ruyle said the larger H-Bomb blasts of Operation Redwing's

17 test shots still have not been released.

But many of the questions of what really took place in the South Pacific near the islands of Bikini and Eniwetok are yet to be answered.

And those are answers veterans of that era are still seeking.

The tests Ruyle's fellow sailors participated in had their roots in a project started by the U.S. military during World War II.

The first nuclear weapons test was conducted on July 16, 1945, at the Trinity Site on what is now White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo, N.M.

From that time through 1963, Ruyle said U.S. military personnel took on the role of "living test subjects" in order for scientists, researchers and government policy makers to gain answers to questions about ionized radiation.

Ruyle said little did his fellow sailors know the dangers they would be exposed to. Those dangers were much the same as the military personnel who went ashore after "the bomb" was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The "invisible danger" of radiation exposure was an unknown.

"For 18 years, those of us in uniform at the time, participated in above-ground nuclear tests without hesitation," Ruyle said.

Ruyle said the soldiers and sailors knew there was some "risk" involved with the tests, but they were committed to the advancement of freedom's cause.

"We were the pioneers of the atomic age," Ruyle said, "helping to lift the veil surrounding the mysteries of the atom.

"What we didn't know was that all of us were to pay a dear price for every lesson that was learned."

The veterans of the "atomic age" have paid a price, both physically and emotionally, Ruyle said.

No matter where or how an individual was exposed, Ruyle said the hazards of radiation are the same - deadly.

Unknown to the military personnel, Ruyle said deadly radiation had "silently" entered into organs and body tissue to begin its campaign to destroy its host.

"The battle was on and we didn't know it at the time," Ruyle said.

Six decades after the first A-bomb test and 40 years after the end of above-ground testing in the United States and Russia, Ruyle said atomic veterans are still looking to their government for full accountability.

Ruyle said atomic veterans ask for nothing more, and nothing less, than fair treatment for the illnesses caused by radiation exposure.

"The road to the answers we seek has been long and frustrating, not just for the veterans, but for their families as well," Ruyle said.

Atomic veterans have to prove radiation dosage before treatment is allowed at Veterans Administration Hospitals, Ruyle said.

"One third of my crew died from cancer of the blood," Ruyle said.

Out of a crew of 306 men, Ruyle said 102 died before they reached the age of 55. Most died from myelofibrosis, a form of leukemia caused by radiation exposure.

Even with all of the negatives that came out of the testing, the atomic veterans sacrifices were important.

"There can be do doubt that the answers revealed during those tests provided invaluable lifesaving information," Ruyle said.