Marshall Isands And Atomic Bomb Essay - 1616 Words

When I ran my hand through my hair clumps of my hair would come out. Said the Marshall Island girl after the largest nuclear war head ever tested by the United States government was set off to the north of her. Bravo (the bombs code name) was 1,000 times more powerful then the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Marshallese Islanders environment, health, subsistence, family traditions, rituals, religious practices, and following generations were all greatly impaired from Bravo’s blast. The following discuses these effects as well as U.S. interpretations of exposed victims as opposed to unexposed victims. There are also comparisons to the victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the U.S. radioactive homeland. To understand why so much of†¦show more content†¦If a Marshallese lost his/her land it was the equal to suicide. From 1946-1958 67 radioactive bombs were tested on the northern Marshall Islands. During this time the islands environments were devastated, some of th e islands were completely vaporized. The bombs destroyed six coral islands, obliterated natural resources and contaminated all the islands with radiation (the northern islands are inhabitable to this day). The resources that the Marshallese were self-sufficient on like coconuts, pigs, fish, coconut crab, papaya, squash and arrowroot (staple crop) were ether destroyed or consisted of extremely high radiation levels. The U.S. government did a great environmental injustice for they viewed the Islanders as sub human. The subsistence of the Marshallese Islanders health plummeted. The U.S.’s Department of Energy (DOE) defined the people as two different categories â€Å"exposed† and â€Å"unexposed.† The exposed victims were those present during the 1954 Bravo blast. A U.S. agency named The Compact ran through the DOE determined who is exposed and needs assistance. The Compact did not find that the thousands of islanders who were relocated to the contaminated islands in 1958 by the U.S. to be considered â€Å"exposed.† These people would develop radiation illnesses of thyroid tumors, leukemia, cancer, reproductive problems, and genetic effects but weren’t entitled to any benefits. Instead the unexposed