From the article:
"I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
My father-in-law was present for one of those tests back in the 50s. He was a military police officer. They stayed in Vegas each night, and drove out to the test site each morning to see if conditions were "just right", meaning mainly wind conditions. On the morning when conditions were "just right" he happened to be assigned to guard a truck that had broken down on the way to the test site.
Suddenly there was "the brightest light you can imagine". He clamped his eyes closed until the light went away. I don't remember if he saw a mushroom cloud.
Shortly thereafter he actually went with an inspection team to ground zero. It was solid glass.
We've sometimes wondered if that trip to ground zero had anything to do with the fact that a couple years later he and his wife had a tremendously difficult time conceiving. They had just about given up when she became pregnant with the girl that would become my SO. |
