Army “guinea pig” shares his story
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- September
- 11
The worst things that happened to me when I was in the Army in the late 1970s were probably getting KP for a week for ticking off the first sergeant and pulling overnight guard duty during a blizzard in the field.
When Joe Cohen was in the Army in 1955, he had to duck into a trench in Nevada while they detonated an atomic bomb 1,000 yards away.
“They kept telling us not to worry, that it was perfectly safe,’’ Cohen, of Hastings, told me during an interview at his house today. “We never thought they would put us in harm’s way. What did I know? I was just a dumb 20-year-0ld kid, doing what he was told.’’
Cohen’s company commander volunteered his unit for “Operation Teapot,’’ a series of tests conducted to study the effects of atomic blasts on military operations.
You can read the full story about Cohen and his experiences, and see a video interview this weekend on lohud.com and in The Journal News.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 3:31 pm by Rich Liebson. 
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