The Atomic Marine

On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Muniz tells the story of Toby Madrid and his experience of partaking in the testing of an atomic bomb in Nevada.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
From nineteen forty five to nineteen ninety two, the United
States conducted one thy fifty four nuclear tests as a

(00:31):
part of the nuclear arms race with Soviet Russia. Many
of these tests were conducted in Nevada, where soldiers were
sent to be tested on by military scientists and upper
brass trying to figure out the psychological and health effects
brought on by the use of nuclear weapons. One of
those soldiers was Tobi Madrid. Here's listener Richard Munez, who

(00:53):
worked with Toby with the story of this atomic Marine.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
The only two people I know I know I ever
heard this story is myself and his son Jr. As
far as Jr knows, he never told his story to
anyone else. Toby was in the Marines and in nineteen
fifty one to nineteen fifty seven out in Nevada proving grounds.

(01:20):
It a small camp, It's called Camp Desert Rock, and
it was barricks and mess halls and things like that.
But it had one mission, one purpose. It was to
support military personnel while tests involving the atomic bomber conducted.
Remember Sheriff Toby to Madrid. We were in his office

(01:43):
if you can call a broom closet with a light
and a desk and an office. He had a cup
of coffee in his hands, and he has feet up
on the desk. I mean, it was totally laid back attitude,
but I could see the tension in his The funny
part about it was he wasn't looking at me, and
he wasn't looking at JR. He was looking at the wall.

(02:06):
I had this distinct impression that if he bothered to
look at either one of us, we'd never hear the story.
He said, they stuck us out in the middle of nowhere,
And if you've ever been out that section of Nevada,
it's pretty much the middle of nowhere. And he went
on to say that they told us we're part of

(02:27):
an atomic bomb test. Now, the name of these tests
that I looked up later on was called the Desert
Rock Exercises, and this is what we call Desert Rock
for Operation tumblr Snapper. Well, he said they took him
out there and they were there for several different several
days beforehand, the sheriff said, they took him out there,

(02:51):
had the trenches, they built, the defensive fortified positions, all
that stuff. Now, the idea was they were to be
able to stand in these or squat at them some cover.
And then he said, I remembered as we were digging,
there were trucks carrying tanks and jeeps and things like that.
Some of the vehicles were towing artillery pieces out there,

(03:11):
and some of the marines he was with went out
with them, and they came back to saying how they'd
set up dummies that were in uniform and some of
them were standing up, some were lying down. That kind
of stuff. Now I went on to research a little
bit more, and this seems to be that he was
out there for what they called the Shot Dog nuclear test.
And this happened on May one, nineteen fifty two, and

(03:33):
involved the dropping of what we call a Mark seven bomb. Now,
the Air Force was doing the drops and they were
using either B fifties or B forty five to do these.
So he said the day of the test, they got
them up, they had breakfast, and they took them out
there to the site, and they got in their trenches
and what they were told to do. They were told
to crouchs below the rim of the trench, have their

(03:55):
faces down, their eyes closed when the blast happened. Now,
they would get plenty of warning beforehand that this was
going to happen, you know, give him a warning. The
bomber was to hear the bombers coming in, stuff like that,
and they needed to be doing this. She said. Along

(04:15):
around eight thirty or so, they heard the aircraft coming in,
and that's when the warning happened. So they climbed to
the trenches and they got the position they were told
to get into. He said he was pouched down, he
had his head down, his eyes closed, and even with this,
all of a sudden, he said, there was light. He
seriously felt that he had actually seen the blast of

(04:35):
the bomb. Now what he had witnessed here was the
debtonishing of a nineteen kiloton bomb, and it exploded about
a thousand meters above the ground. And then he went
on to say that the light faded, but as it faded,
there was thunder like they'd never heard before. And then
there was wind. I mean, the wind just came up

(04:56):
and it was so intense that it rocked him back
against the back of his U wrench, and then the
wind reverse directions came back and pushed him face forward
into into uh the front of the trench. And so
then the second few seconds later came to order to
leave the trenches. So they climbed out, and as he
put it, we've all seen movies of the mushroom cloud

(05:19):
and atomic bomb generates, but he says, seeing that in
real life, it was like it just wasn't real. You know,
you can't you can't wrap your mind around something like this.
And you sat there, I look at it and say, something
humans built generated this. And he said it was already
towering up into the sky, and he compared it to
something that was like a cloud that was bowling up
from Hell. And they told him to start walking forward,

(05:44):
and they did. He went on to relate that as
they moved along, he started seeing some of those things
have been so a few days before, Like, for one location,
remember seeing the Sherman tank and he said, look like
the Shriman tanks had been swatted aside by some giant's hand.
And then he started encountering some of these dummies had
been set up some were almost burnt up entirely. Others
were smoldering. So they kept walking. They got within about

(06:07):
three quarters of a mile of where the bomb had exploded,
and they stopped him. They turned him around and marched
him back out of there. And he said, remember hearing
somebody saying that it had gotten it was too hot
to go much further, and well that basically mean was
too radioactive. Then Marsha to a certain site. There they
swept them off, hosed them off, and he says, actually

(06:28):
surprised by how much dust came off of him and
his up Latombe. And rather keep the uniform he had
been wearing, he wadded it up and threw it away.
Like I said, that's the only time that we know
of as myself and Jr. That Toby actually ever talked

(06:51):
about the day of the bomb. A lot of people
wound up getting sick and dying because of exposure to fallout.
The thing is, I don't think a lot of people
knew what they were headed for. They had a pivotal
moment of history and they didn't realize it. I know
the chef didn't.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
And this is why we routinely celebrate our veterans on
this show because our soldiers serve in so many distinct
and dangerous ways, and you just heard about one, the
story of Toby Madrid, the Atomic Marine. Here on our
American Stories, Folks, if you love the stories we tell

(07:32):
about this great country, and especially the stories of America's
rich past, know that all of our stories about American history,
from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place
where students study all the things that are beautiful in
life and all the things that are good in life.
And if you can't cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come

(07:52):
to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go
to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more.