The Atomic Marine

On this episode of Our American Stories, Our American Stories listener Richard Muniz tells the story of his boss who participated in atomic bomb testing in Nevada in the 1950s.

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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 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 the Nevada Proving grounds. It

(01:20):
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 if

(01:43):
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 job. The
funny part about it was he wasn't looking at me,
and he wasn't looking at Jr. He was looking at

(02:04):
the wall. 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.

(02:25):
And he went on to say that they told us
we're to be part of 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,

(02:50):
they took him out there, 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, and some of

(03:12):
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 involved the dropping

(03:34):
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

(03:54):
faces down, their eyes closed when the blast happened. Now,
they would get plenty of warning beforehand that this was
going to happ happened, you know, give him a warning.
The bomber was to hear the bombers coming in sot
like that, and they needed to be doing this. She said.

(04:15):
Along 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 had 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 the bomb. Now what he had

(04:39):
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 and it was so intense that it
rocked him back against the back of his u and

(05:00):
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 and atomic bomb generates, but he says, seeing

(05:23):
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 and 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, and they did. He went on

(05:47):
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 Shrimann tankers 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 three quarters of a mile of where

(06:09):
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 surprised by how much dust came

(06:30):
off of him in 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 about the day of the bomb.

(06:53):
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 the Peo people knew what they
were headed for. They were 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.