Special To W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News...
Brother Of Music Great Johnny Ace Used As A Guinea Pig By The U.S. Military, Owed $75,000…
St. Clair Alexander Was Victim Of Operation Upshot-Knothole Which Exposed Tens Of Thousands To Radiation Poisoning In The Nevada Desert Near Las Vegas…
“That bomb scared them…The whole area just shaken like it was going to fall in…They had three sheep out there and all of them got killed, their wool just burned…They had them for guinea pigs, that’s all we was just guinea pigs out there…They didn’t give us nothing to protect ourselves…All they told was to stay in the trench, stay in the trench…”~ St. Clair Alexander
When one seeks knowledge, it is amazing the things that you find that you are not even looking for…And that’s what exactly happened when I went to interview St. Clair Alexander, the brother of the late great Johnny Ace, a forgotten music icon and arguably the first Rock-n-Roll Star…
I was gathering material about Johnny Ace (John Marshall Alexander) for my tv show (Real Talk With Tha Artivist) and radio show (W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio) to commemorate the 55th Anniversary of his death on Christmas night 1954….I successfully found the phone number of his relatives in the phonebook…I made contact with his kin and set up a meeting for Monday Dec. 21, 2009…Little did I know what I was in store for…
When I went to the family home in south Memphis I was greeted at the door by Johnny Ace’s youngest sister, Sandra Alexander, a former military nurse during the Vietnam War who now runs her own tax accounting business…She led me to the room of St. Clair, Johnny Ace’s younger brother and arguably one of his brother’s biggest fans…At the time of his brother’s death, St. Clair was a gifted amateur boxer in the U.S. Army and a budding r & b singer…After Johnny’s death, St. Clair tried to build a career as a singer with mixed results…
When I got to his room I was surprised to find him in a hospital bed…Although he was bed bound his spirits seem to be high…He was a double amputee, missing his legs…So I immediately thought maybe he was diabetic…As if reading my mind he started to talk about the reasons why he was “half a man” as he told me on the phone before we met…
He told me he lost legs back in 1994 when they became unbearable to live with…He said that it felt that his legs were on fire 24/7 and that it was hard to walk due to the immense swelling…At one time his legs were so swollen with fluid that they began to burst open causing hideous sores…
What he told me next about his current condition sounded like something from a sci-fi movie or horror flick from the 1950s…But what truly made it horrid was that it was all too real with real consequences suffered by a man for the next 56 years of his life…
St. Clair was in a unit of 500 enlisted men (about 20,000 overall) who participated in Operation Upshot-Knothole which was a series of atomic/h-bomb experiments done in the Nevada Desert in the mid 1950s…St. Clair and his fellow comrades were exposed to extreme high levels of radiation in the process… Many of them including St. Clair didn’t know they were going to be guinea pigs, they thought they were going overseas to participate in the Korean War…
To add more insult to more injury they were not giving the proper equipment for protection either…St. Clair said that they were given gas masks from WW2 that were so inept and rotted out that their commanding officer told them to discard them…After their participation in the experiment was over, St. Clair and his fellow soldiers were told that due to their exposure that they for the most part will not make it to age 50…He further added if they do live long that they will suffer severe medical and health issues making quality of life very miserable…
The commanding officer also promised the participants for their invaluable service (sacrifice) to their country that they will receive a medal and a letter of thanks and recognition from then Pres. Eisenhower…Needless to say the aforementioned appeasement never materialized…And St. Clair is now 77 years old…
This injustice has left a reasonable bitter taste in St. Clair’s mind and mouth…Since he is a double amputee, St. Clair uses an old wheel chair to get around...When I spoke to him in December his wheelchair was getting repaired at the VA(Veteran’s Administration) Hospital in Memphis…What he really needs is a new wheelchair equipped with the right devices to help him get around…He told me of his past troubles with the VA in getting adequate care…And I definitely know from experience that he is not alone…
This past week I visited with Congressman Cohen’s office to tell them about St. Clair’s hardships as well as his connection to Memphis music royalty…They provided me with a form for him to release his full military records…I also discovered a April 2009 newsletter from the County of Stearns Veterans Service Office in Minnesota and the National Association Of Atomic Veterans (NAAV) (http://www.naav.com) online this weekend…What I read on both websites was shocking and sinister to say the least…
According to NAAV (2009):
Atomic Veterans were members of the United States Armed Forces who participated in atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons tests from 16 July, 1945 to 30 October 1962. They also include veterans who were assigned to post test duties, such as “ground zero” nuclear warfare maneuvers & exercises, removing radiation cloud samples from aircraft wing pods, working in close proximity to radiated test animals, de -contamination of aircraft and field test equipment, retrieval and transport of test instruments & devices, and a host of other duty assignments that provided an opportunity for a radiation exposure & contamination event.
Overall more than 200,000 military personnel were used as guinea pigs for Uncle Sam. In 1990, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, offering veterans who took part in the tests a payment of $75,000 each (County of Stearns Veterans Services Office, April 2009). Unfortunately not many of the surviving veterans and their families know about this compensation and St. Clair was one of them until Saturday Feb. 13, 2010…W.E. A.L.L. B.E. will keep you posted…
References
County of Stearns Veterans Services Office. (April 2009). Newsletter.Last page update unknown. Last retrieved 2/15/2010 from http://www.co.stearns.mn.us/documents/vetapril09news.pdf.
National Association Of Atomic Veterans NAAV. (2009). The NAAV Mission Purpose. Last page update unknown. Last retrieved 2/15/2010 from http://www.naav.com.
For More Information About Operation Upshot-Knothole
For More Information About Atomic Veterans:
View W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV Special Documentary About Johnny Ace In 3 Parts:
Video:Tha Artivist Remembers The Late Great Johnny Ace...Part One
Video:Tha Artivist Remembers The Late Great Johnny Ace...Part Two
Video:Tha Artivist Remembers The Late Great Johnny Ace...Part Three
See Also
*W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Special*
Topic: Pledging Our Love...The Ultimate Johnny Ace Tribute
What an outstanding piece of journalism and a valiant cause to get behind. Way to work that Congressman Ron! The world needs to know about St. Clair and what he and his colleagues went through.
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