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ing medical care, operating a post
office, manning a fuel depot, and
working as technicians in an Energy
Department radiation laboratory.
But probably the Air Force's most
visible job is “ensuring the radiation
safety of everyone involved in the
cleanup,” explained SMSgt. Bobby
G. Baird, NCOIC of the Field Radiation Support Team (FRST).
Early in the project, squads of
FRST members—resembling characters from “Star Wars" in their
cumbersome, bright yellow anticontamination suits—scoured each isfand with their sensitive instruments
to make sure the area was safe
enough for cleanup work to begin.
Simultaneously they began focat-
ing and classifying rubble for disposal byits degree of contamination.
“We usually crawled [and cut]
through the outergrowth to find the
debris, taking readings all the time
with our instruments,” explained
TSat. Hutchens, chief of a three-man
FRSTunit. During his six-month tour
on the atoll he led many a machete
and chain saw assault on the resistant vines and shrubbery that had
completely overtaken most of the islands since the end of the test era.
Hutchens’ squad spent a month
hacking its way acrossthetiny island
of Lujor, just one of many to be
cleared. {t was a long, hot, tedious
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process. The teams were shuttled in
daily from base camps by Navy landing craft or Boston whaler.
Searchers were aided by maps
compiled in the early 1970s during
a survey by AEC. But they gave only
approximate
locations
for
targe
pieces of debris and Hutchens admitted that in the thick overgrowth,
finding the contaminated material
was something of a hit and miss
Proposition. However, even now,
safety conscious FRST squads accompany the cleanup crews contin-
ually, monitoring for previously un-
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radiation, plutonium can damage
sensitive body tissue if inhaled or
swaliowed. So, when the engineers
rumble in with their earth-moving
and anticontamination suits and respirators are donned for protection.
in the no-man’s-land beyond the
lines, puttering six-horsepower en-
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