Crew members in their mid-20's from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan are coming down with all sorts of radiation-related illnesses after being deployed less than 3 years ago to assist with earthquake rescue operations off the coast of Japan in 2011. It looks as though the on-board desalinization systems that take salt out of seawater to make it drinkable, were taking-in radioactive water from the ocean for the crew to drink, cook with and bath-in, before anyone realized there was a massive radiation spill into the ocean.
Charles Bonner, attorney representing sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan said "the crew members were not only going to the rescue by jumping into the water and rescuing people out of the water, but they were drinking desalinated sea water, bathing in it, until finally the captain of the USS Ronald Reagan alarmed people that they were encountering high levels of radiation."
Bonner says that as a result of this exposure, the 51 sailors have come down with a host of medical problems, "They have testicular cancer, they have thyroid cancers, they have leukemia's, they have rectal and gynecological bleeding, a host of problems that they did not have before ... people are going blind, pilots who had perfect eyesight but now have tumors on the brain. And it’s only been 3 years since they went in." Bonner pointed out that these service men and women are young people, ages 21, 22, 23 years old and no one in their family had ever suffered any of these kinds of illnesses before.
At present, 51 sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan are named as Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Bonner says he anticipates adding twenty additional Sailors soon, bringing the total to 70 to 75 because "The Japanese government is in a major conspiracy with TEPCO to hide and conceal the true facts."
In an utterly shocking admission at a meeting of the Japan Press Club on December 12, 2013, the former Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, who was in-office when the Fukushima disaster took place, told assembled journalists "[People think it was March 12th but] the first meltdown occurred 5 hours after the earthquake." This means that the government of Japan KNEW there was horrific radiation being released, but did not tell the U.S. Navy which had deployed the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to assist with rescue efforts.
According to "Stars and Stripes" one Plaintiff in the lawsuit is Petty Officer 3rd Class Daniel Hair. When the earthquake struck, Hair and his Reagan shipmates were en route to Korea. They immediately turned around and steamed to the affected area. “There were people in distress,” he said. “This is what we signed up for.”
The Reagan passed through debris as far as the eye could see: wood, refrigerators, car tires, roofs of houses with people riding on them. Hair was told they were five to 10 miles off the coast from Fukushima, which had been damaged by a massive tsunami spawned by the quake.
Sailors were drinking desalinated seawater and bathing in it until the ship’s leadership came over the public address system and told them to stop because it was contaminated, Hair said. They were told the ventilation system was contaminated, and he claims he was pressured into signing a form that said he had been given an iodine pill even though none had been provided. As a low-ranking sailor, he believed he had no choice.
The Navy has acknowledged that the Reagan passed through a plume of radiation but declined to comment on the details in Hair’s story.
Shortly after the disaster, Senior Chief Mike Sebourn was sent from his home base, Naval Air Facility Atsugi, to Misawa Air Base, 200 miles from the faltering power plant. As a designated radiation decontamination officer, he dealt with aircraft and personnel that had flown into the area.
Sebourn, with only two days of training, was tasked with testing seven points on an aircraft’s skin for radiation. He and others crawled all over the crafts for months, he said, with only gloves for protection. At one point, he said, they took the radiator out of one aircraft and tested it. The radiation was four times greater than what should have required them to wear a suit and respirator, he said.
The level of radiation “was incredibly dangerous,” Sebourn said. “Navy aviation had never dealt with radiation before. Nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew what was safe. It was a nightmare.”
Sebourn said he suffered nose bleeds, headaches and nausea in the immediate aftermath — symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning. Months later, he felt weak in his right arm; excruciating pain followed. He said the command fitness leader in charge of physical training at Atsugi watched as his arm atrophied to about half its size.
“I have issues that can’t be explained,” Sebourn said. “It just seems like I am deteriorating.”
Sebourn said he went to doctors more than a dozen times, but no one knew what had caused the former personal trainer to lose 70 percent of the strength in the right side of his body. He retired after 17 years in Japan.
Sebourn is alarmed that the word “radiation” doesn’t appear anywhere in his service record, even though that was his job and he was exposed to it. He believed troops exposed would be red-flagged in their service records and be tracked for medical problems.
According to "The Huffington Post" another Plaintiff in the lawsuit is former Navy Quartermaster Maurice Enis.
Enis says it was more than a month after arriving off the coast of Japan -- and circling at distances of one to 10 miles from the crippled reactors -- when sailors aboard the carrier got word that a nuclear plant had been affected. "Even then, it was rumors," he said. And it wasn't until the USS Ronald Reagan had left Japan and sailors were scrubbing down the ship that they were offered radiation protection. Enis said the enlisted sailors were never offered any iodine. He said he later learned the "higher ups" -- officers and pilots -- had received the tablets to protect their thyroids from radiation damage.
"They had us sign off that we were medically fine, had no sickness, and that we couldn't sue the U.S. government," Enis told The Huffington Post, recalling widespread anger among the sailors who saw it as "B.S." but who also felt they had little choice.
