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They worked on a hazardous top secret experiment called Project SHAD. America’s race against the Russians in the 1960s to develop biological and chemical weapons. Now many of those men are sick and asking why their government won’t take care of them. In 1965 Lieutenant Jack Alderson commanded one of the smallest fleets in the Navy. Just five light tugboats. But his mission was so important it was authorized directly by the president. A secret mission codenamed Project SHAD, testing chemical and biological weapons using monkeys held in cages on the open decks. Military agents would spray the boats with VX nerve gas, Sarin gas, E.coli and other deadly microbes. Sailors weren’t supposed to be exposed, but they were. Both in the tests and in the cleanup afterwards.

Thirty years later Bob Reinhardt and other crew members began suffering from breathing problems and rare cancers. But when they went to the Veteran’s Administration fro medical care, they found themselves in a catch-22.

“If you told anybody they said they’d get you for treason”

And because it was top secret there was nothing in their service records about Project SHAD. No proof, no veterans benefits. So Alderson decided to gather that proof even at the risk of going to prison. He took his case to Northern California Congressman, Mike Thompson.

“There was a cover up”

A cover up, he says, by the Department of Defense.

“To a seated member of Congress they denied there was ever a Project SHAD. And then came back when they finally did admit that there was a Project SHAD, lied to me again by saying that there were no dangerous chemicals used.”