Ray Hoy - Jack Frost 01 - The Vegas Factor (16 page)

“After the passing of his father, Ray wrote him letters about life in The Mushroom Garden. Beneath the simplicity of these letters, Ray reveals an era nearly forgotten, a national mindset never to be seen again … this book is an historic treasure. A must-read.”

— Reenie Nattress,
The Keeper of Time

Let the Historians Quibble …

“Let the historians quibble over what was one of the most horrific man-made and hushed-up disasters of the 20th century. Ray Hoy’s testament in the form of letters written shortly after the death of his father should be included in the documentation of the collateral human toll that happens as governments everywhere develop deadly weaponry with disregard to the potential human toll.”
 

— Gordon Ross,
Tales from Tidy Vale

The Year was 1957 …

“The U.S. and the Soviet Union were in a mindless race to see who would be the first to develop nuclear weapons destructive enough to blow the civilized world off the face of the planet.

“This was the setting for a warmly personal autobiographical book titled,
Letters from Under the Mushroom Cloud
.  Ray Hoy, the author, was stationed at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada, the site of a series of above-ground nuclear tests.

“Two months after Ray entered the Army, his dad passed away. Ray’s close and loving relationship with his father, along with being far from home in a bizarre and frightening place, amplified his grief.  To cope with his loss and the strange world in which he found himself, Hoy began writing letters to his deceased father, telling him of the goings-on in his outlandish world.  Those letters are the subject of this book.  The letters are warm, personal and factual; they speak of love and of the dangerous place the world was in in the late 1950s.

“I am the same age as Ray Hoy, and I found myself dabbing the moisture off my cheeks as I read this volume and walked with Ray, half a century ago.”
 

— Richard Herman,
Lazlo’s Fire

PREVIEW

Just Call Me “Bud”

When I was born, my mother named me “Raymond” but Dad never liked it, so he called me “Bud” instead. Oddly enough, from that moment on no one in my family ever called me by my given name again—including my mother!
 

Well, “Bud” always seemed like an honest name to me, so thanks, Dad. It suits this transplanted Midwesterner just fine.”

Chapter 1

Waiting for Diablo

Monday, July 15, 1957

0400 hours (4:00 a.m.)

Yucca Flat, Area 2b

Nevada Test Site

Dear Dad,

They’re going to detonate this big firecracker in exactly 30 minutes, so I’ll have to hurry with this letter. It’s 0400 hours (4 a.m.) and pitch black up here in this desolate place they call “Yucca Flat.” This is the so-called “Forward Area” and it must be what the moon looks like.

They test atomic bombs here.

Our actual base is Camp Desert Rock, which is located just a few miles south. It’s really just an ugly scattering of Quonset huts and motor pools situated a few miles off U.S. 95, about 70 miles north of Las Vegas.

When we go into Las Vegas on a weekend pass, people ask us what we do at the base. We tell them, with a straight face, “We grow mushrooms in the desert.”

I’m sitting on the sand with my back against the front wheel of a truck, writing this letter in the glow of my flashlight. I find myself shivering from time to time. Yeah, I know it’s July, but there’s a pretty good wind blowing—and I’m a little nervous.

For the past hour or so I’ve been wondering if the wind might cause the shot to be postponed. However, I just overheard a lieutenant talking on a field phone, and apparently they’ve been waiting for the wind to blow away from Las Vegas and toward some little town in Utah called St. George.
 

I wonder if the people in St. George know that? Somehow I doubt it.

Artie (a street-wise kid from New York, and my best friend here at Camp Desert Rock) just said to me, “C’mon, Ray! Our government wouldn’t put us here if they thought we’d be in any danger! We’re really lucky, if you stop and think about it. Not everyone gets to see an atomic bomb blow this close and live to tell about it!”

He laughed when I said, “What makes you think we’re going to live to tell about it?”
 

But of course, Artie has to be right … right?

It was interesting to see how we got here. Our first sergeant called us into formation yesterday and said, “I’m looking for volunteers to go up to Yucca Flat tomorrow morning to witness a shot. If you don’t feel like volunteering, you don’t have to—I need K.P. people for the next month or so, anyway. Now then, all ‘volunteers’ take one step forward.” Needless to say, we all took one step forward.
 

Don’t you love the way the military works?

Off in the distance I can see a light flashing at the top of the 500-ft. steel tower that holds the bomb. By the way, the military likes to call it a “device” rather than a bomb (maybe they think it sounds more civilized). However, Artie said, “If it goes ‘boom’ it’s a bomb!” I agree with him.
 

Because it’s still dark, we can only see the flashing light on top of the tower, not the tower itself. But I heard it’s about the size of a large oil derrick. I don’t know how far away it is, but in this clear night air that flashing light looks way too close to suit me.

This particular bomb is called “Diablo” and it’s the 7th full scale shot in the “Plumbbob” series.
 

The countdown has been going on for several hours now. The way the sound comes out of the speakers and rolls across the desert puts a chill right up my spine. I think it’s beginning to get on everyone’s nerves. However, I can’t bring myself to complain, too much. From what I hear, they’ve got some Marines that are going to ride this one out in trenches that are just 3,500 yards or so from the tower; and a group of scientists in an underground bunker just 2,000 yards from the blast. Not sure what our government boys are trying to prove with this one, but I don’t envy those guys. That’s too close for comfort! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for them.

Dad, I still can’t believe you’re gone. When they called me out of formation on that terrible December day back at Ft. Huachuca and told me to report to the orderly room on the double, I remember wondering if I’d done something wrong. But when no one would look me in the eye, I knew it was something else. And when the company clerk slid emergency leave papers across the desk and told me to sign them, my heart started to ache.

The company commander was sitting in his office with his door open, and when he heard me asking questions that no one wanted to answer, he finally stood and walked up to me, a strange look on his face, and said, “You don’t have time to make a call home right now, soldier. You’ll have to do that from the airport in Tucson. There’s a Jeep outside waiting to take you to the airfield. Good luck.” And he turned on his heel and walked back into his office.

A first lieutenant flew me to Tucson in an L-19 “Grasshopper” (a small plane that looks a lot like a Piper Cub). You know how I hate to fly, and that flight was a real roller coaster ride, with a lot of turbulence.

But my mind wasn’t really on the flight.

I called home the minute we landed in Tucson. Mom answered, and I asked if everything was okay. Her voice was so weak I could hardly hear her. She said, “Oh, Bud, your dad died …”

And God, as much as I regret it now, I asked her to repeat it, because I didn’t want to believe what I knew I had really heard. I said, “What? What did you say, Mom?”

And she said it again, crying now. “He died … he died, Bud. He’s gone.”

I don’t remember exactly what I said to her, something to the effect that everything would be okay, that I would be home in a few hours. And when I hung up, I remembered thinking what a ridiculous thing that was to say. How could everything be okay, ever again? For Mom, for me, for any of us?

I’m not sure how I got there, but I found myself walking in the darkness near the aircraft taxi-ways. I remember standing there watching the big prop jobs line up for takeoff, listening to the roar of their engines. The cabin lights were on inside the planes, and I could see the faces of passengers peering out. I wondered who they were and where they were going. I wandered around out there for a couple of hours, while I waited for my plane.
 

It was a long, terrible flight back to Illinois, fighting back the tears while I sat there, surrounded by strangers.

After your funeral we all went back to the house. The neighbors brought food over, as neighbors do, but no one really felt like eating. We just sat around and drank coffee and talked about this and that, and sometimes not at all.

And then Mark broke everyone’s heart when he climbed up on Uncle Doug’s lap, thinking it was you. He began searching through Uncle Doug’s bib overall pockets, and everyone suddenly realized he was looking for your railroad watch to play with, like he always did when he sat on your lap. I can still see the tears in Uncle Doug’s eyes, and that great sad look on his face.

A lot of us got up and left the room. I went outside and stood in the cold air for a long time. My young son had summed it all up when he did that. He wanted to be close to his grandpa, just like the rest of us.

Dad, I stayed home as long as I could, taking my entire 30 days leave for the coming year. But then I had no choice but to go back, leaving Mom there alone. It was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do.

You know, I’ve written to you several times since you’ve been gone. It makes me feel better, like maybe you’re still here. I still have those letters in my footlocker. I haven’t shared them with anyone, but I might send a copy of this one to Mom. It will probably make her cry, but I think it will also bring her some kind of comfort. It does me.

Well, we’re getting close to the time this atomic monstrosity is scheduled to blow. I’m sure it will be spectacular.

I miss you, Old Man. I wish we could go fishing together again. And I wish you were here to see this with me.
 

I love you, Dad.
 

—
Bud

– END PREVIEW –

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