\u201cThe multiple myeloma was directly linked \u2013 and the government admits it \u2013 to that detonation,\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n
Bird spent a good part of his life trying to raise public awareness and educate his students about the atomic bomb and the horrors it wrought. He made several trips to Japan after World War II, including visits to Hiroshima and its famed Peace Memorial Park.<\/p>\n
Bird\u2019s mission to find hope, make peace and educate others about the bomb aligns neatly with J. Robert Oppenheimer\u2019s life mission after he helped create the bomb, Leonard said. It is an underlying theme that runs through \u201cOppenheimer\u201d the film released last month around the world, with more than $666 million in box office sales.<\/p>\n
Bird would have been among the first to see the movie and would have been heartened to know so many people have gone to see it, Leonard said from her home in Arizona.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt certainly will have the effect of raising their consciousness if they have not been exposed to the history of the development of the atomic bomb,\u201d she said. \u201cThe more that people are exposed to the dangers that we face today, I think he would be relieved.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the thunderous blast in the Nevada desert, Bird and his fellow Marines were ordered to stand and face ground zero, which was only 4,000 feet away \u2013 less than a mile.<\/p>\n \u201cWe stare at the rising ball of red and orange and yellow atomic matter, already ten thousand feet above the desert floor,\u201d Bird writes. \u201cTwenty thousand feet. Our mesmerized faces tilt back as the great cloud of nuclear bile becomes our umbrella.\u201d<\/p>\n The fireball hung in the sky for about 15 minutes, he said. As the Marines exited their trenches, Bird\u2019s hand landed on a bleeding mourning dove, \u201cits feathers blasted away by the heat.\u201d<\/p>\n He screamed: \u201cGoddamn!\u201d<\/p>\n Other Marines gathered in a semicircle around the bird as it flopped and twitched.<\/p>\n Bridget Irish, former assistant dean of arts and sciences at Fort Lewis College, helped select \u201cFolding Paper Cranes\u201d for the college\u2019s 2006 Common Reading Experience, in which a book is selected to be read and discussed across the campus.<\/p>\n \u201cThat dove is seared into my mind,\u201d she said of Bird\u2019s depiction.<\/p>\n She thought it was striking that \u201cOppenheimer\u201d the movie also showed a dying bird after the Trinity Test in 1945.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a picture of Oppenheimer looking down on the ground at this shriveled, burned, horrible object,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Doves are often a symbol of peace. Irish isn\u2019t sure if Bird intended to use the dove as symbolism in his book. But part of his mission was to teach students about peace and how the bomb threatens to destroy peace, Irish said.<\/p>\n Around the time of Bird\u2019s book release, the college developed the Peace and Conflict Studies Minor<\/a>, in which students study the concepts of peace and how to create peace as opposed to always studying past wars.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019d all thought about war, but they hadn\u2019t thought about how do you go about creating conversations and programs about the concept of peace,\u201d Irish said.<\/p>\n Two hours after leaving the trenches, the Marines were driven back to the test site. Several miles from the hypocenter of the blast, destruction from the nuclear wind was apparent: \u201cscores of dead and dying birds and rabbits and even two coyotes,\u201d Bird wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cWithin three miles of ground zero all signs of life, or even recognizable death, have disappeared,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAt ground zero and for at least half a mile in any direction, nothing exists but a concave disk of blowing dirt.\u201d<\/p>\n The Marines were given gas masks, but officers knew they wouldn\u2019t be able to don them during their entire visit to ground zero. They are too difficult to breathe through. Sure enough, one-by-one, the soldiers began to remove their masks to gulp for air.<\/p>\n Back at the base, a Geiger counter screamed as it was waved over Bird\u2019s feet, legs and groin area. He was ordered to head for the showers.<\/p>\n \u201cI step into the shower and scrub every inch of skin and scalp, soaping and scrubbing until my skin glows pink,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n When his book was published in 2005, Bird wrote that test survivors continued to experience abnormally high incidents of diseases related to radiation poisoning. He said his multiple myeloma became an increasingly common form of bone-blood cancer related to plutonium, strontium-90 and cesium-137.<\/p>\n Two years after the first symptoms, Bird lacked sufficient energy to teach a full load at Fort Lewis College.<\/p>\n Service members were forced to face the fireball and visit ground zero hours after the blast because the military wanted to know how foot soldiers would react in a nuclear battlefield.<\/p>\n Despite repeated claims that it would be safe, one of Bird\u2019s friends and fellow soldiers said they were no more than \u201cGuinea pigs.\u201d<\/p>\n The second half of \u201cFolding Paper Cranes\u201d is largely about Bird\u2019s quest to find hope.<\/p>\n He made several trips to Hiroshima\u2019s International Park for World Peace, where he eventually met a child and survivors of the A-bomb who would offer him some solace.<\/p>\n After Bird\u2019s book was selected for FLC\u2019s Common Reading Experience, Hesperus Park in the center of campus was dedicated and renamed to include the word \u201cpeace\u201d: Hesperus Peace Park<\/a>, in honor of Bird.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was always very passionate about getting the word out: \u2018Wake up,\u2019 you know? \u2018This is right on our doorstep of catastrophes,\u2019\u201d Leonard said. \u201cSo having more people see \u2018Oppenheimer,\u2019 I would just hope that would help.\u201d<\/p>\n