Book Description

OPERATION REDWING: Catch 22 With Nukes When everything that COULD go wrong, DID go wrong. NUKED is the absolutely insane, incredibly f*cked-up, but true, eyewitness story of what happened on a tiny island in the South Pacific when over 1600 young soldiers (including me) were turned into atomic guinea pigs by the Department of Defense. In 1956, the United States detonated 17 H-bombs in the South Pacific, including the two deadliest explosions ever to occur anywhere on our planet—before or since. The 1,612 soldiers stationed at the headquarters island (including me, a draftee) were there to “observe” this nuclear test series, called Operation Redwing. Wearing only T-shirts and shorts and without any other protective gear while Army brass and nuclear scientists wore Hazmat suits, we were exposed to radiation and fallout. NUKED describes all 17 tests in detail. THE ATOMIC TIMES (288 pages), a NYTimes bestseller, and Pulitzer Prize nominee, originally published in hard cover by Random House, presents a fuller picture of the traumatic consequences—physical, psychological and sexual—experienced by men living in isolation on a remote and poisoned island without women. “THE ATOMIC TIMES is a gripping memoir of the first H-bomb tests by one of the small groups of young servicemen stationed at Ground Zero on Eniwetok Atoll. Leavened by humor, loyalty and pride of accomplishment, this book is also a tribute to the resilience, courage and patriotism of the American soldier.”—Henry Kissinger "Harris' frank and disturbing descriptions of the criminally irresponsible proceedings on Eniwetok, and the physical and mental pain he and others endured, constitute shocking additions to atomic history. Amazingly enough, given his ordeal, Harris remains healthy." --Booklist "An entertaining read in the bloodline of Catch-22, Harris achieves the oddest of victories: a funny, optimistic story about the H-bomb. Harris uses a chatty, dead-pan voice that highlights the horrifying absurdity of life on the island: the use of Geiger counters to monitor scrambled eggs' radiation level, three-eyed fish swimming in the lagoon, corroded, permanently open windows that fail to keep out the radioactive fall-out and men whose toenails glow in the dark." --Publisher's Weekly NUKED: I Was A Guinea Pig For The U.S. Army is a 19,000 word except from THE ATOMIC TIMES: My H-Bomb Year at the Pacific Proving Ground, a NYT bestseller and Pulitzer Prize nominee, which is also available in an e-book edition on GooglePlay. Michael Harris is the co-author of two thrillers, HOOKED and BRAINWASHED, with his wife, million-copy New York Times bestselling author, Ruth Harris. Both books are available in e-editions on GooglePlay. Keywords: memoir, veterans, H-bomb, US Army, army, soldier, military memoir, black humor, dark humor, nuclear bombs, radiation, danger, fission, fusion, fallout, danger, suspense, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, Oceania, South Pacific, Eniwetok, Marshall Islands, detonation, explosions