Sunday, December 14, 2014

Aftermath--#73 finished

I was very surprised at how good this book was discussing leftover armaments.  The first chapter talked about large areas in France that were gated off from the public because there were too many unexploded bombs in the area.  Also many when dropped went into the ground & eventually work their way to the top in fields all through the country.  Surprising for me at least, was that most were WWI bombs than WWII because of the much less time fighting in WWII in France and also because the better bombs in WWII fewer were duds.  It moved from there to the dead around Stalingrad as well as bombs there too.  Then to around Nevada where the US did atomic weapons testing and how the ground there is saturated with radiation and won't be used for thousands of years.  Then Vietnam again with bombs and land mines.  Then Kuwait, this book was written in mid 1990s before the 2nd Iraq war, and the clearing of land mines there.  Finally, the end talked about the US trying to find a safe way to burn the stored weapon chemicals from the '50s & '60s.

I really thought this was eye opening.  I hadn't given much thought to what life was like after a war--the devastated land almost as bad as the job of trying to rebuild destroyed areas.

I am not sure if I will post it or hand it off to someone that also enjoys history.  There is 1 WL for it so could mail off if I want too & may just do that.

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