6,000 Enewetak Atoll Veterans Wait for Justice

Enewetak Atoll cleanup vets, facing cancer, hope long-shot 'atomic veteran' bill becomes law
Bangor Daily News, Maine
By Abigail Curtis
Published: April 3, 2016

Laird and Dean were among approximately 6,000 American soldiers tasked with rehabilitating the atoll between 1977 and 1980 before it was returned to the people of the Marshall Islands.

BANGOR, Maine (Tribune News Service) — Congress is considering a bill that would create a special “atomic veteran” designation for the men and women who worked to clean up nuclear waste from a South Pacific atoll nearly 40 years ago, a move that Maine veteran Paul Laird says was a long time coming.

But Laird, a 59-year-old from Otisfield who served with the U.S. Army’s 84th Engineer Battalion on Enewetak Atoll and who is a three-time cancer survivor, said that the bill has only a slim chance of becoming law — and that is not acceptable to him. As of now, only 30 co-sponsors have officially signed on to the bill, which is a number the Mainer said does not seem like enough.

“We are not seeing people jump up and down to get onboard,” he said earlier this month. “We’re a little disappointed. We’re trying however we can to get the word out, but people just don’t seem to think it’s very important.”
read more here

WWII Veteran Laid To Rest Where Battle War Fought

In death, Marine returns to island where he survived battle 
Journal Sentinel
Jordan Vinson
February 9, 2015

Roi-Namur, Marshall Islands — Under a cluster of coconut palms on a tiny coral island more than 6,400 miles from Milwaukee, Lynne Rivera and Paula Smith honored their father's final wish.

Frank Pokrop had been a sniper in the 4th Marine Division during World War II. Trudging through the jungle, trapped behind enemy lines, he was shot and nearly lost his life on Namur, one of two conjoined islands at the northern tip of Kwajalein Atoll in the heart of the Marshall Islands.

Seventeen at the time he enlisted, 18 and a corporal when he took part in the Battle of Kwajalein, the experience never really left him.

He served as president of the 4th Marine Division Association, helped organize reunions, and for 47 years ran a scholarship committee for division members' college-bound children and grandchildren. Twice, he returned to the island for anniversary commemorations, in 1985 and 1994.

The speck of land in the central Pacific kept calling her father back, said Smith, who lives in Menomonie.

Pokrop achieved much in his life — coach and counselor, teacher and principal, community volunteer and church leader. He and his wife, Maxine, had three children and five grandchildren.

But when he died at age 89 a few weeks before Christmas — the anniversary of Pearl Harbor to be exact — it was time to head back to Namur one final time.

And so on Jan. 30, just shy of 71 years after the island battle started, Pokrop's daughters landed here and climbed out of a 19-seat turboprop commuter plane, bringing with them their father's ashes.
read more here