Dugway tests weigh on former soldier's mind

HILL AIR FORCE BASE — New Jersey native Edward G. Bartling can't shake a few nagging questions when something vaults his memory back to the summer of 1960 and the shadowy military tests he observed then in a remote area of Utah.

Standing next to a B-29 bomber parked behind the Hill Air Force Base museum recently took him back to that time.

It was 48 years ago when Bartling, now 73, was a corporal stationed at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground. Back then, he watched soldiers take part in tests that exposed them to potentially dangerous materials being sprayed from a plane.

Exactly what those materials were, he still can't say for sure. But he is hopeful a new government Web site will provide some answers.

"At that time, we really didn't have an idea of what the heck was going on, nor did we have enough sense to question it," he said. "When you're in the service, you follow orders."

Bartling was drafted into the Army on Feb. 9, 1959. On Feb. 8, 1961, he got out, leaving behind the Army he knew to begin his life with Renee Johanson, with whom he raised six children.

For 30 years, Bartling worked for Alliant Techsystems (formerly Hercules), in the end as a supervisor over workers manufacturing rocket motors in West Valley City. Now, he makes wooden toys for children in his shop at home.

At Dugway, the Army transformed him from a Jersey boy raised on a poultry farm into a young man who would don a gas mask in the middle of the Utah desert. He would record on a clipboard what was happening to fellow soldiers during three tests.

Bartling was assigned to the 45th Chemical Company, 2nd Chemical Battalion. His unit's job was to make smoke, like the kind that covers miles of terrain to mask troop movements. That wouldn't be his only job.

He can remember using a B-29 at Dugway in decontamination exercises, but he's certain the materials used on the plane were inert. That B-29 was eventually disassembled and taken to Hill.

He had heard about all types of animals being used to test protective gear in what he knew as the "dog area" of Dugway's 1,300 square miles.

"Anything you can think of besides elephants and giraffes," Bartling laughed. He didn't see the animal tests nor did he wonder what happened to them afterward.

For the human tests, military officials who ranked higher than Bartling would ask for volunteers. If there weren't enough volunteers, he said, they would simply pick the lower-ranking grunts. Bartling was a corporal at the time, which meant he got to be an observer, with at least some protection.

Bartling said if the winds, air pressure and temperature were just right, everyone would be up by 4 a.m. and assemble on a test grid by dawn. Then a jet would fly in close to the ground and make a run while spraying something over the volunteers.

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