U.S. Marine Team Ready to Help With Japanese Nuclear Accident

I have recently read an article about a U.S. Marine team, specially equipped for nuclear incidents, that has been sent to Japan to potentially aid in the support of the lingering nuclear accident. They are stationed in Japan and are ready for action if at any time the Japanese government requests their aid.

This specialized team could potentially be faced with situations in which they would face exposure to heavy doses of nuclear radiation. What is interesting is whether the potential exposure could pose psychological issues to soldiers now and decades down the road.

Nuclear radiation is impossible to detect without proper instrumentation. Therefore soldiers working in a contaminated area would look upon the area as being generally harmless while at the same time they are working and being bombarded by invisible, poisonous nuclear radiation. Even though the soldiers know the area can be potentially harmful to their health, the area’s appearance would seem to be physically normal. This could pose a physiological problem for soldiers if they start to worry too much about the potentially harmful and lingering affects of radiation. They could be working in an area that appears perfectly safe but are being slowly poisoned by invisible particles in the air.

Will the soldiers who are called upon to aid the Japanese experience some negative psychologically effects? Maybe the soldiers are already facing psychological problems as they wait and think of facing an invisible poison. If these soldiers are being heavily exposed to nuclear radiation will this potentially cause soldiers to psychologically break down? If the U.S. soldiers do face nuclear radiation, will the lingering effects cause psychological damage? Even if soldiers are kept to low levels of radiation some soldiers may become stressed just by thinking about the possible harmful effects radiation could pose later in their lives.

(These are just some of the psychological stresses and problems that U.S. soldiers are prepared to face on a daily basis)

The article below is from "military.com," which is a website that has the most up-to-date news on all five branches of the military. The article posted below is one of the headlines from Sunday April 10, 2011.

http://www.military.com/news/article/marine-nuclear-team-ready-in-japan.html?col=1186032310810