Richard “Brooklyn Ball Buster” Masculine:
His handle fit him with his gift for sarcasm and his heavy Brooklyn accent. You knew someone was about to get
their balls busted if he opened his mouth. Don’t get me wrong, Ball Buster wasn’t mean, he did have a natural situational comedic ability that he exploited at every opportunity.
Ball Buster was one of, if not the, first “Short Timer” to take me under his wing. We worked on some of the same
islands, breathed some of the same dust and drank from the same “Jungle Juice” barrel. I lost track of him when
he left to go back to his regular unit. Thirty plus years later I ran into him online. We got to chatting along with
Frank Bolton, who had also served on the Atoll. With all the information Richard had to share about filing a claim
with the VA. We thought it best to start a closed Facebook group where we could talk about our many health issues without having to explain each post to our family and friends. Richard had been researching the effects of
radiation we were exposed to and had a laundry list of illnesses that were connected to our exposure, though the
VA continues to deny we were exposed to any material that would affect our health. Shortly after starting our
Enewetak group, Ball Buster disclosed he had a few different types of cancer, one of which caused him to have
half his tongue removed. He also told us some of the cancers had come back. Ball Buster continued to put up a
brave front stating he had beaten cancer before and would again. We lost Ball Buster on November 25, 2013. The
news of his loss shook all of us in the group at that time. Several of us exchanged private messages expressing our
feelings of sorrow and coming to grips with our own mortality. I’m sure others were in tears, as I was. I’m not sure
words can express the feelings we had having lost a brother 34 years AFTER returning to the world.
It is tough knowing we were exposed to materials that can take so many years to cause health issues and take a life
in such a short period of time after the illnesses appear.
For me, the passing of Ball Buster meant I had lost my chance to exchange more memories with a brother from
years gone by.
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