Elite US Troops Trained to Use Backpack Nukes!

• Elite US troops trained to use backpack nukes! 
  by http://rt.com/ 
  Skiing down a mountain and into a battlefield with a nuclear bomb strapped to your back seems like something you’d see only in a James Bond movie, but that’s just one of the things the US elite military personnel were trained to do during the Cold War.
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  In a detailed report by Foreign Policy, the publication  chronicles the creation of the Special Atomic Demolition Munition  (SAMD), a portable nuclear weapon that could be carried into  battlefield by a single solider. During the Cold War’s final 25  years, Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces were trained to carry  these “backpack nukes” beyond enemy lines where, if necessary,  they’d be used to destroy valuable infrastructure and keep  opposing forces at bay.
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  Concerned with the Soviet Union’s military advantage over the  United States and its allies in terms of manpower and traditional  weaponry, President Dwight Eisenhower looked to enhancing the  country’s nuclear capabilities as a way to level the playing  field. His “New Look” strategy, however, promised “massive  retaliation” to any form of aggression by the Soviet Union – a  bold strategy that in reality left the US with little room to  maneuver.
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  “In the event that communist forces launched a limited,  non-nuclear attack, the president would have to choose between  defeat at the hands of a superior conventional force or a  staggeringly disproportionate (and potentially suicidal)  strategic nuclear exchange that would kill hundreds of millions  of people,” the report stated.
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  In an attempt to develop targeted nuclear weapons that wouldn’t  cause as many casualties, the SAMD was born. Often strapped to a  soldier’s back, the 58-pound bomb made it difficult for soldiers  to maneuver through a war zone, and those chosen to carry the  device – known as the “Green Light” teams – underwent extensive  training to ensure they could deliver the bomb, even at the  expense of their own lives.
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  “I think that my first reaction was that I didn’t believe  it,” former Green Light member Ken Richter told Foreign  Policy. “Because everything that I’d seen prior to that,  World War II, showed this huge weapon. And we were going to put  it on our backs and carry it? I thought they were joking.”
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  More powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, though, the  SAMD was no laughing matter. US forces would be subjected to  eight to 12 hours of training a day when it came to using the  device, and in some cases troops would parachute out of planes  with the SAMD dangling below them in a protective case, dive  underwater with it in a pressurized case, or, yes, ski down a  mountain with bomb attached to them.
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  “I had a lot of people that I interviewed for our team,”   Richter recalled. “Once they found out what the mission was,  they said, ‘No, thanks. I’d rather go back to Vietnam.’ ”
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  Fortunately, these weapons were never actually used. US allies  were not particularly fond of the idea of detonating numerous  nuclear devices across their countries, while others within the  American military questioned the whole enterprise.
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  “In our hearts, we knew nobody was going to give control of  these to a bunch of big old boys running around the  countryside,” Tom Davis, another Green Light member, told  Foreign Policy. “We just didn’t believe it was ever going to  happen.”
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  The SADM program was officially halted in 1989, after the Defense  and Energy departments found it to be “obsolete.”
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