The secret US soldiers who trained for WWIII by free-falling with a NUKE between their legs

It was a warm, clear night in 1983 when about a dozen elite Green Berets jumped out of the back of a two-and-a-half-ton truck at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina.

They were met by two mysterious men in black flight suits. No patches or insignia indicated which branch of the military they represented, but they were clearly in charge

“This is a covert operation,” one of them told the special operations team. “From this moment on, we have command and control.”

As they finished briefing the group, another vehicle pulled up carrying a box that the men were more than familiar with.

They had trained for hours for such a thing; or at least an inert version of it. This time, however, they were about to use the real thing.

The SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition) was a top-secret nuclear weapon not unlike the one dropped on Hiroshima, but with one crucial difference: it was small enough to fit in a backpack.

In his new book We defyon the lost chapters of Special Forces history, Jack Murphy reveals that the US military’s special nuclear program – called Green Light – was developed in 1962, in preparation for World War III, and was an active part of training until 1986 stayed.

Three hours into their flight, the Green Berets were informed of their target: one of the largest hydroelectric dams in Cuba. Its destruction was intended to disrupt the country’s power supply, paralyze the economy and cause widespread chaos.

It was only when they had parachuted into the target and were preparing to detonate the bomb that they were suddenly told that this was just a training exercise.

It turned out they were in a drop zone somewhere in New Mexico, more than a thousand miles from Cuba.

“The Green Berets were still reeling and their adrenaline was flowing,” Murphy wrote. ‘Until a few moments they had assumed they were deep behind enemy lines.

“It was definitely real,” one team member said.”

Jumping the SADM was no easy task. The operators may have dismissed it as a “backpack bomb,” but after several iterations it weighed nearly 70 pounds and was extremely unwieldy.

“Really experienced jumpers had a really hard time controlling that bomb properly,” said Tommy Shook, a team sergeant in the mid-1970s.

“You didn’t jump the bomb; it jumped you.”

Murphy writes, “On about 90 percent of his team’s freefall jumps with the weapon, [Shook] and his teammates missed the drop zone and ended up in the woods.”

Add to that the complicated logistics and it was not a mission for the faint of heart.

“When the SADM was infiltrated by parachute, one man jumped in with the bomb and another with the planewave generator that would detonate it,” Murphy writes.

‘A third team member carried a conventional explosive charge to destroy the SADM and prevent it from falling into enemy hands if the team was compromised.

“Each Green Light team also had to carry a 23-pound payload to destroy the SADM before it could fall into enemy hands,” he writes.

“Using the emergency detonation charge would spread uranium and plutonium into the environment, causing a far greater ecological disaster than a low-yield nuclear detonation.”

Don Alexander, who trained on the program for a decade, told Murphy, “It was so in-extremis that their concern was the destruction of the technology rather than the local contamination that would occur.”

Many of those involved also believed they were being trained for a one-way mission – they saw no plans to get to safety after the bomb detonated and, as one member said, “You were under the impression you were expendable.”

One conspiracy theory was that the timer was not working, and that when it was detonated, it would wipe out the Special Forces team.

Some even darkly joked that if they unlocked the SADM to actually arm it, they would find twelve Medals of Honor and a bottle of Jack Daniels along with the bomb.

“The rationale for this theory was that the U.S. government would not want a handful of capture-capable operators walking behind enemy lines with knowledge of a nuclear bomb ticking.”

If they survived, their orders were to “stay behind enemy lines, attempt to recruit military deserters from the Soviet Union, raise a guerrilla army, and conduct unconventional warfare.”

The SADM went into development in 1960, Murphy writes, “but the specifications were changed the following year to include a watertight pressure housing so that the device could be deployed by frogmen.”

It entered military service in April 1963, and the Army eventually stockpiled nearly 300 by the mid-1960s.

Highly trained soldiers practiced swimming, kayaking and skiing with the nuclear bomb.

The most feared training exercises were those that combined both parachuting and diving, where the soldier not only had to jump with the weapon, but also carry two oxygen tanks.

And while no SADM was ever activated, almost everyone involved said they sometimes completely believed their training exercises were real.

Former Chief Petty Officer Mike Taylor recalled a particular episode that occurred during the Reagan administration.

“His team was called in and placed in an isolation facility to make plans for a mission to Europe, parachuting in directly from the United States,” Murphy wrote.

‘They were not told which country they were going to. The whole team thought it was the real deal, but after four days the team was sent home with no explanation.”

Did the Defense Department ever really plan to use nuclear weapons on key targets during the Cold War?

At least one person close to the program was convinced he would never see active combat.

“I always thought this was a psychological tool used at much higher levels just to let the Russians know they had weird guys and Green Berets running around with a nuclear bomb in their pocket,” said Capt. Bill Flavin.

Others, however, were not so sure, pointing to the detailed targeting outside Europe as evidence that the US was targeting enemies closer to home than Russia.

One veteran said his team would regularly review slide decks and aerial photographs of targets in Latin America.

“I can tell you where every intersection on the Cuban highway is, where every military base was, where every naval port was, where every dam was,” he told Murphy.

Another suggested the Panama Canal was in their sights.

“I’m just glad we never really had to do it,” said Scott Wimberley, who swam the bomb into position during an exercise in the mid-1970s. “It would be a suicide mission.”

Decades later, some of those who served in Green Light are still convinced that this was the case.

Mike Adams, a young sergeant when he deployed in 1985, retired as a sergeant major and was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 50.

He believes he was exposed to radiological material during his service and filed a claim with Veterans Affairs, but it was denied.

“My doctor at Yale wrote a letter [to Veteran’s Affairs] claiming that there is no reason on earth why someone as young and healthy as you should have certain types of cancer, Adams told Murphy.

‘He was convinced that we should have known that [Green Light].’

After a decade-long battle with cancer, Mike Adams passed away on August 18, 2024.

Adapted from We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History by Jack Murphy