Name: Cameron Fletcher

Social Justice Group: 2023-2024, Nuclear Weapon Proliferation

Date of Fieldwork: January 29, 2024

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):WW2 Growler Veterans

Type of Fieldwork: [69]

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:

On the twenty ninth of January me and my fellow group members visited a Cold War submarine named the Growler. This nuclear submarine was in action throughout the peak years of the Cold War, 1958-19633 and was never hit or sunk. We got a close look at the missiles on the submarine and how it ran. The men that served on the ship did so by volunteering, out of a want to help their country. We were able to talk to some of these veterans and learn exactly what it was like to be a part of the crew on the USS Growler. The men had no sunlight or outside air whatsoever when inside the submarine. For their entire time they would await a call to launch missiles at targets, knowing that if they did, they could easily be found and blown to pieces. However, the men didn’t understand that their job involved ending lives. As we spoke to a Cold War Veteran, we learned that since their targets were so many miles away, they didn’t correlate launching missiles with death. It was more of just a job to them which is extremely problematic for the proliferation of nuclear weapons,