Matt-- it makes sense for an EOD guy to have the Artillery manuals-- they would have had those manuals for reference. I suspect your Dad was in Ordnance branch, as those guys seem to have the highest quota of EOD school positions. Sarin is a non-persitent form (usually aerosolized) Nerve gas, as opposed to VX which is persistent in a thickend liquid form. That explains his use of Atropine, which is the antidote to Nerve agents. These agents would have been weaponized into either 155 or 8" Artillery rounds or bombs and spray tanks, which were being tested at Dugway in the 40's, 50's and early 60s. There were many left lying around for EOD disposal in the 70s, which explains why your Dad was at Dugway. The famous movie "Rage" with George C. Scott is a very loose depiction of an incident involving a "sheep kill off" at Dugway in the early 60s-- although it's not a very factual depiction as to the actual events. Dugway was used for the development and testing of chemical and incendiary munition during WWII, and is the largest military base in the country size-wise. since 1972, Dugway has been used for "defensive" rather than offensive testing of chemical defense equipment. In 1972 the US signed the Geneva Chemical Weapons Accords, banning the use of lethal chemical agents, and has been destroying all lethal Chemical Weapons ever since. I was involved with a lot of these demilitarization efforts. I think we've managed to get rid of everything by now, we only had a couple of Demilitarization facilities remaining when I retired in 2006.
VR, Russ

I wonder if you ever spent time at Deseret? Almost half of all chemical munitions were destroyed there before it was decomissioned. I was there before they finally closed it down in 2013. The coolest feature was a building with an interior about the size of a football field. The "disassembly" bays were separated by steel walls, more like dividers to help mitigate overpressure in the event of an accident. There were holes about two feet square in the dividers to pass along components from one section to the next assembly line style without endangering anyone else from blast fragments. I took along a bit of the Deseret Chemical facility that I still have to this day.

And speaking of det cord - how fun is it for each guy to have his own roll?



And for each guy to have his own personal box of TNT?





Pretty fun, I can tell you.




You can quite literally blow a hole in the world. If that's your thing.



Almost forgot - the part of Deseret that stays with me...

Robert,
I did spend some time at Deseret. But at that time it was only used as a storage depot, and the Chemical Demil facility was just being constructed as the first operational facility. Johnston Island (Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Demilitarization System--JACADS) was the primary prototype, and Deseret was to be the first operational plant. Deseret and Dugway are sepreated by about 30 miles and a mountain range. After I left Dugway I went to the 2nd ID in Korea, and then to Hawaii to the 25th ID, but went back to be the deputy Chemo at USARPAC where I almost exclusively worked on Johnston Island. I did do a lot some work on Mustard gas programs at Pueblo AD with the Russian info exchange program, and recovering Mustard gas in the Solomon Islands. I didn't have any assignments with depots after that though. Did my share of det cord unwinding though!
VR, Russ