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To be selected for the Green Lights was a rare and highly secret thing. As Annie Jacobsen notes in her book, Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins, Green Lights personnel were pulled from Army Special Forces, Navy SEAL units, and the Marines. Units worked under pseudonyms, and wore fatigues with no markings or insignia. Initial training involved learning infiltration techniques including parachute launches and wet-deck submarine launches. Overall, the instruction of Green Light units took place over the course of a week, consisting of eight to 12 hours each day.

Parachute missions involving SADMs were performed over the sea, as well as over land during the 1960s and 1970s, in order to train for their potential detonation overseas. In 1972, Green Light units parachuted near the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. As Foreign Policy notes, the nuclear weapon used was a training dummy. Navy SEALs also performed underwater training with the munitions. Moreover, drills with the SADMs also occurred outside the U.S., with Special Forces teams even skiing with them in the Bavarian Alps during, for example.

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Special Forces “Green Light” teams trained to deploy small nuclear bombs called Special Atomic Demolition Munitions during the Cold War.

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Carrying case for the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), a tactical nuclear weapon. Glen George McDuff via Wikimedia Commons

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At the heart of the SADM system was the W-54 tactical nuclear warhead. The W-54 was developed in the late 1950s – initially by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory until early 1959 (designated the XXW-51), and, thereafter, by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (then re-designated the XW-54). The W-54 warhead measured just 16 inches in length and 10.75 inches in diameter. The yield of W-54 warheads was variable, from ten tons of explosive TNT to 1,000 tons of explosive TNT.

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And the obligatory Dr Strangelove gif:

This is a longer clip from the director's cut.

[McGruff]

Say hello to my little friend!

[PGR88]

Is that a nuclear bomb between your legs, or are you just glad to see me?

[Trumpisourlastchance]

Now we are GloboHomo. Quite a transition.

[Deaf Smith]

Within the past year, read a book of the Special Force guy who was the first to jump with a simulated tactical nuke.

He also invented HALO jumps and trained teams in the maneuver.

He was a bad-ass.

In part of the book, he and his team was sent to Alaska for Arctic survival.

Once dropped into their zone, found on the map a bar 20 miles away and they skied the twenty miles and back…two nights in a row.

Their Arctic trainer found out and declared that they did not need survival training.

Same time, an Arctic war game was in play for many military groups. He and his team was assigned to disrupt/create havoc the war game, so they kidnapped the signal corp officer who had the code books for ALL comms… war game ended as it started.

[clearcarbon]

"Special Forces Parachuted With Nukes Strapped To Them During The Cold War"

Did those guys have any kids thereafter?