They weren't crazy. They weren't being punished. All but one volunteered to do this.
Five Air Force officers and one photographer stood together on a patch of ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They'd marked the spot "Ground Zero. Population 5" on a hand-lettered sign hammered into the soft ground right next to them.
Two F-89 jets fly above them and shoot off a nuclear missile carrying an atomic warhead. 18,500 feet above them, the missile is detonated and blows up. Which means, these men intentionally stood directly underneath it! But why?
The country was just beginning to worry about nuclear fallout, and the Air Force wanted to reassure people that it was OK to use atomic weapons to counter similar weapons being developed in Russia. (They didn't win this argument.)
Make sure you check the video in the source link!