Taylor Devices, Inc. has manufactured damping devices since 1955. Until 1990 most applications were military, using dampers to attenuate weapons effects. Until recently, information on these applications and the associated damper designs has not been public due to security restrictions. Most of these restrictions have now been relaxed and much of this damping technology is now available to the structural engineering community. Taylor Devices can now provide compact fluid viscous dampers in the 100 kip to 2,000 kip output range that greatly reduces earthquake response of structures. This paper describes how the military has been testing shock mitigation dampers for many years and how this type of testing can apply to the large dampers required for seismic protection of structures.