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Sadly, the most painful aspect of their wide range of infirmities may not be the illnesses and symptoms themselves but the denial of their causes by the very government they fought to defend. It's a dilemma shared with veterans in France, Canada, and Great Britain, who also served in the Persian Gulf in late 1990 through 1991, and who are now experiencing the same debilitating symptoms suffered by U.S. veterans.

In an about face from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam (with the exception of those exposed to Agent Orange) when soldiers lucky enough to make it home enjoyed long years during which they could share their patriotism with children and grandchildren, Gulf War veterans are still fighting for their lives.

Says Tracy Smith of McKenzie, who was a soldier with the 1174th National Guard Transportation Company based in Dresden and is now Senior Vice Commander of V.F.W. Post 4939, "Between 50 to 70 of those in the unit (of close to 150 members) are being treated at the V.A. (hospitals). But the only thing the V.A. wants to do is diagnose people with post-traumatic stress disorder and there's just no way when everybody has the same symptoms: back pain, nerve problems, joints problems, severe headaches - all kinds of stuff like that."

Smith goes on to acknowledge, "Everybody that went over there has some degree of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) but they're just not recognizing the other symptoms. Even though the Department of Defense and V.A. continue to make it almost unbearable for veterans to get assistance U.S. Congressman John Tanner (himself a Vietnam Veteran and retired Tennessee Army National Guard General) has gone beyond his means to assist the veterans of the 1174th and other Tennessee guardsmen."

Gary Johnson of Trezevant, another 1174th soldier who served, like Smith and others in the unit, alongside the famous 1st Infantry Division, described his infirmities in a repetitive delivery that revealed as much about his illness as the inventory of his condition: "Migraines, rashes, my eyes water all the time - did I say headaches? - memory loss, stomach problems, joint pain, arthritis, degenerating disks, memory loss..."

Almost as an afterthought, apart from his physical ailments, he adds, "And I'm depressed all the time."

That depression is invariably one of the complaints voiced by the veterans may lend credence to doctors' diagnoses of post traumatic stress disorder but does little to explain the lion's share of the veterans' physical woes.

According to studies undertaken by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, in fact, there appears to be little connections between the two: "First," their literature explains, "veterans with the Gulf War syndromes whom we studied did not have psychological patterns characteristic of the post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), major depression, somatoform disorder, malingering, or other common stress-related or psychological illnesses. Second, veterans who experienced more combat stress in the Gulf War were no more likely to be ill than those who experienced less or no combat stress."

Adding insult to injury is the opinions of others unsympathetic with the plight of soldiers who were part of a ground war that "only lasted 100 hours." Read that with a laugh or a snicker, or worse, a sneer. Read it as if to say the veterans of World War II were the last real heroes (but don't read it to discount those marvelous men of valor.)

The heroes of Korea were overlooked, those of Vietnam bore the brunt of the unpopular conflict and still aren't afforded the deep respect all veterans of foreign wars earn with the blood and sweat of their collective sacrifice, but those of Desert Storm are looked upon almost as if they enjoyed a several-months vacation to the oases of Arabia. After all, the air war hammered the opposing forces until they were no match for the elite U.S. troops sent in to mop up after the bombing was complete. (That alone sets some to wailing about the unfairness of the Iraqi odds. One wonders whose sons they would prefer to send forth in conventional warfare to make the battle more equal.)

As for "the vacation", nothing could be further from the truth.

Asked to define the worst aspect of being in the war, former 1174th soldier Roger Morris, of Dresden, says, "Being away from home," a phrase that is best understood by comparing the antitheses of the comforts of home: ease = misery; rest = fatigue; feast = famine; satisfaction = uncertainty; peace = fear.

Smith, who lost 19 pounds during the six months the unit served overseas, describes some of the hardships that combined to cause PTSD in returning troops. "It was a combination of what you see over there, the living conditions and the environment," he says thoughtfully. "You couldn't get any sleep because there was so much shelling when the air war started. The artillery was going on 24/7 and it took awhile to learn the incoming from the outgoing. You go into the situation thinking about all you've heard: 'you're fixing to be blown up and they've got chemical and biological weapons.' You've been training, so you've seen pictures of what it does."

Despite the blessed fact that the troops were spared the WWII veterans' plight of seeing their buddies beside them suddenly stilled by an enemy bullet, the reality of their situation was defined in real terms when a regular army soldier jumped from his vehicle, unaware the convoy had ventured into an uncleared minefield, losing his leg in the explosion.

The troops didn't have to become accustomed to the smell of a bloody battlefield like the veterans who preceded them in more immediately costly wars, but they were forced to make their ways past the "mile of death", the long rows of vehicles obliterated by air support as desperate Iraqis sought to flee Kuwait.

"It was a mile of nothing but damaged vehicles and burned, dead bodies, burned kids; I saw it all," laments Johnson.

Hot days were mild compared to freezing nights made more miserable by insufficient supplies. Smith displays a photograph of his shivering partner sitting in the cab of the truck that was also their "home", clad in winter cap, field jacket and gloves while a kerosene heater alongside the gearshift fails to chase away the frost coating the metal interior of the cab.

Worse yet was hunger brought on by inadequate or non-existent mess facilities. Two soldiers relate separate instances of taking food from passing convoys, one appropriating food enroute to an Iraqi P.O.W. camp and the other recounting midnight rendezvous to sneak food from another unit's supplies. They describe the stolen entrees with saucer-wide eyes and expansive gestures, like a pirate remembering the glitter of gold and diamond loot.

Their physical symptoms they attribute to a host of factors, some of which are related to the very pre-deployment preparations meant to protect them in the harsh desert environment. The soldiers received numerous vaccinations, including anthrax and botulinum vaccines, some FDA-approved and others without that declaration of safety.

The Veteran's Administration reported in their May 2001 issue of the Gulf War Review newsletter, "Several studies of British Gulf War veterans provide some limited evidence of an association between multiple vaccinations and long-term multi-symptom health problems, especially for vaccinations given during deployment. There are some limitations and confusing issues with these studies, and further research is needed." The report goes on to say, "The IOM (National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine) committee concluded that there is inadequate/insufficient evidence to determine whether an association does or does not exist between multiple vaccinations and long-term adverse health effects."

Other potential causes of the set of symptoms known as "Gulf War Syndrome" include deplete uranium ammunition, pesticide use, pyridostigmine bromide tablets (anti-nerve gas protectant), infectious diseases, chemical & biological warfare agents, and oil well fire smoke and petroleum.

Deplete uranium (DU), containing about half the radioactivity of natural uranium, is "the natural uranium left over after more of the highly radioactive uranium isotopes used in these power plants and weapons are extracted." Like lead, uranium is a heavy metal that "can be toxic to the kidneys and other organs including the lungs." Used in weapon systems because of its "high density, superior mechanical properties, and because it is relatively abundant and cost effective," some soldiers of the 1174th may have been exposed to DU while within close proximity to fires set to destroy bunkers of enemy supplies and the enemy tanks destroyed by U.S. Armor using D.U. shells according to Smith, who further states, "We were all crawling on the Iraqi tanks to scavenger hunt, or have a picture made. They never told us not to come into contact with anything hit with rounds from our own troops, or that it was a DU nightmare."

When the ground war started, troops concur, pyridostigmine bromide tablets were ingested regularly as a nerve agent pretreatment drug. According to VA literature, PB has been approved by the FDA as a treatment for myasthenia gravis patients for over forty years at a dosage "many times higher than those administered to troops" without long term adverse health effects, however, they concede, "PB was used as an unapproved, investigational drug during the Gulf War as a pre-treatment to reduce the toxicity of the chemical warfare nerve agent soman... additional research is needed to answer specific outstanding questions about the long-term effects of PB, either PB exposure alone or in combination with exposure to other risk factors, such as pesticides."

Near the end of their deployment, soldiers traded their kerosene heaters for a new source of warmth: the raging oil well fires set by a petulant Saddam Hussein. Troops endured days blackened by the billowing clouds of smoke and debris, using flashlights - in what should have been broad daylight - to service their vehicles. Johnson reports troops walked three-fourths of a mile to the mess tent, walking back to their own tents with their food exposed to the fallout, not to mention every breath forcing the tainted air into their lungs. However, states the VA, "the exposures that troop units received from oil fires and other industrial sources in the Gulf are unlikely, by themselves, to have caused long-term health problems."

Despite the VA's slow recognition of the veterans' ailments, the men and women continue to cry foul while their symptoms repeat like a broken record. According to the V.A., the most common complaints include: loss of memory and other general symptoms, headache, fatigue, skin rash, muscle/joint pain, sleep disturbances, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal symptoms, shortness of breath, chest pain, choking sensitivity, abdominal pain, and other symptoms involving skin and integumentary tissue.

Morris spent two years doggedly seeking relief at the V.A. hospital in Memphis where, he says, he was repeatedly advised nothing was wrong with him. Finally, his pleas of kidney problems, joint and muscular pain and stiffness, insomnia, headaches, and more having been virtually dismissed, he sought a second opinion at the McKenzie Medical Center. Two months after his claims for disability were denied by the V.A., the McKenzie clinic found sufficient cause to conduct a liver biopsy last Friday, says Morris.

It doesn't add up.

As a nation, we celebrate the fact that only 147 soldiers lost their lives during the first Gulf War. But since then, says retired U.S. Army Colonel and soldiers' activist David Hackworth, "So far, according to an April 2002 Department of Veterans Affairs report, an additional 7,758 Desert Storm vets have died, while 198,716 vets have filed claims for medical and compensation benefits. Of the claims filed, 156,031 have been granted as service-connected, with more vets being designated casualties as each day passes. The 198,716 figure represents a staggering 28 percent of the vets - 696,579 - who fought in the Gulf War conflict!"

He declares, "Before we commit to another Gulf War, our government must come clean on what happened to our Desert Storm heroes. Congress and our media must hound the president and the VA until they tell the nation what caused the enormous casualties in the first place and what's been done to reduce the hazards facing our troops this time around."

House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, tearfully addressed President Bush, as representatives prepared to cast their votes for or against the authorization of force, "Mr. President, we trust to you the best we have to give. Use them well so they can come home and say to our grandchildren, `Sleep soundly, my baby.'''

It's for the children that wars are fought by men and women not far removed from childhood themselves, as each generation meets whatever battles are brought by "dictators and mad men" to ensure freedom and democracy for America's progeny.

As the prospect looms for a second wave of troops to challenge the tyranny of terrorism and evil that has overshadowed the United States anew since 9-11, may they be supported by the prayers of the people and the power of the country, returning home to health and prosperity and the day when they hold their grandchildren on their knees and speak of the days they helped purchase freedom for a country grateful enough to embrace their infirmities in the loving, healing hands of Uncle Sam.

http://www.va.gov/gulfwar Gulf War Illness - Veterans Health Administration
http://www.ngwrc.org The National Gulf War Resource Center
http://www.hackworth.com Soldier, Author, Columnist Col. David Hackworth
http://www.sftt.org Soldiers For The Truth

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