Gulf War Syndrome Isn't All In Soldier's Heads
It appears that after 10 years of crack work, a congress mandated panel have finally put it together that an epidemic of multi-symptom illnesses in US soldiers returning from the original Gulf War might actually not all be in their minds.
I don't know which non-psychosomatic symptom tipped them off: the severe
respiratory symptoms, the
rashes, or the fact that they're all in a goddamn disease cluster, but
it seems that the Army might finally be taking some of the
responsibility
for looking into their conditions. Exposure to Sarin gas
(which only a few troops were potentially exposed to), anti-nerve
gas
agents (getting warmer), and
pesticides (aha!) are all being named as possible causes. Left out in
the article is the cocktail of vaccines, inoculations, and other crap
we shoot our soldiers up with to protect them in the event the enemy
uses chemical or biological weapons.
Potentially life-saving? Yes. Potentially the cause of 70,000 US Soldiers debilitating maladies and seriously degraded quality of life? Also yes.
Hmm. Wouldn't it have been helpful to figure this all out BEFORE we went back to the gulf? Somehow, even though Congress mandated this panel in 1998, it didn't even begin it's work until 2002 when it's members were finally appointed.
Next time you see one of those stupid Taiwanese "support our troops" magnets on someone's car, rip the damn thing off. It means nothing to say that now while they're over there and we can do nothing.
Instead, put it in a drawer and bring it out 4 years from now when all of the kids in the desert now are sick as hell and the government has forgotten about them and denied them disability.
That's when it's time to support the damn troops.
