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SMIRKINGCHIMP 12 Apr 2007
We know about the VA scandal, the great betrayal, but what almost no one talks about are the numbers. According to Veterans Administration figures from last November, 205,000 GIs who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, a third of the total, have sought medical care, for such problems as malignant tumors (1,584), endocrinal and metabolic diseases (36,409), nervous system diseases (61,524), digestive system diseases (63,002), musculoskeletal diseases (87,590), and mental disorders (73,157), among many other conditions. One of the largest categories is "ill defined," a.k.a. mystery conditions (67,743). In comparison, a relatively small number (35,765) have sought VA care for injuries.
The staggeringly backlogged Veterans Administration, which takes on average six months to process a claim and two years to process an appeal, cannot begin to cope with this onslaught of need and misery, but in contemplating the unconscionable lack of planning that resulted in this disaster, let's not forget to ask a more basic question: Why are all these GIs getting sick? And with even more urgent moral imperative, especially in the context of the invasion's justification, we must also ask: What about the Iraqis? Count on it, if our vets are sick, so are the Iraqis' children, their elderly, and they're making do with a shattered health-care infrastructure that makes our own look positively First World.
A few years after his service in the Gulf, Rokke was called to military duty again, as director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project. In this capacity, he became one of the world's leading experts on DU and, ultimately, one of the most outspoken critics of its use.
Today, his entire crew is either sick or dead.
Think about those numbers again. Several hundred thousand sick from the current wars, another several hundred thousand Gulf War 1 vets ailing and dying.
Referring to his namesake's last hurrah speech at West Point, Rokke added, "I'm an old soldier that ain't going to fade away till medical care is given to everyone and the environment is cleaned up.
These are the words of a thwarted warrior, a betrayed warrior, driven by what he has seen and understood to turn around and stand up to the real threat: the friendly (or fratricidal) fire behind him. The best of America is serving the worst.
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| Full List of Gulf War Syndrome depleted uranium articles |
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NEWS SUMMARY
DEPLETED URANIUM Outrage is Sweeping Hawai’i
Uranium 'killing Italian troops'
Doubt on Gulf War chemical claim
Gulf war health checks 'too late'
War syndrome 'will not be solved'
Call to recognise Gulf War effect
Gulf War veteran in test appeal
'No one cause' for Gulf illness
Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb 
