By MARTHA QUILLIN,
Staff Writer
FAYETTEVILLE -- If they would give him a fresh Air Force uniform, former Staff
Sgt. Richard Wadzinski Jr. gladly would climb into the cargo hold of the first
C-130 headed toward Southwest Asia to supply a U.S. assault on Iraq.
"I'd go today. Right now," he said, taking a deep breath that stiffened his spine, briefly recalling the career military man he once was. Just one thing holds him back: Wadzinski is so sick from his deployment during Desert Storm 11 years ago that the military wouldn't take him.
Like the rest of the country, Persian Gulf War veterans are divided over the long-term political effects of a U.S. war with Iraq. But those like Wadzinski, who suffer from illnesses linked to their duty in the gulf, say there is one certain outcome of sending troops back to the region to fight: another generation of service members with medical problems that may haunt them for life.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said it would spend $20 million on research into gulf war illnesses in 2004, more than twice what it has spent in any previous year. In announcing the funding, Leo S. Mackay, deputy secretary for the VA, said, "There is increasing objective evidence that a major category of gulf war illnesses is neurological in character" and not related to combat stress, as some scientists have said.
Many sick vets believe their illnesses are caused by a combination of toxins they were exposed to in the war.
North Carolina bases might supply as many as 50,000 of the 300,000 or so troops analysts say would be needed to fight a new war with Iraq, whose army President Bush says could be expected to respond with chemical or biological weapons. Many sick gulf war vets believe that they were exposed to chemical and biological agents in Iraq and that those agents contributed to their mysterious health problems.
Long-term effects
North Carolina bases sent about 100,000 men and women to serve in the last gulf war, of a total force of 697,000.
Although casualties of that conflict were relatively low -- 150 Americans died as a result of injuries -- many came home sick or fell ill later with a litany of symptoms doctors still can't explain. The Research Advisory Committee on gulf war Illnesses has estimated that 25 percent to 30 percent of gulf war vets have unexplained illnesses. Veterans advocates say it may be closer to 40 percent. Without definitive causes for their complaints, many of these now-disabled vets say they fear that whatever happened to them might also await a wave of new recruits.
"Some of my neighbors are already over there," Wadzinski said. "And before they left, this is what I told them: 'Have a good gas mask that's in good working order, and know how to use it. And every time something happens, put it on. There is no such thing as a false alarm.' "
About 224 federally funded studies costing more than $213 million have not been able to tell veterans whether chemical or biological weapons, smoke from oil-well fires, depleted uranium, pesticides, vaccines, antidotes, combat stress or something else, alone or in concert, caused their ailments, which range from mild to crippling.
Veterans groups and government officials disagree over the extent to which Iraqi president Saddam Hussein might have used chemical and biological weapons during the gulf war. The Department of Defense has said that 15,000 chemical alarms that sounded during the war went off by mistake. But many soldiers are thought to have been exposed to the toxins through contact with tainted soil in areas where they had been tested and through the air when stockpiles of the materials were found and destroyed.
Recurring threat
Since the end of the war, Saddam is thought to have been rebuilding his chemical and biological arsenal, and this time, he is considered by some more likely to use it.
"A lot of gulf war vets are furious about this," said Joyce A. Riley, a registered nurse and spokeswoman for the American Gulf War Veterans Association in Versailles, Mo., who has mostly recovered from a muscular illness she attributes to her service during the war. "They know the problems these guys are walking into."
When he was sent into the desert before the start of the war, Wadzinski said, his job -- as a loadmaster on the bulky C-130s -- was to fly around the region gathering supplies the U.S. military had buried and deliver them to where they were needed. Later, he certified misfired U.S. Patriot missiles before they were shipped back to the Department of Defense.
Before his deployment, his military records show, Wadzinski was vaccinated against a host of diseases and infectious agents, including anthrax and botulism. Some service members have reported receiving 13 shots at a time. While in the theater of operations, Wadzinski said, he swallowed as many as 70 more pills the military provided as protection against nerve gas, taking another each time an alarm went off indicating the presence of gas.
By the time he got home, he had recurring rashes on his arms, chest and legs. Later, the headaches began, followed by chronic fatigue and joint and muscle aches. First, he said, the military said it had no proof he had ever served in the gulf. When he produced records of his own, he said, the doctors told him his problems were in his head.
He took early retirement in 1994, after 18 years of service. He took a job as an emergency services worker, which made good use of his frenetic nature. Then, in December 1997, he showed up for work one day with eyes as gold as Krugerrands.
His liver was failing.
A transplant Christmas Eve saved his life, but he says he lives in constant pain. In his flyboy prime, he ran 12 miles a week and lifted weights regularly. Now, at 42, he's barely able to raise the black leather satchel filled with paperwork detailing his fight to get the military to take responsibility for his illness.
Quest for truth
Jim E. Brown of Gastonia gave up that battle long ago. He doesn't seek treatment
at Veterans Affairs medical centers,
and he doesn't get VA disability payments, which top out at $2,200 a month for
veterans found 100 percent disabled.
When he feels like working, he uses his energy searching out government documents and disseminating what he and others find through Gulf Watch, which he founded in 1991 to advocate for gulf war veterans. For instance, he said, the group has acquired copies of mission logs detailing the destruction of a chemical-weapons storage facility near Khamisiyah, Iraq, which the U.S. government only recently acknowledged. The Pentagon has said the explosions might have exposed 101,000 troops to sarin and mustard agents.
Brown, who said his work with the 514th Maintenance Company, part of the 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, N.Y., brought him in contact with intelligence sources throughout the government, said Gulf Watch has learned that although U.S. officials know what kinds of toxins are in Saddam's arsenal -- the United States supplied some of them during friendlier times -- the U.S. military has never updated its equipment to adequately protect against them. Dustborne and airborne agents can permeate most of the suits and masks soldiers are given to pull on in case of a chemical or biological attack, Brown said, and by the time current sensors warn of the presence of toxins, some soldiers already will have been exposed.
Military gets ready
Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a defense press officer, said in a statement that the military has stepped up its protective measures.
"Since the gulf war, the Defense Department has advanced its chemical and biological defense capabilities particularly in the areas of chemical and biological agent detection, biological vaccines, nuclear/biological/chemical reconnaissance and protective masks and suits. We have modern chemical and biological detectors that did not exist ten years ago that provide significant improvements over their predecessors.
"The Army has a fleet of reconnaissance vehicles and trained operators that can cover an entire theater. We have a strong ongoing vaccination effort and have replaced all former protective masks with better-fitting and less constrictive masks in addition to procuring a new protective ensemble for all forces.
"These measures have significantly improved the joint force's ability to survive and sustain operations in a chemical and biological warfare environment."
Brown doesn't think it will be enough.
"We weren't prepared in 1990, and we're even less prepared now," he said. "We know we are not up to the task of defending against this stuff, yet the people in charge are sending us anyway."
Randy Hebert of Emerald Isle, who has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease that government doctors have attributed to his service during the gulf war, is more supportive of the Bush administration's stance. So is his wife, Kim, who looks after Randy now that he cannot care for himself.
But she, too, worries about what awaits the next desert deployment.
"I think we're probably more ready than we were the first time, because
we know now what [Saddam] is capable of, and what's out there. But as a wife,
I fear for other men," she said. "I cringe to think anybody would
come home like my
husband did."
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