Gulf War veterans get validation, but little else
Posted on 12/13/2008
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<a href="http://www.thehour.com/story/461455/">Gulf War veterans get validation, but little else</a>
WASHINGTON

JORDAN ZAPPALA

Hour Washington Correspondent


U.S. Army veteran Donald Overton Jr. said he considers himself lucky that he was physically injured during the Persian Gulf War.

Having been left legally blind and missing a few fingers as a result of a Desert Storm blast, the Norwalk native and executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group Veterans of Modern Warfare also suffers from symptoms of Gulf War illness, such as hair loss, rashes, and muscle and joint pain. But without his physical injuries, Overton said, any attempt to receive disability compensation for the service-related illness would have been quashed by the years of bureaucratic red tape and government denial that Gulf War veterans have weathered.

"The (Gulf War) illness leaves very little on the outside, but it can be debilitating," said the 40-year-old, who feels like he is "going on 60-something" because of his injuries. "I had my physical injuries too, and I still fought for five years to get my benefits."

The Persian Gulf War ended 17 years ago, but many veterans have been forced to continue fighting for their lives even after their return home to the U.S.

Finally there appears to be a cease-fire of sorts. Last month,
the congressionally mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses issued the validation so many of the nearly 700,000 veterans had been waiting for: There is, in fact, a Gulf War illness, and at least one in four Gulf War veterans suffers from it.

In Connecticut, that translates to roughly 9,000 veterans inflicted with a service-connected disease for which there is no effective treatment.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have long denied the existence of a Gulf War-related illness, despite their eventual acknowledgement of troop exposure to chemical agents.

Numerous congressional hearings, federal research programs and independent studies had previously produced inconclusive results -- in large part because of the litany of symptoms these veterans display: persistent memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, widespread muscle and joint pain, acute gastrointestinal problems, chronic fatigue and sleeplessness, respiratory problems, and skin rashes. The severity and concurrence of symptoms varies by patient, but in many cases, the result is a debilitating sickness that has the capacity to level even the most stalwart soldier.

The advisory committee's conclusion -- though hailed as a step in the right direction -- is by no means the end of the war for
these wounded warriors.

Appointed in 2002 by
the secretary of Veterans Affairs after a 1998 congressional order, the Research Advisory Committee is not itself a VA entity. James Peake, the current VA secretary, will have to formally accept the ailment before Gulf War illness will fit into the department's complicated disability grading system, and for that, the veterans will have to wait a little longer.

Peake said he has sent the report to the National Academies' Institute of Medicine for additional review and recommendation.

"I appreciate the committee's work on this report, and I am eager to see the results of further independent study into their findings," Peake said in a prepared statement. "Of course, VA will continue to provide the care and benefits our Gulf War veterans have earned through their service, as we have for more than a decade."

If the VA continues not to recognize the illness, sick veterans have little chance of claiming any disability compensation. The monthly benefits -- ranging from $100 to $3,000 -- can make all the difference in supporting a family or keeping a home when work becomes impossible.

Overton said Gulf War veterans have waited long enough for their benefits, and called Peake's decision a "stall tactic."

The lengthy process has too great a cost for veterans, he said, which is why his organization banded with the Vietnam Veterans of America and filed a lawsuit against the Depart-ment of Veterans Affairs last month aimed at expediting the disability claims process.

Though the claims are supposed to be answered quickly, the VA acknowledges it takes an average of six months to reach a decision, and some go unanswered for close to a year. The appeals process -- which is successful more than 50 percent of the time, according to the Veterans of Modern Warfare -- takes an average of four years. To remedy this, the lawsuit demands that the initial claim be answered in 90 days, with an appeal returned in 180 days. If this schedule is not met, the suit suggests, interim benefits should be granted at a rate of 30 percent disability, or roughly $350 a month, until the decision is reached.

Robert Cattanach, a partner at Dorsey and Whitney in Minneapolis and pro bono attorney for the veterans, said the consequences of the VA delays are "staggering" -- citing homelessness, depression and hopelessness.

"The suit fits perfectly with the new (Gulf War illness) report, because these veterans have already waited far too long for their benefits," said the Navy veteran, whose son has served two tours in Iraq. "The report finally gives them legitimacy, and if we win, they're not going to have to stand in line forever to get what they deserve."

Gulf War veteran Mike Roley knows all about waiting. The 44-year-old U.S. Army and Gulf War veteran from Shelbyville, Ky., shows many symptoms of Gulf War illness, has physical injuries from a training accident and was placed on 13 prescriptions in an attempt to regulate his many afflictions, but he still had to fight the VA for more than 10 years.

"At first, it was the cramps -- so bad I couldn't stand up straight," said the married father of three. "I started to get rashes that would blow you away, and headaches. I was so tired all the time, but I could never sleep. When I could fall asleep, there were the night sweats. I have a wonderful wife, but I'm embarrassed to sleep with her -- I soak the bed."

Despite the fact that Roley received a disability rating of 240 percent --
a number derived by totaling the disabling level of each injury -- he said he was denied VA benefits multiple times before finally winning his claim in 2002. The victory was bittersweet for the family, who had lost their home and entire savings trying to stay afloat in 1999, after Roley was no longer able to work.

But still, Roley considers himself luckier than many. U.S. Army veteran Matt Letterman, of Willow Springs, Mo., is still waiting for his benefits -- 17 years after his laundry list of symptoms surfaced. The
45-year-old married father of five has to sleep in a straight-backed chair to keep leg pain at bay and has only 37 percent of his lung capacity despite never having smoked a cigarette. Yet the VA denied his claim in 2007.

Letterman supports his family of seven with just the $1,400 a month he receives from the Social Security Administration, after also losing his home in 1999 when he could no longer keep a job.

Neither Letterman nor Roley holds out any hope that his disease will be understood, let alone treated.

Linda Schwartz, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Veterans' Affairs and a retired U.S. Air Force flight nurse, said that with the new findings, Connecticut veterans denied benefits should try filing their claims again.

"The attitude of many people in the VA is that veterans are trying to milk them dry. It's sad," said Schwartz, who drew a parallel to the Vietnam-era denial of Agent Orange effects. "They're supposed to be erring on the side of veterans. These denials devalue the meaning of the veterans' sacrifice. I think the money is part of it, but it's more the recognition that they are suffering because they served their country, and earning the respect they deserve."

Gulf War veterans were exposed to a vast array of chemical and biological factors -- a "toxic soup," as Overton described it -- making a single cause of the illness difficult to pinpoint. But the advisory committee for the first time zeroed in on two exposures "causally associated" with the illness: the pyridostigmine bromide pills troops were required to take to protect against nerve agents, and an overabundance of pesticides used to ward off insect-borne diseases -- neither of which are used today, Department of Defense spokesman Ken Robinson told CNN.

At the time they were given to the troops -- "handed out like candy," Letterman said -- the pills were not approved by
the Food and Drug Administration as an anti-nerve gas agent, but the Defense Department signed a waiver to bypass the hurdle of informed consent. Both Letterman and Roley recall fellow soldiers having adverse reactions to the pills while in the desert -- and Roley said he stopped taking them after his superiors stopped watching.

In addition, the committee identified other exposures that it said "cannot be ruled out" as potential causes of Gulf War illness, including burning oil wells, multiple vaccines and low-level exposure to nerve agents such as those released by the U.S. demolition of a munitions dump near Khamisiyah, Iraq -- to which at least 100,000 troops were potentially exposed, including Letterman.

With thousands of troops currently stationed in the same desert, Overton said, research on chemical-related illness should be a serious priority.

The committee also noted that Gulf War veterans have significantly higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than other veterans, and that troops who were downwind from the Khamisiyah demolition have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other Gulf War veterans.

"There are others out there that have probably had it worse than I have had it -- and some that are no longer with us anymore," Letterman said. "There are quite a few more that have been beat down by the system. A sick veteran doesn't have the strength to fight the system when it's working the way it's working. The system will always win."

For questions or help in filing a claim, call the Connecticut Department of Veterans' Affairs at (866) 928-8387

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