Different war, different wounds
BY JERRY DAVICH
Times Staff Writer
Nearly 15 years after the first Gulf War, the U.S. military still is grasping for explanations over mysterious health problems plaguing its veterans.
"With soldiers returning every day from operations there... we are committed to finding answers," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi last month.
Letters recently were mailed out to 30,000 or so vets, asking them to take part in a second survey about their health -- the good, bad and still misdiagnosed.
One national expert who's been on the scene for a decade believes today's Gulf soldiers will not follow in the bootprints of the first Gulf vets.
"Since no chemical nerve agents were present in (last year's) Gulf War, we will not see the same type of brain cell damage we saw in one of seven soldiers in the first Gulf War," said Dr. Robert Haley, chief of epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern. "We would have seen long lines of sick soldiers by now."
It was Haley who reported in 1997 that all 16 previously published studies suggesting high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder in Gulf vets were flawed by the same methodological error.
And it was Haley again last year who released a study saying Gulf vets under age of 45 were three times more likely to develop Lou Gehrig's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, than other Americans.
Haley said today's Gulf soldiers are experiencing their own health problems unique to their battleground, including abnormally high cases of pneumonia and a growing number of combat stress cases, mostly from the spiked casualty rate of traditional war wounds.
Terry Stanger's son served in last year's Iraq War. The Griffith man said the Army did extensive health screenings on his son Eric and other troops to avoid making the mistake from the first Gulf war. Stanger's major concern is the mental health of the troops.
"You can't go to war and expect everyone to be General Patton," the Vietnam vet said.
The alarming suicide rate of soldiers in Iraq bolsters this view, with at least 21 suicides reported in 2003 -- the majority in the Army -- in addition to other suicides committed on U.S. soil after soldiers returned from Iraq.
To counter the perceived mistake it made in 1991 in dealing with Gulf vets returning home, the Veterans Affairs office waived its two-year eligibility for all Iraq War vets.
"That means every veteran who served in this current conflict can be seen and treated at VA for two years, even if they normally would not be eligible," said Ray Leber, spokesman for the three VA clinics in this region.
The agency is doing this to better identify special health problems unique to these vets, Leber said.
Leo Marshall is a Gulf War vet who deals with daily health issues from serving there, "but none that are debilitating as of yet," he said. Yet the Hobart man knows two vets from his own platoon now designated as disabled by the agency.
Haley's studies have traced Gulf vets' symptoms to deep brain damage from myriad chemicals, including nerve agents that drifted over troops after the U.S. military detonated chemical storage sheds.
He believes today's vets returning from Iraqi battlefields will eventually fill American Veterans Affairs hospitals with traditionally chronic disabilities.
"The military has taken a lot of precautions to avoid a repeat of the (health problems) from the 1991 war," he said.
Jerry Davich can be reached at
or (219) 933-3376.