"To care for him who shall have born the battle,
and for his widow and orphan."

Abraham Lincoln
Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865

NARRATOR: Veterans of World War II exposed to poison gas. Veterans of nuclear bomb tests exposed to radiation. Veterans of the Vietnam War exposed to Agent Orange. And veterans of the Iraq war exposed to smoke and pollution from oil well fires.

These individuals are among America's 27 million living veterans. Men and women who served the nation with honor and sometimes at great personal cost. Individuals who exist as reminders that war, and even efforts to prepare for it, may be hazardous to your health.

Admiral GENE LaROCQUE: Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."

We can be justly proud I believe of the millions of men and women who have served honorably in our military forces, many of whom received disabilities as a direct result of fighting in combat. But there are many who received disabilities before, during and after combat that were not so obvious. Our program is on that subject today. I think you'll find it very interesting.

NARRATOR: For America's men and women in uniform, defending the nation means accepting the numerous risks and hazards that come with military service, dangers that have left many veterans with physical, psychological and emotional scars long after this service ended.

The true costs and consequences of our war effort often are not immediately known, but they do go far beyond buying guns and bullets, tanks and planes.

The long-term costs include caring for and compensating veterans whose health was impaired during military service. In the long term, even the victors can suffer. And when America's soldiers sacrifice their health for their country, America's taxpayers also pay a price.

For 1994, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, has requested an annual budget totaling $38 billion. Some 

$15 billion will be spent providing a medical care system for veterans that has grown from 54 hospitals in 1930 to 171 hospi- tals and numerous outpatient clinics today. Another $13 billion will be spent providing disability compensation to more than two million veterans or their survivors.

America spends a lot of money rewarding those who sacrificed for their country, so why are some veterans unhappy? Has the nation, in some cases, forgotten Lincoln's promise to veterans?
 

Film Narrator: "The energy that generates the heat of the sun and operates the solar system comes under the will of humankind."

Atmospheric tests of nuclear bombs. Between 1946 and 1962, the United States Government carried out more than 200 such tests, tests that exposed thousands of US servicemen to harmful radioactive fallout.

TOD ENSIGN: About 180,000 troops were, I would say, delib-erately exposed, in the sense that they were put in an area where fallout was likely and they were allowed to be exposed.

NARRATOR: Tod Ensign is the co-founder and director of Citizen Soldier, a long-time crusader for the rights of GIs and veterans. An expert on military law, he is the co-author of GI Guinea Pigs. He explains why soldiers were present when nuclear bombs were exploded.

Mr. ENSIGN: Some of them were just on ships that were ser-vicing the area. Some were actually out on the test site, digging communications trenches. Some were actually tethering the sheep which were put out, where you put out sheep to see what nuclear radiation will do to their wool, for example. So, they had a whole host of jobs. A few of them were actually put into bomb shelters right at the site, right near, within a mile or two of Ground Zero. That's a murky area that's never really been satisfactorily explained.

NARRATOR: At the time, the military maintained that radia-tion posed no danger to those working near the blasts.

Film's Narrator: "And here's the atomic age bulldozer, complete with armored radiation-shielded cab, being tested at the AEC proving ground... Of course, it can't withstand a close blast impact, but hot fallout doesn't bother 'dozer or driver. Within seconds after the blast, the rugged earth-mover can be at work within the target area, clearing rubble or plowing aside contaminated earth."

NARRATOR: According to Tod Ensign, however, the military understated the health risk to soldiers. Later, it overstated the extent to which they had been monitored for radiation exposure.

Mr. ENSIGN: There was no emphasis placed on monitoring at all. Yet 30 years later, when guys start dying of leukemia, they say, "Oh, we monitored them and these are the figures that we have."

NARRATOR: By the end of the 1970s, it was apparent that atomic veterans were suffering from disproportionately high rates of cancer and leukemia. Many began to approach the VA about dis-ability compensation. It was 1990, however, before Congress finally ordered the VA to provide limited compensation.

As of April 1993, the VA had received disability claims from 13,334 veterans, but only 1,166 veterans had been granted compensation. For many atomic veterans, their government's show of gratitude was both too little and, most of all, too late.
 

Narrator: "Angels of mercy to wounded soldiers in the Vietnam War are the helicopters, flying ambulances that can easily penetrate the jungle and drop down to pick up the wounded who might otherwise die."

NARRATOR: The health problems of the more than three million Americans who served in Vietnam didn't take long to surface. As many as 15 percent of Vietnam vets are believed to have suffered from the psychological ailment known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

For others, there is concern about exposure to the chemical defoliant known as Agent Orange. Between 1962 and '71, US military planes in Vietnam sprayed over 12 million gallons of Agent Orange to defoliate jungles and destroy crops.

A chemical in Agent Orange, dioxin, is known to cause cancer and birth defects in laboratory animals. Many Vietnam vets blame dioxin for a variety of physical problems affecting them and their families.

Mr. ENSIGN: They began to report that they were having cancers, birth defects in their children, wives were suffering multiple miscarriage and a number of issues. At that time, the military and the government took the same position: That Agent Orange was -- First they said it wasn't even sprayed around troops. 

It was obvious to anyone who'd interviewed veterans that wasn't true. Many veterans reported having their uniforms soaked by the spray. ...The general consensus of scientists who were independent was that anyone who was in a forward zone where spraying was done in the south was at risk.

NARRATOR: In 1991, Congress mandated that limited compensa-tion be awarded for Agent Orange exposure. As of April 1993, the VA had received disability claims from 39,419 veterans exposed to Agent Orange, but only 486 veterans had been granted compensa-tion. How much the final cost will be to veterans and taxpayers only time will tell.
 

Narrator: "Out on the Great Salt Lake Desert of Utah is located the Deseret Chemical Warfare Depot, where great quan-tities of chemical agents are stored in bulk. You're looking at 70,000 drums of mustard gas, which is just a part of what we're holding for the day when the Japs or Germans want to start some-thing.

"This is part of the Eastern Chemical Warfare Depot, located at Edgewood Arsenal, and more gas waiting for the Germans and Japs."

NARRATOR: World War II has erroneously been called "the unfought chemical war." We now know that chemical warfare did take place, right here in the United States.

Fearing enemy use of poison gas, the United States Army and Navy undertook secret tests to develop better protection against such weapons. Only recently did it become publicly known that an estimated 60,000 American soldiers and sailors were asked -- and sometimes ordered -- to participate in these tests as human guinea pigs. The most extreme tests were the chamber tests, also known more ominously as "man-break" tests.

Dr. CONSTANCE PECHURA: In chamber tests what happened was that men had been asked to volunteer to test summer uniforms. They were all from the Navy and they were recruited from boot camps.

NARRATOR: Dr. Constance Pechura directed a study by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine on the US military's chemical warfare experiments. She explains how servicemen were misled and what "testing summer uniforms" really meant.

Dr. PECHURA: They were dressed in various levels of protec-tive clothing, given a gas mask, and put into a gas chamber that was filled with either sulphur mustard, nitrogen mustard, or a gas containing arsenic called lewisite. They remained in that chamber for an hour, and this chamber was held at a very hot temperature, very humid. After that hour, they came out, remained in their clothing for varying amounts of time, and their skin was checked. 

They went back into this chamber every day or every other day until their skin burned. So that the end point of these experiments was skin burns.

NATHAN SCHNURMAN: In coming out of the gas chamber each time, one time I asked the corpsman, I said, "What were we doing today? What were the testing?" He said, "You're testing a combination of mustard gas and lewisite." I'd heard of mustard gas, but I'd never heard of lewisite. I didn't know what he was talking about. But I knew they wouldn't do anything to hurt me. 

I trusted my government.

NARRATOR: Nathan Schnurman was among an estimated 4000 Navy enlisted men recruited for chamber tests. Today, armed with a Freedom of Information Act, he is gathering information about the tests. Schnurman recalls what happened during his sixth and final trip into the gas chamber.

Mr. SCHNURMAN: Six times I go into the chamber. The sixth day, I'm in there not very long and I know something's wrong with my gas mask. I press the button to call the corpsman. He said, "Yes." I said, "I've got to come out. There must be something wrong with my gas mask. I'm ill." 

It wasn't but a few seconds after that I passed out in the gas chamber. When I came to, I was lying on the side of the road. I guess they pulled me out, they threw me on a pile of snow, assuming I was dead.

RUSSELL O'BERRY: I'm in extremely bad health now as a result of mustard gas testing. I have chronic lung disease, emphysema, asthma. Over the years, I've been hospitalized maybe two dozen times.

NARRATOR: Russell O'Berry had only recently enlisted in the Navy in 1944 when he was asked to volunteer for secret work, work, he was told, that would help to shorten the war.

Mr. O'BERRY: I went in the chamber four different times in February of '44. Each time lasted about an hour. The first day I was -- I felt nausea. My eyes began to burn and water, my right eye especially. And I began to burn in my lower extremities. By the second day, I had begun a bad cough and had coughed up blood and eyes were still burning, but we were still forced to go back in there. Then the burning became blisters, large blisters. Some blisters was big as the size of a hen egg.

Dr. PECHURA: Their level of exposure, in some cases, was as high as that experienced in World War I battlefield experiences.

NARRATOR: Even though many had suffered severe burns and blisters, participants in chamber tests -- after being sworn to secrecy -- were simply released when the experiments ended.

Mr. O'BERRY: The only treatment I got for my burns -- and I was burned badly, especially around the buttocks, scrotum area, legs -- was some salve.

Dr. PECHURA: Despite the fact that it was well-known by 1933 that there were serious long-term health effects from this kind of exposure, including emphysema, nothing was done to monitor these men's health or to follow up on their health. And, in fact, in some cases, symptoms that they had were deliberately recorded as something else.

Mr. SCHNURMAN: There was no follow-up for two reasons. First of all, we were told that it wouldn't affect us other than a mild sunburn. It was the worst sunburn I've ever had in my life. And, second of all, there was nothing to confirm that this ever happened in my service or my medical records, or any man that participated.

NARRATOR: For nearly 50 years, participants, almost without exception, remained silent about the tests. Forbidden to speak about the tests, those who suffered disabilities from mustard gas exposure had no means by which to secure government-provided medical care and compensation.

Dr. PECHURA: I spoke to some women whose husbands had not told them about their participation in these tests until they were on their death beds.

Mr. O'BERRY: Oh, for years, I never spoke of this, not to my wife, not to my family, anyone. It was just -- just kept it. If I'd been able to tell someone, you know, especially my doctors, I think I could have gotten better treatment, even from the VA.

Dr. PECHURA: Some of them have really and truly lived in a debilitated condition for decades and felt that they couldn't talk about it and that their country wasn't going to take care of them.

NARRATOR: Today, test participants are speaking. In March 1993, the Pentagon finally released them from their vows of secrecy. It also announced that it was declassifying test infor-mation. Still, because many test records are either sketchy or nonexistent, surviving veterans may find it difficult, if not impossible, to prove their participation in the tests.

Mr. O'BERRY: When I filed for VA benefits, they told me that they didn't have anything on record. Then they said my records were burned up in St. Louis in a fire. So, I had to write to the Freedom of Information Act to get my records. And I do have those records now confirming the dates that I did go in the gas chambers, how long I stayed, so forth.

INTERVIEWER: So, they did not burn up in a fire.

Mr. O'BERRY: No, they did not burn up in a fire.

NARRATOR: As of April 1993, the VA had received disability claims from 295 veterans of mustard gas tests, but only 59 veterans have been granted compensation.

Although Russell O'Berry is among those now receiving government compensation, there are some things, he says, that money simply cannot repair.

Mr. O'BERRY: The monthly checks that I receive will never, never compensate me for what I've been through physically and mentally. Because it has certainly ruined my life and I know of others that it's ruined, and there's a lot of others that have passed on, that's not here today to talk about this, and I'm speaking for them, too.
 

NARRATOR: During the Iraq war, the Pentagon cultivated the image of a "surgical," "clean," and "high-tech" military opera- tion. But the truth is that this war, like all wars, was a messy and dangerous undertaking. It had unhealthy consequences for service personnel both during and after the battle.

STEVE ROBERTSON: It was basic fever. I had a chronic cough, diarrhea, aching joints, fatigue. I would sweat profusely, even when I was in an area where I should be cool.

NARRATOR: Steve Robertson is a lobbyist for the American Legion, a veterans service organization. He also was one of more than a 100,000 members of the National Guard and Reserves who were deployed to the Middle East. When Robertson left for the region, he was healthy. Since his return, he and other veterans of the Iraq war have been ill.

Mr. ROBERTSON: I just don't feel like I have the physical strength to do the things that I was doing before. I've tried to play golf. It's a real labor now instead of any kind of enjoy-ment. I go out and it's a real struggle.

General RONALD R. BLANCK: We find some veterans, both on active duty, in the Reserves, and those who have left the service and are civilians, are experiencing very vague symptoms of fatigue, tiredness, sometimes with weight loss, joint aches and pains, muscle aches and pains, hair loss, sore gums, very non-specific kinds of things.

NARRATOR: Major General Ronald Blanck is commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and has served a long and dis-tinguished career as a military doctor. He is among the leading military authorities searching for explanations for the mysteri-ous and lingering ailments that some are referring to as "Gulf War Syndrome."

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any sense of how many individuals have been reporting these symptoms?

General BLANCK: Yes. There were 535,000, plus or minus, soldiers in Southwest Asia. We've heard from somewhere around 60 active duty airmen, sailors, Marines and soldiers, and perhaps another three or 400 reservists.

NARRATOR: According to Steve Robertson, these may be just a small fraction of the actual number of those who are ill. He believes that there are many sick active duty soldiers who have chosen to remain quiet about their problems.

Mr. ROBERTSON: Every active duty person that I've talked to, and this is an absolute statement -- Every one that I have talked to says, "I know other guys that are sick, but they don't want to come forward."

NARRATOR: Tod Ensign explains why military personnel on active duty might be hesitant to come forward.

Mr. ENSIGN: So, a person on active duty today, it'd be rather unwise for them to go down to their military hospital and say "I have a respiratory problem. I have chronic nausea. I have chronic diarrhea. I think I have problems that may be associated with Persian Gulf exposure." In other words, there is obviously for that soldier a real motive not to report. 

INTERVIEWER: Because of the career?

Mr. ENSIGN: Because of their career. Because today, with the pressure to get rid of people, a person might well be putting his career on the line.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, some veterans of the Iraq war who have come forward with health problems are dissatisfied with the response they have received from the Pentagon and the VA.

Mr. ROBERTSON: All these people, the thing we have in common is it all occurred either while we were in the Persian Gulf or immediately after we returned. And in just about every case, they have been told by DoD and the VA that it was stress-related.

INTERVIEWER: Is that the typical answer that the veterans are getting?

Mr. ROBERTSON: That is the typical answer. After they went through the entire list of symptoms and checked me out, they suggested I go see the psychiatrist.

INTERVIEWER: It's all in your head.

Mr. ROBERTSON: Well, that's basically what I was told. The psychiatrist at Walter Reed told me that I had a lot of pent-up angers, frustrations and hostilities about being deployed and spending time in the Persian Gulf.

INTERVIEWER: Is it true that the military has tended to discount some of these as essentially stress-related problems?

Gen. BLANCK: We have certainly not discounted any of them. We have diagnosed a minority of individuals with these symptoms of having stress, certainly. But I would say that, one, that's a very real disease. Two, it by no means explains, nor has the military ever contended that it explained this constellation of symptoms.

Mr. ROBERTSON: The DoD doctors that I have dealt with I think have tried very hard to find out what's wrong with me. But I think that they're limited to diseases one through a hundred.

INTERVIEWER: The ones they know.

Mr. ROBERTSON: The ones that they recognize. Anything beyond that is taboo.

NARRATOR: Many Iraq war veterans suspect that the cause of their ailments could be any one of a number of environmental hazards to which they were exposed.

Mr. ENSIGN: Some scientists think that we may be talking about a synergistic effect here; i.e., that several things are working together to bring about these health problems. And I'll just tick a few of them off.

One, of course, is the massive oilfield fires that burned for months. Another was the kerosene lamps and heaters that were used in a lot of the tenting areas, and these are a very polluting-type of fume. Another one was the depleted uranium shells. Ten years ago, we were told this is a new wonder weapon. Depleted uranium, it'll pierce heavy armor. But depleted uranium, as you can gather, is radioactive at low levels.

NARRATOR: Veterans of the war with Iraq may have benefited from the legacy of atomic veterans and Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange. A law passed in 1992 instructed the VA to encourage Iraq war vets to seek free medical evaluations. In addition, the VA has established a Gulf War Veterans Health Registry to help it keep track of long-term health trends.

Still, ailing Iraq war veterans may be in for a long, hard fight if they are to be assured of receiving adequate medical care and disability compensation. The burden remains upon the veterans to prove that their injuries and illnesses are service-related.

Mr. ROBERTSON: The one thing that stands out in my mind is that I don't want to be in the same position as the Vietnam veterans that had to fight, and fight, and fight, and fight to get the medical attention that they needed and they deserved. So many times people in the DoD medical system and the VA medical system are telling the soldiers and myself that what is bothering us we did not contract in the Persian Gulf. I said, "Wait a minute. You can't tell me what I've got. How can you tell me that I didn't get it in the Persian Gulf?"

Mr. ENSIGN: Our feeling is that, if you went to the Gulf as a fit soldier with no clear medical problems and you return with a host of problems, that there should be a presumption that some-thing happened to you while you served there that may have caused this new condition.

NARRATOR: Steve Robertson insists that he and other sick veterans whom he has encountered are not interested in compensa-tion, only cures.

Mr. ROBERTSON: Compensation is not the end-goal of these kids; I can tell you that. There's a young guy down in Texas, around the Waco area, that has got an oxygen bottle every day. That's his daily routine. He stays in bed with an oxygen bottle. He gets fed intravenously three times a week. I'm sure that he's not looking for compensation.

NARRATOR: The war with Iraq has already taken a tremendous toll on the people of Iraq and Kuwait. Will American veterans be added to this tally in the years ahead?
 

Admiral LaROCQUE: Well, frankly, I was surprised at the large number of veterans which had disabilities which were not directly related to a combat situation. We've been at war or preparing for war in the United States for 50 years. We have veterans now from World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, plus all the other little combat situations that we've become involved in. We owe a debt of gratitude to all of those who served in the military, in uniform over the past years. And, as a result, we must see to it that those individuals get adequate care, not only while they're in the military service, but even after they leave, particularly those who received disabilities as a result of the military service.

Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque.

Produced by the Center for Defense Information 
Scriptwriter: Martin Calhoun 
Segment Producer: Marguerite Arnold 
Show Number: 634