Director, Center for Defense Information
INTERVIEWER Sanford Gottlieb, Senior Producer,
& NARRATOR: "America's Defense Monitor"
DIRECTOR
OF RESEARCH: David T. Johnson
MARKETING
& OPERATIONS: Mark Sugg
PRODUCERS: Marguerite Arnold
Glenn Baker
Daniel Sagalyn
PRINCIPAL ANALYST
& SCRIPTWRITER: Martin Calhoun
PROGRAM PRODUCER: Marguerite Arnold
ORIGINATION: Washington, D.C.
PROGRAM NO.: 634 (Update: 1009)
INITIAL BROADCAST: 9 May 1993 (Update: 11/10/96)
CONDITION OF USE: Credit "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR"
(Center for Defense Information)
Gen. RONALD R. BLANCK
Commander, Walter Reed Army Medical Center
TOD ENSIGN
Founder and Director, Citizen Soldier Co-Author, GI Guinea Pigs
RUSSELL O'BERRY, Jr.
Mustard Gas Test Victim
Dr. CONSTANCE PECHURA
Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences
STEVE ROBERTSON
American Legion
NATHAN SCHNURMAN
Mustard Gas Test Victim
"To care for him who shall have born the battle,
and for his widow and orphan."
Abraham Lincoln
Second 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.
["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]
Admiral SHANAHAN: Warfare itself, as well as being prepared for war, entails many costs. Not the least of which is the terrible toll on the health and well-being of the military personnel who fight our wars. Recent reports have stated that the Department of Defense is estimating that as many as 20,000 soldiers may have been exposed to toxic gas as a result of their service in the Gulf War. Beyond survival, military combat can indeed be hazardous to your health.
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.
Congress approved fiscal year 1997 spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, of $39 Billion. About $17 Billion will be spent administering a medical care system for veterans that has grown from 54 medical centers in 1930 to 173 today. About $20 Billion will be spent to provide disability compensation and pensions for more than 2 million veterans and 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: From "Atomic Age Cleanup" film: "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 October 1996, more than 18,000 atomic veterans had raised a radiation concern with the VA. About 1,900 had been awarded compensation. But for many who were exposed to radiation, their government's show of gratitude was both too little and, most of all, too late.
NEWSREEL: From NEWSREEL's "Operation 'Copter": "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: Following years of lobbying by veterans and veterans organizations, Congress, in 1991, mandated that limited compensation be awarded for Agent Orange exposure. As of October 1996, more than 77,000 veterans had filed Agent Orange-related disability claims with the VA. About 4,000 had been granted compensation.
NEWSREEL: From World War II Era NEWSREEL: "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: Of the thousands of veterans who participated in mustard gas tests, so far, very few are being compensated for disabilities. Although Russell O'Berry is now among those now receiving government benefits, 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."
In 1992, Congress passed legislation instructing the VA to encourage veterans of the Gulf War to seek free medical evaluations. In addition, the VA established a special registry for veterans to assist in monitoring long-term health trends. As of October 1996, more than 61,000 veterans had completed health exams. Of these, an estimated 88 percent reported at least some symptoms of illness.
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: In addition, in the spring of 1996, the Pentagon reversed its longstanding denial that U.S. troops had been exposed to toxins while destroying Iraqi chemical weapons. Officials now admit that, in March 1991, troops were exposed to low levels of the nerve gas Sarin when an Army battalion destroyed an Iraqi ammunitions depot. Initial estimates of 400 soldiers exposed have been increased to 20,000.
Veterans of the war with Iraq may have benefitted from the legacy of atomic veterans and those exposed to Agent Orange. Still, like other veterans before them, their main difficulty lies in proving that an illness or injury is 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 SHANAHAN: As serious and disturbing as these reported illnesses are, they are only a small part of the total global cost of war. Doctors from around the world have joined together to provide an authoritative review of all aspects of the disease of war in this new book, War and Public Health. It provides clear evidence that war is highly hazardous to everyone's health and that eliminating war would make a major contribution to the physical and mental health of all humankind.
Join us next week when we investigate examples of how the Pentagon has wasted your tax
dollars. Unitl then, for America's Defense Monitor, I am Jack Shanahan.
[End of broadcast.]
(C) Copyright 1996. Center for Defense Information. All Rights Reserved.