As anyone reading my messages know I'm desperatley trying to find answers to some questions. So I look everywhere I can. I was displeased with the lack of understanding for fellow vets and their children. One thing about the vets at this site is that there is most certainly more compassion. We as GWVs should try and share as much with each other as possible to help each other the best we can. Because the govt and the VA aren't going to be helping us. It's people doing research that will ultimately benefit those with health problems. I don't mean to be on a soap box here because I'm not perfect.I just thought us Gulf Vets should stick together like the Nam vets do.

[This message has been edited by moderator2 (edited 08-08-2002).]

you are exactly right, we must unite before any action can be taken, it will take us 30 plus years at the rate we are going now,

No disrespect. But most Viet Nam vets were not bedfast. They had missing limbs, heart disease and cancer. But they were still mobile and they could hold down a job. If they worked at it, they could maintain a marriage and conceive children. And their children were born all in one piece.

They were drafted. We were volunteers.

We're severely debilitated. We're poisoned. Vaccinated to the hilt and then some. Exposed to "weaponized" biologicals our own country sold. Exposed to "weaponized" fungus and chemicals the Russians sold to some of our enemies' enemies.

We denied we were sick, fearful for our jobs, our marriages and our lives. We turned inward. We turned to our beds. We turned to darkness. We turned to our graves.

Picketing or marching on Washington was never an option for me, from Day 1. How about you?

What I meant was that it seems that Vietnam Vets stuck together for the most part and didn't put each other down. My opinion. I've seen some nasty talk from individuals. My point is that as GWV's we should be understanding and helpful to one another. Not bad mouth and insult each other. I know exactly what you mean when you talk of being incompasitated. I think we all are in the same boat and suffer mostly the same symptoms. That's all I was saying.

[This message has been edited by moderator2 (edited 10-06-2002).]

My shoulder is always here, for you to lean on or for you to cry on. Your pain has been my pain too recently. Please don't take my written words as anything but cries of passion for suffering that need not be.

I am a wealth of information because I'm in a position that allows me to continue to use my brain. Most of my Gulf War veteran comrades can't boast the same. Many of them are dead.

But you're still alive, and I'm still here, just listening and answering your questions best I can. That's why I'm in the information business.

Can I ask what business you are in that gives you this wealth of information? I personally do not take for granted the help I receive from other GWV's because most of them have been at this longer and have spent much more time than me researching the GWI. When and where were you during the Storm? Take care!

As my name implies, I am Navy Judge Advocate General (legal). I was in a medical unit during Desert Storm. Don't want to disappoint you at this point, but I never served in the Gulf. My overseas (and I suspect experimental) vaccines made me so sick I couldn't deploy with the rest of my unit. And I never recovered. I was medically retired about a year after the cease-fire.

Like so many others, I cleaned dirty equipment as it came back without any protection. I was fitted with dirty masks before we changed out the filters and before we washed them. My respiratory and nervous systems are damaged. And I have an "outline" of the top strap of my protective mask across the top of my scalp. I can't have the "outline" surgically removed because my immune system is so badly damaged. I could not survive potential infections.

The reason I know so much about all of this is that I made it a point to keep abreast of Gulf War Illness before it had a name. I attended law school and lived in Irving, TX the home of one of the very first publicized Gulf War veteran casualties. I did not realize then that I had secondary exposure to Gulf War Illness.

Between my medical experience and my legal experience, I am well equipped to research, and substantiate or negate just about every Gulf War question. Navy doctors, unlike V.A. doctors, are very open-minded about diseases that can be detected through blood work. They are far ahead of all services, with the exception of the Army Reserve (civilian practicing physicians who join the Army Reserve for its outstanding trauma training programs).

I also have been diagnosed and treated for much of what I have discussed here.