It is one thing to volunteer to serve your nation, you do it for many reasons, family tradition, sense of duty, college benefits, learn a trade. Very few people join ithe military wanting to go to war.
For those few, I know some good shrinks, but many service members do end up in wars or in hostile areas, the DMZ of Korea, Bosnia, etc. If you chose to do 20 years you will more than likely see a armed conflict during your career, some of us saw more than one. But what happens to you physically or mentally in these situations is pretty much cut and dry and documented.There are no gray areas.
Now there are the gray areas of service to our nation, the nuclear tests in Nevada in and the Pacific, many of the veterans that have filed claims with the VA have been denied compensation due to the fact that the monitoring badges they wore during the tests were defective and registered low levels of radiation. Men could see the bones in their hands yet, were told they were not exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation. WTF? Out of thousands of men exposed, I have seen where something like 128 men have had their claims approved by the VA for cancers caused by the tests.It was not until the late 1990's that the government passed the RECA act, so the men could bypass the VA and get compensated directly by the Department of Justice.
http://www.usdoj.gov/...
Then there is the program that I was used in MK ULTRA at Edgewood Arsenal, the government, i.e the DOD and the VA refuse to acknowledge any claims as a result of these tests. The VA has late as April 3, 2006 claimed that the tests were safe and they did not believe anyone was harmed by them: http://www.vawatchdog.org/...
"In the notification letters, Pamperin said, veterans will be told the chemical they were exposed to and the dosage, and be encouraged to seek hospital tests to determine if they suffered related injuries.
"If and, hopefully, none of them have been harmed they will receive the kind of compensation they're entitled to," Pamperin said.
Rick Weidman of the Vietnam Veterans of America accused the VA of dragging its feet."""
This from a congressional investigator:
House Veterans Affairs Committee aide Len Sistek said that's the goal of notifying veterans. The new list his staff provided to the government includes the names of military personnel who underwent testing at Fort Detrick; Edgewood Arsenal, now known as Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland; and Dougway Proving Ground in Utah.
"There's been a sea change in how America perceives this stuff," he said. "Whoever allowed the bad guy to get ahead of them with chemical or biological weaponry was at a huge disadvantage on the battlefield. It was part of the war effort."
Still, he and others argued, the government has a responsibility to provide benefits to those who did experience health problems.
"When you sign on the dotted line, you sign up for a broad spectrum of risks. But just because you were a volunteer does not mean America doesn't have a duty to you."
What disappoints me is the experience since I filed my claim for medical problems related to the experiments, COPD,skin abnormalities, heart problems, gastrointestinal, memory,,and PTSD. Find out they let German trained doctors and scientists from the German camps from 1935 thru 1945 create and use you in chemical weapons and drug experiments and see if you don't have nightmares. The same program that brought Dr Werner Von Braun, brought 8 doctors and scientists to Edgewood Arsenal.
Since filing the claim in November 2002, I have had an Army Major write a congressman, telling him that many soldiers feel they were used in "secret" tests, when in fact they were just doing their annual gas chamber excercise. The difference here is I never claimed to be used in secret tests, the Edgewood Experiments are well documented. The VA even wrote a book about them http://www1.va.gov/... pages 17-23 of the manual deal with the long term health problems. Pages 33 and 37 plainly state there are NO KNOWN test to determine past exposures to chemical weapons and or pesticides, so I have no clue to what possible tests Mr Pamerin of the VA was referring to in his newspaper interview.
Then after three years of denial letters from the VA, I contacted Senator Larry Craig's office in September 2005, in turn the VA had Renee Szybala contact me and tell me that my records show yes I had volunteered for the "medical research unit" but that I got sick and was sent home before the tests started. And she hoped that her letter cleared the matter up for me. yes it proved the VA was lying.
I wrote Senator Craig a Thank You letter for getting him to get the VA to respond to my use as a human guinea pig and that I was sorry to see they were trying to lie their way out of it. But I have copies of the records to show I arrived at Edgewood in June 1974 and did not leave the test program until 22 August 1974. That I was classified a level A test subject and my test number is 6778A.
In November 2005, I received a letter from the VARO stating they were opening an investigation into my exposure to chemical weapons and drugs while I was in the Army. In April 2006, I was notified they were closing all my open claims due to awarding my 100% P&T for an unrelated issue and that should settle my claims with the VA, they still had never addressed the COPD, the heart problems, quite frankly the other issues are not going to kill me, so I am not worried about those issues.
But after a stroke, 7 heart attacks, a failed triple bypass, a heart ejection fraction of 25%, Congestive heart failure, and no further surgery allowed, my long term health is questionable, it is now in God's Hands because the VA damn sure isn't going to do anything. My heart doctor said I needed a defiblirator installed about a year and half ago, it was referred to the surgeons, I still have not heard, yes, no, KMA, nothing. I want my heart problems SC so if and when I die my wife and son will be financially secure, is that to much to ask of my nation?
They used me in dangerous chemical weapons tests, drug experiments, I was exposed to LSD, I was totally disabled by age 45 and in a power chair. They lied and said the tests were safe, they failed to do any type of follow up health tests, they only found us when ordered to by Congress, and again in 2000 when they needed to know what was going to happen to the Gulf War vets expsoed to Sarin and mustard agents, they lied about the extent of the medical problems caused by Sarin and ignored the mustard agents altogether, so in reality the March 2003 IOM report is useless, explains nothing. the Jan 1994 NIH report on Chemical weapons is more honest than the IOM report
http://www.ehponline.org/...
I served my nation with pride, and I am still proud of my Army service, my family has all served this nation thru the Army, I had one uncle that joined the Navy in WW2, but everyone else has been Army, going back to the Revolutionary War. All I want and expect is honesty and fairness from them, why is the government allowed to lie, hide the evidence, distort the facts? Feres protects the government from things that happen on active duty, it should not protect them in their lies and cover ups and their failure to notify and help the veterans after they learn there is a possibility for medical problems or harm, from intentional actions while on duty.