I chose to take the day off from posting any news today, even I take a day off now and then to reflect on life. This year I had a reach from the past, due to my step brothers annual e mail that Patrick and his wife Joan sent out, a niece named Michele from my older brothers family (Melvin) located me. I have not seen her since my mothers funeral in March 1996.
I have PTSD and I have withdrawn from family involvement, and with the death of my parents, there has been little reason for me to travel to California since my mother passed, she is buried with my step father Dale (NMN) Jennings TSGT, Retired Air Force, at Riverside National Cemetary near their old home in Riverside. This is the area we went to school from 1963 until my brothers and I all joined the Army, Melvin in 1972, I in 1973 and Marvin in 1978.
Michele explained to me that she and her husband and son live in LA, and she works for the Coast Guard as a civilian and still serves in the reserves. I first went into the Coast Guard in April 1973, but due to my eyesight and a hernia, I and the Coast Guard parted company within ten days. I went back to Riverside and because Dale was retired AF and I was a dependent I was in March AFB Hospital having the hernia surgery when they filled the hospital with POWs from Vietnam on their way back to either civilian life or back to duty. It was an interesting time in life to say the least. A relatively unknown Air Force Sergeant had opened a Martial Arts studio near the base, to teach kids and anyone else who would pay him for lessons, Chuck Norris.
In the summer I enlisted in the Army and with medical waivers the Army took me in October 1973 and sent me off to basic training. The rest they say is history. Michele never knew of my use in the human experiments at Edgewood, she read the Texas Kos post last night, and she was shocked to say the least
Wow, Uncle Mike! That shit is unfreaking real! I remember you having a heart attack when you were really young. I was told something like you had scar tissue from scarlet fever when you were a kid that caused it. Have you had media exposure?
She doesn't understand the media doesn't care about a bunch of old disabled veterans from the Cold War era, even if the experiments were morally wrong, and eventually the government learned that 75% of the men are either prematurely dead or disabled. It is not a story that can be explained in 2 minutes or less, so it is not "news". It's just old history.
I did not know until 2002 that the National Security Agreements that we had signed were no longer valid, that the Army could not prosecute us for talking about the experiments any longer and we would NOT go to Leavenworth for the promised 25 years.
Doctor James Ketchum one of the Army pyschiatrists that worked at Edgewood Arsenal for most of his military career wrote a book about his experience about two years ago, that is the book that President Clinton was photographed signing on Dec 17,2007 that is at the bottom of this blog. His book talked at length about the test program and opened more windows into what occurred at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland from 1955 thru 1975, but it is not all of the information, he denies knowing about the CIA involvement of DR Sidney Gottlieb and the funding by the CIA for much of the research that occurred on the agencies behalf, and history shows that DR Gottlieb destroyed much of the documentation that had the answers to the questions about the links between the civilians of Edgewood and the agency. With the death of all involved and the destruction of the paper records, all we will have is questions and no definitive answers. DR Gottlieb died without ever revealing all of the secrets surrounding the agencies experiments and all they involved.
I am past wanting to blame anyone for anything, the 7120 men that "volunteered" for the medical research from 1955 thru 1975 did so because we thought what we were doing was important for the Army, for future equipment that soldiers would possibly use on the battlefields of the future, that it may save lives. We laso "volunteered" because we thought it was "sham duty" for a few months and would expemt us from guard duty, KP, company duty rosters etc, I and the 9 other men from Fort Lewis in the summer of 1974, all wanted out of field excercises, at Fort Lewis, the 9th Infantry Division spent all the summer months in the field. Then they said we could take our cars, and get paid for driving them there 9 days there and 9 days back at 35 dollars a day per diem and 2 dollars a day TDY pay, by the time it was all said and done, it amounted to about 4,000 dollars per man. This was at a time we were making about 398 a month. This was like a small fortune to us low ranking soldiers.
Like most things in life, there is nothing for free. The "volunteers" have paid dearly for raising their hands, 3098 men are prematurely dead, some died in Vietnam, some in helicopter crashed, others shot in combat, but an excessive number have died from heart attacks at early ages, lung disorders, and other unknown maladies that the IOM has not released. The last health survey in FY 2000 showed that 40% of the men could not be found, this was using IRS, SS and VA databases, so if the men were alive the company would have found them, there is only one conclusion, they are dead.
Of the 4022 men they did locate and contact, 54% of them or 2300 men reported some sort of disability, DR William Page neglected to note what they were in the report, as they were not part of the Department of defense contract that the IOM had been awarded. He also neglected to pay any attention to previously published health studies on chemical weapon exposures from the National Institute of Health published in Jan 1994 and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)written by a German Doctor Karl Heinz Lohs based on more than 30 years of treating Wermacht soldiers that worked in the chemical weapons program of the Third Reich.
The Department of Defense as of April 2008 according to a GAO report still had NOT notified more than half of the veterans or the widows about their exposures or the possibility that they may have claims for compensation if their husbands deaths could be linked to the exposures either intentional as part of the experiments or even thru environmental exposures in the drinking water or soil of Edgewood, the EPA superfund site shows 77 toxic substances in the water wells and soil of Edgewood Arsenal now known as the Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Grounds.
I have hopes like many Americans, that the new Obama Administration, and the new Secretary of the VA General Eric Shinseki will give the "benefit of the doubt" to these 7120 veterans and or their widows and finally put an end to the denials of claims because we the veterans can not "prove" exposures that the government claims we can't prove that these exposures caused our problems.
I can't remember exact dates, or the names of all the people present at each experiment or each date in the labs at Edgewood, now more than 30 years, the VA regional Office in Columbia asked me twice for this information. I can't remember it, they have a copy of the "volunteer file" that I have that was obtained thru a "Freedom Of Information Act" or better known as a FOIA request that I received in Feb 2004.
Most veterans can tell you the VA's game plan is to keep denying the claims until the veteran either dies, or gives up in frustration. Like most veterans I just want the "PROMISE" that was made to us when we enlisted or in some cases drafted. If we are either harmed or killed while on active duty that the government will care for us and or our families.
We do NOT want any classified data revealed or state secrets violated, we just want the government to accept the financial responsibility for us, that they promised us, and to care for our families when we die. Due to my medical problems I can no longer but life insurance, mortgage insurance, and the 10,000 dollar life insurance the VA gave me free after I was service connected at 100% P&T is enough to bury me, but what about paying off the house, help my wife and son make it, until she turns 60 and qualifies for my SSD checks?
I have hope that the President elect and his wife will help correct some of the issues of the past, President Clinton apologized for the human experiments in 1995 after The President directed ACHRE to uncover the truth, recommend steps to right past wrongs, and propose ways to prevent unethical human subjects research from occurring in the future. The Committee published its findings and recommendations in October 1995.
"Our greatness is measured not only in how we . . . do right but also [in] how we act when we know we've done the wrong thing; how we confront our mistakes, make our apologies, and take action."
--President Clinton October 3, 1995
I hope it is time for the government with a "new" President will take the opportunity to "take action" we veterans and the widows are still waiting even 13 more years later.
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to my "lost family members" and to my fellow veterans. Thank you Pat and Joan.Sphere: Related Content
