Desert Storm Twenty Years and Counting

 I see alot of gulf war veterans on facebook today, more than usual.  I wonder how others are feeling today.  I know I have felt irritability and snappy more lately.  I wish somehow we were all together this week.  The memories are there.  Despite trying to do other things and divert the mind it does not seem to be working well today.  Wish it was warmer and sunnier and that my body was not doing its sick thing.  I want to sit on a beach that is drenched in sun.  I want to have my fellow veterans around.  I want to have a bonfire and sit together.  I want to be there in body and soul instead of trying to ignore and act normal today.  I want to remember those we have lost in the war and since the war.  I want to get answers and care that works for each and everyone of us.

I want the doctors that do care to stand up and unite and pay attention and care to really listen to the data we have.  I want them to get their act together.  We were injured physically by exposures to vaccines, pb, low level nerve agents, pesticides, oil fire smoke, depleted uranium.  I want the VA to acknowledge what the VARAC GWI has said in November of 08.  I want each of us to get the financial assistance we earned.  It has impacted our health, our finances, our ability to continue with our carreers we loved, and our families have been impacted and they need to hear from the VA and our govt that yes it is real!

I will probably write more but this is my way to open the door to other veterans to get us to discuss here in the comments on veterans today site and on facebook and to at least be together in the virtual world.

I hope that if others are planning group reunions that you track down all the members or survivors of your unit, we can all help and make it happen.  Develop a survey to list those that have died, age and date of death, unit, cause of death, whether they had gottenVA rating, ways to stay in touch with their survivors. 

 To survey each of your members re diagnosed illnesses, those that have gotten rated(what percentage and for what), get the details!   Get the phone trees going, get addresses, email and snail mail, phone numbers and emergency contact methods.  Set up the communications networks for your unit.  Get tasks identified and project persons delegated. Find out the good people re claims service officers that helped, and those that didnt…get names and office specifics, get the list of the doctors etc that helped and those that didnt…etc.  Time for record keeping and organization.

Then get it compiled, published, and shared.  Sharing in all ways :   to media, to mass meetings with elected representatives to present the report, to VA, to DRs, to Researchers, to the media, to the chain at the DOD, and to the White House.  These are just some ideas.  We can all contribute and help.

We need each and everyone of us to realize the time is now and we are all family.   We went with our seperate services, seperate units, different jobs and specialties.  But we all came together and accomplished the mission given to us and we became family. 

Many individuals and different groups have tried over the past 20 years.  We spoke, testified, went to the media and to the elected representatives and any other committee or advisory group that came along.  But our job, our duty, our moral and ethical duty to each other has not been accomplished.  We have not crossed the finish line until each gets the care and help needed.