Website debunking the Special Assistant 
for Gulf War Illnesses

Updated: July 11th, 2010

 

Come join our Organization as we face down the agency that lies about 

Gulf War issues. Deployment Health Support Directorate

 

1995 - 20,000,000 Gulf War military records declassified
1996 - 6,000,000 files given to OSAGWI to put on website

1996 - 1,700,000 files are medically relevant
1997 - 42,943 put up on gulflink.osd.mil website

 

At a cost of $150,000,000 less than .007% of the Gulf War Military 

records have been declassified for public release. 16 years later 

99.993% is classified , and the Pentagon has vowed to reclassify 

these records. This include Confidential Records that should have 

been released at the 15 year mark.

 

On February 14th 1999 I sent OSAGWI a FOIA asking for the bulk 

of its records names be declassified, and sent to me. I received a 

partial reply from General Vesser in a box with 2,877 pages, and 

two CD's. On the CD was the Structured database file and other part 

was a unstructured file. Again, only of the 42,943 files on the 

public server. In the Nov 5th1999 response letter from OSAGWI to 

me they explained they were processing the classified portion of the 

log sheets for me. That was the last I ever heard from them on paper 

concerning this FOIA. It remains mostly unanswered to this day 

on the other 6,000,00 files.
OSAGWI database file of 42,943 files 

OSAGWI response to me concerning partial response to FOIA

 

The Pentagon hides behind Executive Order 13292 so that the bulk 

of what happened in the Gulf remains hidden from the public. Except 

this is criminal intent to withhold information of neglect, misconduct, 

mishandling, and much worse during the Gulf War. The very same 

people who say nothing happened are the ones with full knowledge 

of those records, and vow to conceal them at all cost. The same people 

who lead us back to Iraq again under false terms, and created yet another 

disaster to live down.  

 

There should be FULL public disclosure, and we have the right to know 

what really happened in Iraq from 1990 to present.

How to complain to Veteran Affairs about your health care

Gulf War issues in 2010

 

The Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans

It had been a long time since I posted to Gulflink the website 

mostly due to the fact that while on the ACGWV federal advisory 

committee my every move was being watched. It was just easier 

to post some items to the mail list and not give VA as well as 

others too many heads up. After a while I forgot the website and 

focused on the committee activity. 

 

Things didn't go well on the committee. Simply put DOD had a 

heavy foot print in our work and the end result was pushing the 

bastardized version of the PDICI for Gulf War vets. This wasn't 

my idea and I still oppose it. The committee work was supposed 

to be about benefits and healthcare. Not about creating a national 

psychiatric program for GW vets. 

 

The end result report was a thin joke because it was censored 

down by the chairman until it just said little of nothing. It certainly 

didn't address benefits in any hard light and let so many like the 

IOM off the hook. In the end it didn't even do a single thing for the 

spouses and children of Gulf War vets, and I am very disappointed

at that having written that request in the letter to VA Sec Peake. 

The failure of the Title 38 section on Undiagnosed Illness totally 

fell short of helping vets, but in the end it was recommended to 

keep this section rather than create a new section for service in 

the Persian Gulf.

http://www1.va.gov/gulfwaradvisorycommittee/

 

Veterans should have been part of the committee selection process 

so the committee wouldn't have had so many ringer friends of the 

Chairman, and seats filled by people who didn't attend or have 

much of anything to say. It was designed to fail. Then add the 

deliberate short life span and the chairman's desire to close it way

before that deadline made it impossible to dig deep or get answers. 

Veterans stopped coming to our meetings towards the end when 

they realized they weren't being heard. That was not my desire or 

intent but I was just one voice in there. VA didn't put out a press 

release for the final report. I think that was largely due to the fact 

that I opposed the PDICI in the final report, and that letter of dissent 

effected the outcome of this because I created the committee. 

 

The Gulf War Veteran Illness Task Force

This was a wolf in sheep's clothing. The Chief of Staff John Gingrich 

spoke before our committee about forming this task force to 

continue on in essence what our committee had started. It was 

touted as being big, fast, and provide a report in a few months. 

I asked him that I wanted to stay a part of this effort though our 

committee was disbanding, and provide input when there wont 

be a channel for it. 

 

Sure enough the task force was all internal VA employees 

meeting in secret through out the process. I warned people there 

was a problem here because it was invisible. No website, no 

public meetings, nothing while policy was being decided. Sure 

enough when the report was finally published it was a joke in 

that it wanted to bring back DHWG and the IOM like they had 

always helped Gulf War vets. It was clear that ringers within VA's 

ranks wanted to trip up the Chief of Staff so that things would end 

up going back to the way they were or make it worse. There 

was however a opportunity to interject with the creation of a 

public comment section to the report. The backlash filed on the 

website was swift as 250- pages of materials poured in by mail 

and internet over the 30 day period. By the end the task force 

was realizing that public opinion wasn't all that happy with them. 

I had kicked it off by trying to create a writing style and method 

to post a response in the cryptic and over simplified website. 

Having started posting in most of the categories in the first 3 

hours of operation others caught on. But, I pushed and pushed 

this website far and wide goading people to post.

http://yourgulfwarvoice.uservoice.com/ 

 

The Task Force tried to sneak its materials out on Saturday to 

through the media, and its report brief was ugly in that it pushed 

things like greater DOD involvement. What? The last thing Gulf 

War veterans need was DOD involvement. It was clear things 

were going backwards.

http://www1.va.gov/opa/vadocs/gwvi_draft_report.pdf 

http://www.va.gov/Gulf_War_Background_Brief.pdf

 

The Uservoice website was disappointing in that it tried to coach 

generic 21 responses to what VA wanted of the vets. After a bit 

people just wrote to the first topic and then posted what they wanted

hoping to get top billing. It stopped being topic driven and then things 

became a bit anecdotal. The saving feature was the voting system 

which drove interest up.

http://yourgulfwarvoice.uservoice.com/ 

 

The GWVI Task Force wasn't what we wanted though. Its still 

a invisible entity with no outside involvement. They even went as 

far as to alter part of my committees report to seem like a endorsement 

of the PDICI, of which I am most displeased. Anything done with 

Environmental Agents as a alternative should not mirror the failed 

clinical program in Seattle. That is VA trying to step backwards 

again rather than make VA EA do its job in a more robust fashion 

with a architecture already in place that wouldn't require large 

amounts on money to gear up. I am being silenced on this and 

heavily censored to keep this idea at bay though I fought the whole 

time I was on the committee for it. 

 

Congressional subcommittee a joke 

Since September the House Veteran Affairs subcommittee has 

gone out of its way to cater to VA while trying to sabotage its 

intended Gulf War hearings. The last 2 Gulf War hearings had 

been pro-government jokes that all but endorse the IOM. Now it 

was time to make VA look good once more. 

 

The line up for the pending hearing in November would be designed 

to make VA look like it was making a difference. It would only parade 

out VA best, and make sure that only Chairman Cragin from my 

committee would present for us. That though I dissented on the 

final product and created the committee that I would be censored. 

This looked more and more like the subcommittee staffers bucking 

for a job promotion in other arenas like VA and DOD. But, the hearings 

got bumped because the GWVIS ( of which I had attacked on our 

committee for its Feb 2008 to August 2008 alterations ) and the Task 

Force report were not finished. Well, there was also the IOM report 

they wanted added.

 

Then there was to be a hearing in February 2010, and that was 

scrubbed to give VA more time. Then in April, then in June, and 

so on. By this point the full committee was supposed to step in 

and take over the hearing from the subcommittee. Well, there 

was the announcement for the July 27th hearing but it doesn't 

seem possible since the GWVIS and the the GWVITF are not 

ready for the deadline. But, it doesn't really matter since this 

hearing is rigged to fail as well. 

http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?NewsID=601 

 

Collapse of any descent medical research, clinics, or trials 

The VA Research Advisory Committee had failed Gulf War vets 

year after year. Its good ole boy mentality and non-rotating 

monopoly of ringers had kept it lingering. Worse yet, they fully 

endorsed the 2005 Hutchinson earmark legislation that would 

put all our eggs in one basket. I warned them all back then it 

was a bad idea to put it all at UT Southwestern. Well, as I had 

expected VA waited in ambush knowing that given time the 

situation would line up in there favor. Sure enough, Dr. Haley 

made enough mistakes that VA could cut his throat. The funding 

was never really there though, and it was a attempt to bleed UT 

Southwestern dry by finding excuses not to pay them once the 

money was committed on UT's side. 

 

I fought on my end year after year to get a Gulf War clinic set 

up at VA through some channel. In the end here in Texas it 

came down to the problem that none of the VAMC's here have 

space left for such a clinic. The Temple VAMC took it a step 

further and tried to get me in trouble with VA HQ for trying to 

get some kind of clinic there. The Temple VAMC had become 

outright hostile to Gulf War veterans and even took down a 

kiosk in the lobbies rather than put GW materials in it as I 

had asked. There is is much more, but I digress.

 

The push now with VA is to try and make much of this about 

PTSD and fire up a mental health campaign. If the clinic is to 

be built it will be mental health. Yet, Environmental Agents is 

a untapped reservoir already in place to find physical ailments 

that might environmental in nature. Its just been mismanaged.

 

There could have been rudimentary dietary trials in place by 

now. There could have been unique benefits and better ratings 

reviews in place by now for us. The could have been different 

medial clinical care in place for GW vets. Instead we have things 

being decided for us right now by legacy government personnel 

determined to take us back to the stone age. 

 

What could make the greatest difference right now is visibility. 

That a Gulf War vet could walk in and see a familiar face they 

can identify with. Both at the bottom and at the top. But, attrition 

has been one of our greatest enemies these years. Then compound 

that with a invisible program and hierarchy that you cant find, well 

you have the past repeat itself. So on one finds anything new or 

stays around long enough for the next person to learn of it. 

 

You also need a clinic not based in traditional old style medicine. 

Not based on the tired ideas of hack retired hack doctors from 

Walter Reed who feared too much testing was bad. But, doctors 

who deal with global medicine or at worst 3rd world industrial 

medicine that at least deals with the kinds of injuries that happen 

in those regions. American doctors are the worst as well as 

American medicine. Getting paid for failure. They don't do that 

in other countries, you get paid if the patient lives long enough

to do it there. Here, medicine is a expensive joke. 

 

I can go on about the numerous failings around me in the ranks 

of both the advocates and the government - but it doesn't do much 

good if people out there just want to sit back and watch. This has 

all failed because most of you out there take the system for 

granted. You need to get up out of your seat, away from your 

computer, and show up somewhere to make a difference. Go 

there and get involved. One person does make a difference, I 

know because I have bumped heads on high for 13 years and 

saw what happened when I got involved. If only a few more would 

try, and for the right reasons rather than personal gain we might 

actually get what we asked for. But, its starts with you.

 

We continue here at DSBR to ask questions, and ask that you join
our discussion group at GulfLINK Mail List.

 

      Sincerely

      Kirt P. Love 

      Disabled Gulf War Veteran 

              Former member: VA Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans

      Contact: Kirt Love 

                   P.O. Box 414, 

                   Crawford, Tx 76638

 

Note: Yes, I live a few miles from George Bush. But, 

people out here don't talk with him since he left office. 

He just hides out in his house and sulks.

 

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The Desert Storm Battle Registry P.O. Box 414 Crawford, TX 76638