Leishmaniasis from Gulf War to Iraqi Freedom Leishmaniasis  
      (Gulf War / OIF) 
The Survey of the Gulf War ground troops since November 1997 Gulf War Registry (OIF) 
CCEP failing, and ending up CPG thanks to NSO's Gulf War Council of 2000
DSBR in the news throughout the years DSBR news archives
The 1994 Reigle report ot the Senate The 1994 Riegle Report
Washington DC BVA hearings - Kirt Love BVA Hearing
Get your unit location data from OSAGWI Getting your CRUR
The Clinical Comprehensive Evaluation Program The CCEP Program
The VA Reserach Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses The VA Research
      Advisory Committee 
      on Gulf War Illnesses 
The Army first inklings of the GW records The Army 
      Declassification 
      Project
The Chemical incidents and Alarms report Chemical Incidents
The Classified CENTCOM records, whay are all of them rated SECRET of higher. CENTCOM at NARA
The IOM's budget for Gulf War reports IOM report Budget
The OSAGWI's budget, only here. OSAGWI Budget 
The review words for scanning Gulf war records The Security Review 
      Protocol
The PAC Inventory list from NARA Presidential Advisory
       Committee ( PAC )
The Maxwell Air Force Base logs ( part ) Maxwell AFB Logs 
       Gulf War Records
The Air Force IRIS logs The Air Force IRIS logs
Gulf War Medical Information Medical Information
Links/Websites of Gulf War Veterans and Organizations Gulf War Veteran 
       Websites
Organization Organization
The Survey of the Gulf War ground troops since November 1997 Desert Storm Battle 
       Registry ( Survey )
The Anthrax VAERS report The Anthrax vaccine 
       and VAERS report
The Immune Serum Globulin report The ISG vaccine 
How to file Iraqi Assets claim with DOJ Iraqi Assets Claim 
        ( How to file )
Assorted gulflink topics Miscellaneous

Join the gulflink.org automated Mail List Gulflink 2007

Join the gulflink.org automated Mail List Gulflink 2006
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Website debunking the Special Assistant 
for Gulf War Illnesses
CURRENT OSAGWI MISINFORMATION
FALSE CASE NARRATIVES
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURES
REAL HELP FOR VETERANS
E-MAIL
green line
Updated: July 7th, 2011
 
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


July 7th 2011

Navy researcher links toxins in war-zone dust to ailments
 
I had said since 1999 that there was a problem with the 
soil contamination in Iraq after my sand sample was analyzed 
by CHPPM. The results are posted here: 
http://www.gulflink.org/chppm/sand.htm 
Now DOD is finally admitting that Iraq's very fine sand is a 
serious hazard to American troops. Its the fact that in the 
cracks of the silica particles alot of things can be carried. 
Such as fungus, bacteria, virus, chemicals, and metals 
from industrial dumping. It shows up in lung biopsies as of 
current troops. Well, that was also reported to the PAC in 
1995 that has been ignored on purpose by DOD / VA. All 
this carried down by the Shammal winds towards us.
 
RAC meeting in DC June 27th and 28th
 
This is a dead end only because VA has so undermined the 
RAC that they just dictate content to them via VA OR&D.
The research angle has been jinxed and VA has no intent 
of fixing it. Dont look to the GWVITF to fix any of it, these 
guys dont help with anything while they hold there monthly 
secret meetings at VA.
 
Gulf War Syndrome: A role for organophosphate 
induced plasticity of locus coeruleus neurons
 
Don Cooper Ph.D will be published July 8th 2011 with a 
paper titled "Gulf War Syndrome: A role for organophosphate 
induced plasticity of locus coeruleus neurons". This study is via
University of Colorado, with some funding from UT Southwestern 
of Dallas. As per there words "the first evidence that 
organophosphate pesticides alter an important brain region 
involved in arousal, attention and substance abuse." This 
will effect VA in future issues of organophosphates either 
in IOM studies or research issues into treatments. 

VA Gulf War Era Veterans Report: Pre 9/11

Statistics on use of VA benefits and health care by Gulf War
Era Veterans from August 2, 1990 to September 10, 2001.
What you will find missing are the 2008 GWVIS reports from
there VBA historical page which via the GWVIC committee that
found critical flaws in them. The report now focuses on OIF/OEF 
and tries to play down the Gulf War as a small aspect of this 
regions 20 years of problems.

 

-----------------------------
 
January 2011
 
The 20th Anniversary of the Gulf War
As expected the few glory hounds out there with less than 
spectacular careers have done there own private ceremonies 
to boost themselves but not the whole. So the media ignored 
them as did the veterans community. The Army of one continues 
to plod on oblivious to its own nature, these so called advocates 
are just part of a greater problem. Thus the anniversary passes 
quietly in the media rather than the news firestorm of 1997.
 
George Bush senior had a really expensive and quite pointless 
event in Bryan College station that I attended. Talking about denial, 
the liberator of Kuwait and his merry band of fellow cabinet members 
sitting around talking about the war from there stand point like it 
all went well. Hmm, he left Saddam in place that lead to 20 years 
of problems with Iraq. Then turned his back on his troops and left 
us to fend for ourselves after 310,000 filed for disability. Even today 
he and his former cabinet have no hand in trying to help the vets of 
that war. Not to mention that if the war went so well then why is 99% 
of what took place still classified 20 years later, even though we 
occupy Iraq and its not a threat anymore.
 
VA saw the opportunity to take advantage of this break down in 
the vet community to further alienate them. The promises made by 
John Gingrich late 2009 and early 2010 are now distant memories 
as he shows he has no intention of truly changing VA or listening 
to the vets. He pretty much ignored the commentary by the vets on 
his Gulf War Task force discussion site and proceeded on making 
useless recommendations that have the appearance of helping Gulf 
War vets. Yet, the benefits afforded were nothing more than adding 
diseases presumptions from the Gulf War that veterans have long 
since died from. What is missing is a two way communication with 
VA on internal policy as they now completely shut out all contact 
with the veterans. This qualifies as "do as I say and not as I do". 
Most notable is the ongoing attempt to conceal the fact that in 2008 
VA committed fraud by trying to cook its books on GW vet numbers 
in VA system and seeking benefits. I caught them on it while on the 
ACGWV VA advisory committee. Now its two years later, no new 
GWVIS reports, no public explanation of what happened in 2008, 
and the new report to replace it has been deadlocked since September 
2010 as VA keeps rewriting to hide the truth. I ask every two weeks 
and they tell me its about to go out - month after month. They just 
want to wait out the anniversary time frame of the war so that the 
report less damaging. 
 
As a veteran of the Gulf War I am absolutely insulted by the contempt 
and arrogance of VA as well as DOD on this 20th anniversary of the 
war. Nothing has changed, we have no places to go for treatment or 
real healthcare, and very lame "undiagnosed Illness" presumption law 
on the books rather than a totally revamped deployment presumption 
for serving in Iraq - the most toxic battle field in history. Worst of all, 
VA/DOD has completely cut all outside contact with veterans and 
advocates to shut us out from commenting on there numerous failings. 
Thus hiding in plain sight.
 
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.
 
 

 
   

  

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