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My opinion on Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) is this: about 95% or greater is hype, and about 5% might be something.

People have been living there for thousands of years and never experienced anything like GWS.

We fought other wars in the region and nothing like GWS occurred.

(One has to wonder, though, about the sanity of those that wandered into Saudi, especially the “Empty Quarter,” and said “Gee, I like the 120 degree weather, sand-storms, no food, no water and everything will either bite you, sting you or stab you. Let’s stay!” But I digress. . .)

So, what is different?

Based upon personal experience, I think a combination of events occurred that caused a rare problem for a small amount of troops deployed in the field.

The combination of events I refer to is this: We took pyridostigmine bromide, an anti-nerve agent pill, used copious amounts of DDT bug spray, and we blew up a few ammo dumps that were found later to have chemical agents in them and then flew through the cloud. Collectively, given most of these factors, I think a cocktail effect took place that affected negatively a small percentage of troops.

Incidentally, I have zero belief that GWS is affecting REMF troops that lived in air conditioned villas and hotels in Riyadh, Bahrain, UAE, etc. They were not exposed to a combination of anything. They may have taken the pills, but that is all they were exposed to.

(As an aside, as a Gulf War I vet with the 101st Airborne, Aviation Brigade, I am registered in the GWS database because my unit is to be tracked for GWS. As an aside, times two, today I experience on a regular basis GWS medical anomalies . . .doc can’t explain it, but it is real and hurts like heck. Thing is, I don’t much care about pointing fingers or affixing blame. I did what I had to under the circumstances and have no anger or blame to hurl about. Heck, I'm not even convinced I have GWS, just a medical condition that is difficult to understand. Nonetheless, I am in the database and being tracked and being counted as possibly having GWS.)

That’s my theory, just one man’s opinion.

Oh, thanks for the civil exchange.

"I just hope the government isn't hiding something."

My deeply held opinion is---they aren't. I worked on the staff of the Sec/AF and you can bet Widnall and the Clinton's wanted very much to find their "Agent Orange" so that they could appear to be hero's in taking care of the troops. All hype for the Clinton's, I know, but they didn't want the negative press another Agent Orange issue may bring to their legacy, and they were sensitive to their negatives when it came to the military (not like they cared, they just didn't want the negative numbers). So the Clinton's saw GWS as a political tool to be used, if proved, as showing they do care and they will take care of the troops. Yeah. Right.