Soon after returning from the Persian Gulf war in 1991, U.S. veterans began complaining of strange symptoms: fatigue, joint pains, memory loss. The complaints were hard to dismiss — after all, these soldiers had been in combat-ready condition when they were shipped east to drive Iraq's army from Kuwait.
At first, the Pentagon denied that the syndrome existed, then asserted that it could have been caused by war-time chemical exposure. Although Iraq had repeatedly warned of its willingness to use chemical weapons, there was no hard evidence that it did. Nor could the incineration of Kuwait's oil fields have caused the problem, since many of the ill vets had not been exposed to the huge clouds of petro-fumes.
On Oct. 9, 1996, a prestigious committee of the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine concluded that there was no evidence for a mysterious chronic illness associated with Persian Gulf War service.
All ahead reverse!
The report barely hit the headlines when the dam broke. One revelation after another bespoke the possibility that some combination of toxic chemicals or biological agents had caused the syndrome.
It turned out that a major Iraqi ammunition dump detonated by U.S. soldiers had contained nerve gas, and that Gulf-War symptoms were appearing in ever-more vets.
After the Pentagon shifted into reverse and admitted that its vets were not simple malingerers, it turned gulf war syndrome into a heavily researched — and exceedingly frustrating — medical conundrum. Soldiers in the Gulf region were exposed to a bewildering variety of nasties: oil smoke, nerve gas, vaccines, depleted uranium, fuel, insecticides, anti-nerve-gas medicines — in addition to the usual dislocation, boredom, exhilaration and terror of wartime.
