This was sent to his office, hopefuly it will make it past the gate keepers and he will get to read it, I feel that the aides decide what the Congressmen and Senators will see, so many things that need their attention never get seen.
Content:
Dear Congressman Rangel, Forgive me for bypassing the e mail system and saying I am from your district to send this e mail, but snail mail will take to long, and I am like you I don't buy green banana's anymore. My health is bad and I firmly believe it is related to my military service, despite DOD's denying it, since they are sitting on the classified data who can argue with them?
Chairman Rangel, I made a mistake when I was 18 and a Private in the Army, you know how they tell you to never volunteer for anything? Well, I did, I fell for a recruiting pitch by a program for volunteers for testing "battle field equipment of the future" it was a medical research program" at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. You may have heard of it, it is known by many names but it is most famous for MKULTRA, MKSEARCH, in all there were over 150 code named projects run over the 20 years of the program that lasted from 1955 thru 1975. I was there from June 25 1974 thru 22 August 1974, my number is 6778A.
Thruout the past 30 years the government/Congress has investigated human experimentation many times, the Church Committee, the Nelson Rockefeller Commission, Veterans at Risk 1993, the Rockefeller Committee 1994 and there have been other studies made on the Edgewood veterans to show the first Gulf War veterans that there are few if any medical problems related to the Sarin exposure at Kamisayah, Iraq when the US Army destroyed the Iraqi Ammo dump in March 1991. I am in a unique position however as I believe I am the only veteran to be used in the Cold War chemical weapons and drug experiments at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland (the control group) and was also deployed as part of a National Guard call up for Desert Storm, I went to Khasab Air Force Base, Oman. I was just another soldier Chairman Rangel, I was an infantryman, I rose to Staff Sergeant, the same rank as Henry Kissinger I believe.
Chairman Rangel, the department of Defense and the Veterans Affairs has ignored the cause of the veterans ill health, I don;t think anyone will argue with the fact that more than 1 out of 7 Gulf War veterans are ill or disabled. The arguments begin with either is it mental, psychosomatic, or did the vaccines play a part (the French who didn't take any of the vaccines are not sick, like the rest of the coalition forces are) the smoke from the oil fires, and then the release of the Sarin and mustard agents at Kamisayah.
I have found all the known medical studies on personnel exposed to chemical weapons and there are not many, the Wermacht soldiers of WW2 who worked with Hitler's chemical weapons, he never used them, but the German government took care of the ill and disabled soldiers from 1945 thru their deaths and a DR Karl Heinz Lohs wrote this report for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 1975 http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/Publications/pdfs/cw-delayed.pdf I did a short assessment of this report and others on Daily Kos yesterday the report I did is here http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/19/03544/9126
The other known research papers were done by the US Government National Institute of Health in January 1994 here http://www.ehponline.org/members/1994/102-1/munro-full.html it shwos links to cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological and gastrointestinal problems linked to Sarin (GB) none of these conditions were found by DR William Pages March 2003 Sarin Study http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3795/4913/5842.aspx this study paid for by DOD found 25 people per 100,000 developed brain tumors, none of the other known studies ever found such a link, why? He did not discover any of the known medical problems the other studies found, why? Why did the IOM refuse to even acknowledge the only known research on Sarin and mustard agents available? Is not the NIH a respected government research facility? If not why do we as a nation fund their work?
Chairman Rangel, I know this sounds cynical, but paying disabled war vets the war "pension" of 900 dollars a month based on needs, is a lot cheaper than paying service connected medical problems such as heart disease, COPD, skin abnormalities, autoimmune disorders, gastrointestinal disorders etc. If the veterans could get these "undiagnosed illnesses" that are acknowledged by this VA Manual http://www.gulfwarvets.com/hr2697.htm That Congress approved in 1996, listed as known medical problems caused by Sarin or Mustard agent exposure then the Veterans Affairs department would be facing compensation payments in the billions and possibly trillions of dollars. Since the budget is pretty well mandated to SS and Medicare the "discretionary part" is mostly devoted to DOD programs, weapon systems of the future, Star Wars Missile Defense, next generation planes, Naval ships, tanks, high dollar items. Disabled veterans would as DR Chu of DOD would say deprive this nation from being able to field a military in the future. So if they have to choose between taking care of disabled veterans and their toys, well they would prefer to sit on the evidence or spend more dollars on research, that already exists, but doesn't show what DOD wants it to, so they keep the water murky, like they did with Agent Orange after Vietnam.
Congressman Rangel, these veterans and their families deserve the truth, they deserve real compensation benefits, not "war time pensions" that are need based and keep them in poverty. The evidence is available to make these medical conditions presumptive and raise the compensation these men and women deserve.
The veterans of the human experiments at Edgewood paid a heavy price for this research Congressman of the 7120 men used from 1955 thru 1975, 40% are already deceased 2098 men, as of FY2000 when the data was gathered, the report from March 2003 also shows that 54% of the 4022 survivors are disabled, yet the March 2003 IOM study does not explain why the 2098 men died prematurely nor does it explain what has caused the 2200 men to be disabled by 2000. The Social Security Administration shows that 3 out of 10 men will become disabled by age 65, it doesn't say anything about 4 out of 10 will die and half of the survivors will become disabled.
Congressman, we were all prescreened mentally and physically before being selected from the volunteers, I know at Fort Lewis in May 1974 over 200 men volunteered, 10 of us were chosen. We had to have GT scores over 110, OCS only required a GT score of 100, so we were smart besides being the best physical specimens the doctors could find. To pass the Army physical we all had to have 2 arms 2 legs and all our fingers to shoot with, both eyes, etc, we were not sickly men. These high death and disability rate of 74.43% does not make sense, these are men that should have lived past the age of 65. I was totally disabled and in a power chair by age 45, I spent 1o years on active duty as an infantryman, then I became a letter carrier who walked, having 7 heart attacks, a stroke, COPD, a failed triple bypass, 3 herniated disks L3-S1, skin abnormalities, and this was all by age 39, my health rapidly deteriorated after April 1992 and was totally disabling by the year 2000. I have the health of a 85 year old man and it doesn't make sense. No doctor has been able to explain it. They all just shake their heads, but the VARO is bound and determined the exposures at Edgewood did not have anything to do with it, just as DOD is bound and determined the Sarin and Mustard agents at Kamisyah in 1991 did not make those veteran sick.
Congressman, these veterans and their families deserve better as do my family, I have all the GAO reports, the DOD lies in print, the VA lies in print, when they dare put their lies in writing to US Senators, like they did Senator Craig in September 2005, they are not afraid of to much are they? Is there any way to get Congress to hold hearings into this, I have the proof the veterans need to show Congress that we deserve the benefits, DOD just sits on the truth why?
Can you please help this nations veterans, they keep telling us that we won the Cold War, I have 7120 fellow "volunteers from Edgewood that paid a very high price for it, and over 100,000 veterans that are still paying the price of lying DOD officials and continued denials of evidence that exists.
My phone number is 803-739-5749 I am home all the time I am just slow to get to the phone....
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