SW! What kind of position did you have in the Navy?
R.M. I was aboard the U.S.S. Independence, the aircraft
carrier. I was over there August 5th.
SW! This is the August before the January start of
the war?
R.M. This is during Desert Shield. We were the first
sizable force up in the area. According to his majesty,
the glorious General Norman H. Schwarzkopf, the invasion
might have got further from Kuwait into Saudi. You
know, I think he was just blowing sunshine up our butts,
personally. So we were up there until October sometime
before we left the area. My role on the Indy was acting
in the position of a gunner's mate-dealing with ship's
small arms and ship's security, manning up the 50-caliber
machine gun mounts that are positioned around the outside
of the ship, basically sitting on watch, watching for
small boat attacks and maintaining all of the small
arms.
SW! During that time, did they give you any kind of
vaccinations or medications?
R.M. It's standard routine on deployment to get a series
of vaccines or pills, some sort of medication for malaria
and stuff. After we deployed into the area, we seemed
to be getting more shots than necessary. Some said
it was flu shots, which was really odd for August.
Others said it was just routine shots for being deployed
overseas. No clear answers were ever given.
SW! Did anything show up in the medical records as
to what...
R.M. No. There's no records of any shots being given
during the August through October time-frame, not in
my medical records.
SW! That seems to be the common thing that we're hearing
from everybody. So what kind of symptoms have you experienced?
Did you experience any while you were out there?
R.M. No, I experienced none while I was out there.
It seemed to be quite some time, actually, after the
Gulf War. In the past couple of years, I began having
problems like morning sickness. I wake up nauseous,
vomiting every morning. Of course it is dry heaves
after sleeping all night. My energy levels are gone.
By midday, I'm just looking to take a siesta. My mood
swings are just... One minute I can be the nicest individual,
and all of a sudden some guy cuts me off and I just
want to declare war on that individual.
T.M. (R.M.'s wife) He's not allowed to have any weapons.
R.M. Memory. I sometimes just don't remember things
as clearly, as concisely as I should or I used to.
That's all that I can remember. I have fits of rage
that go into a blind rage.
SW! None of this was part of your makeup prior to the
Gulf war?
R.M. No. I was usually fairly peaceful, kind of a mellow
individual. Never as sick as with the nausea.
SW! What were you exposed to in the Gulf? Do you have
any ideas?
R.M. There is nothing definite that says, 'Yes, you
were exposed to this or that.' In talking with a guy
off the Independence that I met at the DOD town meeting,
we figured that the planes could have been contaminated
with whatever, then flew back to the ship where they
washed the planes off. Any of that stuff that was on
the planes could have washed right off onto the deck
of the ship and no precautions were taken. Small boat
patrols were zipping around us. Planes were flying
over us.
SW! What is your opinion of what could be causing your
illness?
R.M. Either they knew intentionally what they were
giving us...
SW! Because the drugs weren't even approved by the
FDA.
R.M. Right. They said, 'We know these are probably
going to screw them up, we just want to find out how
bad. These are our guinea pigs.' Or they earnestly
were giving us injections to help us, but without enough
research showing that you're not supposed to give shot
A with shot B or you'll get side-effect C. I think
the government jumped the gun without enough research
and approval on these vaccines. They gave us shots
that weren't supposed to be mixed.
SW! So you think it has a lot to do with the shots? More than chemical and biological weapons or the government's rationale of just stress?
SW! Have you gone to the VA or anywhere, to get tested?
R.M. The VA won't help me. Not because it is Gulf War
Syndrome, but because of the way I was discharged.
I was other-than-honorably separated. I wouldn't be
surprised if there's some small connection, I mean
with the fits of rage that I've had. I got into a fight
and went a little overboard with it.
R.M. I guess that deep down, I think that I was used
as a guinea pig. I tried to be the good, patriotic...
I don't know why I am...
SW! Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
R.M. To give them the benefit of the doubt, right.
It's so strange how history is written by the victors,
so you are never going to get the true accounts of
what really happened. All you are going to hear is
'We came, we saw, we kicked ass.' What about the little
guy who's getting his ass kicked?
SW! (to T.M.) You said you experienced symptoms that
affected your pregnancy?
T.M. Just basically with my daughter, so far.
SW! How old was she when you lost her?
T.M. I was 36 weeks pregnant, and all of the sudden
I didn't feel her move anymore. They said it was because
her brain had swollen immensely. Everything was perfect
about her except her brain. I was watching a talk show-Montel.
I think the guy on it was a Marine. He had two healthy
children before he went over. But since he's been back,
his wife has been pregnant four times and all of them
have had neurological problems. None of them have survived.
He was on a ship. He was never on the shore.
R.M. Right, similar to my case.
SW! People are telling us that a lot of the Gulf war
vets are getting pushed out of the military for whatever
reason-that when you complain about symptoms, they
find some reason to discharge you.
R.M. When it came to my psychological evaluation after
my incident, I kept on telling them about this blind
rage. When it happened, everyone thought that it was
someone else who did it. When they found out it was
me they went, 'No way, not him. He's too mellow.' But
when I explained to the psychologist, 'Listen, I went
into this fit of rage.', she just dismissed it. I'm
sitting there trying to explain to her, 'There's a
problem here. For 30 seconds or so, I have no recollection
of what I did. There's some guy who's in the hospital,
and you're telling me it's no big deal?'
SW! Why do you think the government is covering up
Gulf War Illness?
R.M. Well, they obviously screwed up. The government
doesn't ever want to admit that it's wrong on something
as serious as this. And they know that if they come
out and say, 'Yup, we screwed up,' then everybody who
was over there and has got problems is going to start
bombing the courts-'I'm suing!' They don't want that.
How many guys were over there, and how many guys are
having problems, and how much money is going to have
to be shelled out to the families? That is going to
start setting a legal precedent against the government.
So they're not going to come clean until every last
one of us is dead.
SW! There is the beginnings of a movement around the
Gulf War Illness. People are going to town meetings
and speaking out, trying to get more press. Lt. Joyce
Riley is touring all around the country. So what do
you think should be done about this? What do you think
people can do to change things, get treatment, get
the whole truth out?
R.M. They definitely should be more vocal about it.
If you're pissed off and having all of these problems,
sitting in a corner sulking about it isn't going to
do a damn bit of good. If you call up your congressional
representative and say, 'Listen, if you don't get something
done about this, I'm not going to vote for you.', that's
not going to do a damn bit of good. Because 'Hey-what's
one vote?' But if everyone rallies together on a common
cause, and goes up to their congressional representative
and says, 'We're not going to vote for you.', he's
going to sit there and say, 'Wow, that's three or four-hundred
votes. That could mean the difference between staying
a corrupt politician or hitting the welfare line.'
There's a little joke: Invest in America-buy a politician.
T.M. All of the rich have them!
R.M. I definitely think that everyone needs to unite.
As we all know, if you are fighting against something,
sheer numbers are going to win before the individual.
R.M. The most powerful tool is that piece of plastic
and metal sitting in everybody's house-the television.
T.M. I called the media the day after the DOD town
meeting because they only did thirty seconds on it.
I called them up and I'm all, 'This is a really important
subject and you give it only this amount of time?!.
Yet you go on to say that Bill Gates (head of Microsoft)
and all these people are over at his house. Who gives
a shit? Come on, we've got a major epidemic!'
R.M. Well, you know-money talks, bullshit walks. This
government we have is so damned hypocritical. In WWII,
we were against the fascist regime of Nazi Germany.
Well, we destroy that, and then what do we become?
A fascist regime against the communists who we were
fighting with. Then we were allies with Iran. Then
the Shah was taken out of the picture and the 'Ayatollah-assaholla'
got in there. No, we don't like him. We like these
Iraq characters, so we'll supply them. Then the Gulf
War, and we don't like what Hussein's doing.
SW! One of the things VVAW AI has worked on in the
past is creating recruiter-free zones in the schools-talking
to the youth about what the military is all about.
R.M. But I think joining the military is good for selfish
reasons. I would tell anybody, 'Yeah, go in there and
do 2-3 years, get some sort of basic education, get
your VA benefits, and suck the government for what
it's worth. Get your GI Bill.' But see, I'm not telling
them to make it a career.
R.M. Anybody who reenlists, including myself because
I was dumb and reenlisted, is a fool.
T.M. What happened during your first enlistment?
R.M. Well, at first when I went in, I was like, 'This
is great! I want to stay in forever!'. Then towards
the middle of the enlistment, 'Naw, piss on this!'
T.M. I thought your first enlistment was when you in
the Gulf, wasn't it?
R.M. Yeah.
T.M. That's what I'm talking about. And you're telling
these people to go in, do your four years, and get
out? I wouldn't. What happened to you during your first
four years?
R.M. They had a war.