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Army Set To Eject
Sick Gulf War Vet And Family
Health of wife and children
deteriorating
By Linda Bordner
U. S. Veteran Dispatch
February 2000
Active duty Army Staff Sergeant Robert Jones always said he had "the typical American family"- he grew up an Army brat; by age 27, he had joined the Army himself, and served the next 18 years as "career Army."
His wife Deborah taught elementary school where they were stationed in Germany. Bob enjoyed playing tennis in the Army in Europe. He remembers the good times they had. "We would go on family vacations together. We were just the typical American family in every way."
Today, the 44-year old soldier is waging the fight of his life - literally a life or death struggle. Not only his own life, but those of his wife and three children hang in the balance. And, for this "typical American family," time is quickly running out.
Victims of the insidious Gulf War Syndrome, the family of five, all infected with the illness, have fallen victim to an even crueler blow.
Despite documentation and urgent pleas by the very doctors the Army sent the couple to for help, now the Army is moving for a medical discharge for Jones and family, cutting off their only health lifeline just when they need it most.
Dr. William E. Baumzweiger, one of the civilian doctors who has examined the Jones family, defined the Gulf War Syndrome illness as a "multisystem disease, whose symptoms are well characterized now: headaches, diarrhea, insomnia, mood alterations and cognitive problems. What is less well accepted is that it represents a specific disease process, that it is the result of a specific pathological process in the brainstem set up by a combination of immune attacks on the critical pathology in the lymphocytes in the brainstem."
"Gulf War Syndrom illness, Baumzweiger wrote in a February 16, 2000 report, "has complex pathology and symptoms. Its victims invariably demonstrate neurological abnormalities, neurobehavioral/orientation problems, photophobia, periods of disorientation and headaches are invariably seen due to inflammation in the brainstem and associated structures."
Baumzweiger wrote of the Jones family: "These lovely people are suffering from almost exactly the same illness. On admission, they had the same physical findings and their laboratory tests of their metabolism and their immune system are almost identical."
As part of the heavy mechanized deployment in the Gulf War, Sergeant Jones served in 7th Company, 1st Armored Division, which spanned Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq during the thick of the air war. Jones recounts the experience in concise, military terms.
"We were 20 or 30 kilometers from the King Khalid military city, moving toward the Iraqi border. We breached the border and met the Medina Division of the Republican Forces. Although it was only about 100 hours of ground war, three or four days were non-stop action.
"After the peace cease-fire, we were in southern Iraqi territory one or two days, then moved into Kuwait, where we spent the next 45 days in northern Kuwait.
For a month and a half, we sat in the burning oil-fields. Then, we went back into the desert to Saudi Arabia, waiting to depart."
Jones' unit deactivated after the war, and he thought the fighting was behind him. Little could he know, his greatest battle still lies before him. "I got home May 1st.
In several weeks, my wife got sick with flu-like symptoms. Our health began to deteriorate. She's never been the same since."
Despite wavering health, Deborah kept working at the teaching she so loved. By 1995 she was honored by selection for Teacher of the Year where she taught elementary school in Cumberland County, North Carolina. Three years after Bob's return from Desert Storm, she conceived their third child. The couple was thrilled, but health problems continued to arise. Deborah has been in and out of Duke University Hospital 40 or 50 times, and now is deemed totally disabled by Gulf War Syndrome.
All three children are also sick, and carry the "markers" which flag the cause of their illness as Gulf War infection, but none have been given the benefit of the latest treatment recommended for the disease.
Following a tedious series of "phases" dictated for Gulf War syndrome patients, Bob and Deborah were entered into the Army's "treatment" program. In quick succession, they were moved along to "phase three," which Bob describes in careful words.
"They call it the Gulf War wellness phase; but, basically, phase three teaches you how to prepare yourself for your eventual death."
For the military couple, the Army's solution wasn't good enough for their children, who still had not been granted needed treatment for their illness.
Despite his own failing health, Jones drew strength in fighting for his children's right to the best care available. He contacted the Army Surgeon General, who, he said, finally promised to help his children.
If he agreed to take his family to Louisiana to try a radical, aggressive treatment offered there, Jones said the Surgeon General promised to follow up with whatever treatments worked for them. Jones admits it was only a verbal agreement, but to the career soldier, a man's word in the Army stands for a lot.
Sent to New Orleans for what Army officials admitted was an overly aggressive treatment, Jones' hopes soon turned to dismay. "It was a nightmare. My wife nearly died from the treatment in the hospital."
Still, he felt, now at least the Army would stand good on its word to treat his whole family. Sadly, it didn't happen.
Only Bob and Deborah were referred to a specialist in California for further evaluation and care. It turned out to be the most helpful treatment so far, but requires them to be hospitalized regularly for IV treatments, and has strapped the couple's resources to the limit for air fare and rising medical bills.
Although the Army itself referred the couple to the California specialist, it has declined an invitation by those doctors to send its own team to California to review their treatment and records stipulating the urgency of continued treatment of these cases.
In fact, a prognosis estimate by the specialist dooms the couple to a life expectancy of five years without specialized care, but at least 20 years with it.
Back home in North Carolina, where the sergeant has mortgaged their house to help defray medical costs, both sets of grandparents have taken turns watching the three Jones children. Hoping to shield his son and two daughters from adverse public glare, Jones wants to protect their privacy, but worries about the toll the illness is taking on them.
Jones' mother Helga calls their ordeal "a real heartache." She tenderly holds up photos of her grandchildren, saying, "Whenever you hear about things like this, of course you feel for them, but when it's your child, your grandchildren, it just makes you sick. You go to bed with it, wake up with it, it stays with you all the time. They're such a beautiful loving family, it's just not right."
Her husband Jimmy Jones echoes her concern. "My son followed my footsteps into the military. He served his country, went where they sent him, did what they told him to do. Now, after they made him sick, they turned their back. They want him to go away quietly and die, so they don't have to take care of him. It's like Vietnam all over again."
Recalling the 25 years it took the military to acknowledge the reality of Agent Orange effects on its soldiers, he speaks from experience.
Now Vice-Commander of his local VFW post in Kinston, North Carolina, Jones senior served in combat three times: once in Korea and two separate stints in Vietnam. He counts himself lucky to have been spared from any Agent Orange problems, but saw how his fellow soldiers were ignored once they began getting sick.
"You would have thought somebody would have learned a lesson from Vietnam, but now the same thing has happened after Desert Storm. Where are the top commanders who were supposed to watch out for their servicemen? I love my country and I've got the service record to prove it. But after seeing what how they're treating my son and his family, I don't know how I could tell any young person to go into the service.
"If you had told me ten years ago I'd ever be saying this, I'd have had to ask you to step outside to settle it, but now.... Look at pictures of the Gulf War. You'll see black clouds of burning oilfields blocking out the sun at mid-day, chemical plants still on fire in the foreground, blown up enemy tanks from our air attacks. And right in the middle of it all, there sit our American troops. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why they're sick."
Although on antibiotics, the promised recommended care for them never came. As if the family hasn't been through enough, now the Army's action to cut Jones a medical separation effectively ensures that specialized care will never be given.
Especially now, after Jones was confident he was promised their care by the Army Surgeon General, he states, "It's hard for me to fathom a man in his position...you know, you just would expect him to keep his word."
This final blow has hurt the worst. Sergeant Jones struggles to put his plea into words. "If they don't want to help me, at least help my family. They didn't do anything to deserve this. My youngest daughter..." He swallows hard. "She's just a frail little six-year-old girl.
"I'm not saying there's a cure, because so far nobody's been cured. The doctors say my wife and I have to be hospitalized every three weeks or so, if we want to live. I'm fighting like hell for my family, to get the care they need if I'm not around.
"And we're not the only ones out there. There's at least 30,000 we know of...I don't know if they're alive or not. I've just been able to hang on because of persistence and God on my side."
To Attorney Mark Waple, who has agreed to represent Sergeant Jones, the Army discharge amounts to little more than a death sentence for the soldier who like so many, were willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. "I wonder, if Sergeant Jones was a three-star general, would he still be treated in this fashion?"
