A Soldier's Dying Heart
by
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CONFIDENTIAL ATTORNEY CLIENT COMMUNICATION ANNUAL STATUS REPORT April 9,2002 Dear Gulf War Veteran Client: National Gulf War Veteran Conference May 3-5.2002 The National Gulf War Resource: Center, a coalition of grassroots groups advocating for research, compensation, and treatment for Gulf War vets who have been ill since the war, invites you to attend their Seventh Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The three day conference, May 3, 4 & 5, 2002 will be held at the Holiday Inn-Airport North, near Atlanta airport. Government and independent scientists, including the leading researcher, Robert Haley, M.D., will present information on recent research into Gulf War Illness. I will also speak on the legal status, and answer questions. V .A. and Pentagon officials will attend to report on various programs which may provide assistance to Gulf vets. Mr. Ross Perot, former Presidential candidate, veteran's advocate and contributor of significant amounts of money and time to Gulf War Illness research from the beginning through today, will be the keynote speaker at the NGWRC's annual banquet on May 4. A special room rate of $69 per night is available to all conference participants. Call (404 ) 762-8411 to reserve, and mention "NGWRC conference" to obtain this rate (free airport shuttle). For general information on the conference call: 800-882-1315, ext. 162 or go to: www.ngwrc.org I recommend attending the conference if you have a chance to.
Veterans Administration Recognizes ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) Recently, statistics showed that there is an elevated number of Gulf War veterans with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), compared to nondeployed service members during the Gulf War period. In the wake of this research the new Secretary of the Veterans Administration, Anthony Principi, decided to grant service connection disability as a result of Gulf War exposures, to Gulf War veterans with ALS. This decision will directly help four of your named co-plaintiffs, in this lawsuit, Major Michael Donnelly, Major Randy Hebert, Sergeant Thomas Oliver and Sergeant Montana Rickett, Jr. The March. 2002 edition of VFW Magazine, and an upcoming edition of People magazine, profiled Major Donnelly and this recent development. V .A. Secretary Creates the Research Advisory Committee on Though a 12-member Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses was authorized by law on November 11, 1998, the Clinton administration never appointed anyone to it. V.A. Investigates Gulf Veteran Death Rates in About 100,000 Gulf veterans received letters in 1997 or 1998 from the OSAGWI department of the Pentagon saying that they were within the nerve gas plume from the Khamisiyah explosions. In 2000, the OSAGWI department of the Pentagon said a revised computer model showed the vapor cloud went a little differently than they first calculated. New letters went out. About 34,000 who received the previous letter were told it was believed that they were not in the cloud. About 34,000 new veterans were told that they might have been in this cloud. About 65,000 were told they were still thought to be have been in the cloud. Recently, a V .A. analysis showed puzzlling facts: among the 65,000, the death rate was 3.38 per 1000. Among the 34,000 added to the cloud projection in 2000, the death rate was 3.03 per 1,000. Among the 34,000 dropped from the cloud projection in 2000, the death rate was 29.37 per 1,000, however roughly ten (10) times that of the 34,000 added by shifting the nerve gas cloud coverage. This has given rise to some questions and skepticism over the motivation for shifting the nerve gas cloud's alleged coverage in 2000. The V .A. has promised to investigate the matter further. V.A. Releases Gulf Veteran Cancer Statistics The V.A. recently released Gulf War veterans' cancer diagnosis statistics, at my request. For the 696,759 deployed to the Gulf area between August 2,1990 and July 31,1991, there have been 2,208 individuals diagnosed with cancer, 1,843 of which were held to be service-connected and 527 held to be non-service connected. These are only statistics from the V .A. system, and do not include Gulf War veterans who have been treated for cancer in active military or civilian medical facilities since the war. If you, or any other Gulf veteran that you know of, have been treated for any form of cancer only in a civilian or active military medical facility, and never used a V .A. medical facility, please contact my office and let us know about it, so that we can get some idea of the frequency of that happening. I am also asking the V .A. to refine the cancer diagnosis statistics to those deployed between January 17, 1991 and March 30, 1991, and to obtain a number of the total deployed during the that time. This was the period in which the low-level mustard gas (and nerve gas) fallout from the air campaign bombings and post-war detonation of Iraqi ammunition dumps occurred. Mustard gas is a known carcinogen. I am also asking for the V .A. cancer diagnosis statistics for service members that were not deployed, to compare the frequency. Statistics for Miscarriage and Birth Defects Among Gulf Veterans' Families Published The October, 2001 edition of Annals of Epidemiology published a V.A. study of pregnancy outcomes of a sample of 15,000 Gulf War veterans, from four military branches and three unit components (active, reserve and National Guard), compared to those of 15,000 non-Gulf War veteran controls. The results showed that male Gulf War veterans reported a significantly higher rate of miscarriage among their wives' pregnancies. The ratio of incidence was 1.62 deployed, compared to 1.00 for non-deployed. Both men and women deployed to the Gulf theater also reported significant excesses of birth defects among their liveborn infants. The rate in the subset of "moderate to severe" birth defects was 1.78 for deployed males and 2.80 for deployed females, compared to 1.00 for non-deployed veterans. Thankfully, no significant differences were found by deployment status for stillbirths, pre-term deliveries or infant mortality. lraqi Asset Claim Status Senator Helms is no longer Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He will be leaving the Committee entirely when he retires at the end of this year. Congressman Lloyd Doggett filed and championed the Gulf War Veterans' Iraqi Claims Protection Act of 1999 (H.R. 618 in the l06th Congress), which would allow Gulf War veterans who have been ill since the war to file claims with the Justice Department's Foreign Claims Settlement Commission against the Iraqi funds that was frozen when it invaded Kuwait in August, 1990. The funds that are subject to U .S. jurisdiction are now about $1.7 billion. On July 21, 1999, Congressman Doggett's bill passed the House of Representatives unanimously as an amendment to H.R. 2415, but stalled in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Helms killed the bill in the Senate by not letting it out of his Committee. About 158 former hostages in Iraq have also filed suit in District Court in D.C. recently. They are seeking to qua
as Caused by Gulf War Exposure
Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses
Relation to Change in Khamisiyah Chemical Agent Plume Maps
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About the Book
The one SOLDIER is that I want to thank more than all is Command Sergeant Major Thomas J. Clark for showing me early in my career of what a soldier is all about, for being a soldier and friend for the last eighteen years and being there through thick and thin, good and bad. I’m one of those guys that only knows how to read one publication and that is the Army Times. To this day, I still order it to see what is going on in the Army, since I am a soldier at heart and still praise soldiers still putting their lives on the line for all of us each and every day. This all started in late 1991 after arriving back to Germany after Desert Shield/Storm. I was a normal aggressive soldier and family man that had a whole career ahead of him until one day when it all started falling apart. Now I take medications to wake up, to go to sleep, and anything in between, just to function semi-normally on a daily basis. The only people that understand are the other soldiers just like me that are having the same problem, and sometimes I have to look and see what is going on in the real world. The secret is the Government does not care about you unless you are under the ground, and then they don’t care what you have done for them.
About the Author
Randy Lynn Stamm is a forty-two-year-old retired Army Sergeant and a Gulf War Veteran. Randy was born in March of 1960 and went to Mesquite High School from 1975 to 1978 in Mesquite Texas and now holds a Graduate Degree in Information Systems Engineering with a Minor in Plan and Design. Sergeant First Class Stamm served in the Army from 14 February 1980 to 01 May 1995 in various positions and the highest being a Platoon Sergeant. Sergeant First Class Stamm took the early retirement in May of 1995 due to having major medical problems from the Gulf War and that is what prompted this creation. Randy dedicates his military service to his parents Larry and Wanda Logan on Gun Barrel City, Texas and Grand father Shawlver (Pappy) Reeda Lewis of Quitman, Texas. Every time he was on leave during his military career he always had to go visit just to get counseling and told to stay in the Army until retirement. Since retiring for the Army in May of 1995 and having joined Corporate America and not knowing that the politics were too much and having lost three jobs due to medical problems from the three different corporations, GTE, ARIS Corporation, and Alcatel USA, Inc. Now he is rated at 100% from the Veterans Administration after a seven-year battle with the Waco Texas Regional Office. Now Mr. Stamm has filed a claim with the Social Security Administration in Austin Texas and is currently getting Social Security Disability and their process only took about three months with all of the correct documentation being submitted the first time. The key is to have all your documentation from the time you leave the service and back up everything that you say and do, then remember to hurry up and wait. One of the main things now is that he is a single parent of a teenage Daughter Brittni Lynn trying to raise her. Life has really changed since he lost his last job from Alcatel USA, Inc. in Plano, Texas. He is next to getting a graduate degree and becoming a (MCSE) Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. He says that raising a daughter alone is one of the biggest challenges that he has ever taken in his life. But to this day he still will do anything for her because the love is there even if its tough love and always will be no matter what. He is a member of both Sergeant Audie Murphy Club in the United States Army CONCU and Sergeant Morales Club in United States Army Europe, the most prominent clubs in the United States Army. Lastly, one thing to remember is that you only live once and that there might not be a tomorrow. So enjoy life to the fullest every day of the rest of your life. GOOD LUCK AND GODS SPEED.