January 17, 2003 11:08

Most Media Ignoring 160,000 U.S. Casualties

By Robert L. McMahon

With war clouds gathering over Iraq, it is amazing to see the mainstream U.S. news media continuing to ignore a vital and controversial issue of direct consequence to the troops who are now being rushed to the Persian Gulf region: The incredibly large number of troops who after service in Gulf War I became stricken with serious health disabilities.

With the exception of The Washington Post and reporter Richard Leiby's timely piece on Dec. 30, 2002 ("The Fallout of War"), there has been a very loud silence throughout the American media regarding the issue of troops who became disabled by their service 11 years ago.

One would think that for those in the news media or politics who might want to challenge the Bush administration over its Iraqi policies, this would be a timely and relevant issue with which to debate the onrushing conflict. It would be an absolute showstopper for the Sunday news talk shows.

I confess to being totally baffled over this. The only explanation that makes sense comes from a Japanese custom that I learned about years ago: killing it with silence.

But the moral implications of this issue cannot be ignored. The federal government's own statistics confirm that 159,238 Gulf War veterans have been determined eligible for receiving medical disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

For those members of the news media who have difficulty with basic mathematics, let me spell this out: If the names of all 159,000 disabled Gulf War I veterans were inscribed on a black wall similar in design to the Vietnam Memorial, it would be three times as big as the original Wall.

For reporters and editors who have even a minimal knowledge of military history, the facts are more troubling yet: That number (159,000) is only 13,000 less than the 172,000 Korean War veterans receiving disability benefits. The Korean War, remember, lasted three hard years and killed 54,246 Americans, in stark contrast to Gulf War I, which lasted less than seven weeks and ended with a total of only 269 combat and non-combat fatalities and 458 wounded in action.

(There were over 33,742 American killed in action in Korea and an additional 2,835 who died of exposure, disease, accidents and other non-combat deaths. There also were an additional 17,669 American servicemen who died "out of theater" - perishing as a result of combat wounds, infections and training mishaps).

An unanswered question from Gulf War I is, just how, in God's name, did 458 troops wounded in Gulf War one subsequently balloon to 159,238?

That number is equal to roughly one-half of the 259,000 American fatalities suffered in the entire 44-month duration of World War II - a conflict that saw Americans in battle from the western Pacific to central Europe.

Should any editor or reporter with basic math skills sit down with a hand calculator, this is what he or she could determine in only a few minutes of effort: The U.S. government itself has determined that 28 percent of American troops sent to the Persian Gulf region during 1990-91 later suffered medical disabilities.

Let's look at it this way for perspective: The United States sent over 6 million troops to Vietnam over the eight-year period of our ground war. What is 28 percent of 6 million? Had the same thing happened to the Vietnam troops that happened in Gulf War I, we would have over 1.6 million Vietnam-era veterans getting medical disability payments. During the height of the Vietnam War, in 1968, America endured 87,388 combat wounded in Southeast Asia. It's a paradox. The bloodiest year in Vietnam wounded over 87,000 Americans and a four-day land war in Iraq produced 159,000 "disabled." Is it me? Or doesn't anybody find this odd?

It is my fervent hope that the American news media will start to pay attention to this subject. There are emerging signs of interest, such as the The Wall Street Journal article by reporter John J. Fialka on Jan. 2, 2003 that addressed the health implications of exposure to depleted uranium (DU) munitions ("U.S. Debates Dangers of Depleted Uranium," available to subscribers only).

And on Jan. 13, 2003, The Baltimore Sun published an excellent article by reporter Erika Niedowski ("Veterans Ask If Gulf Illnesses Could Happen Again In Iraq"), that provided a comprehensive account of GWI statistics from the 1991 Gulf War and the implications for today's troops.

Several other news organizations have written pieces relating to this toxic battlefield, but they have not begun to analyze the numbers yet.

If something as innocuous as cell phones were found to have disabled 159,238 Americans since 1991, you can bet your kid's college tuition that every public interest group, senator and congressman would be in front of a TV camera jabbering away about the callous heart and soul of American capitalism. But let the same number of disabled be the veterans of a spectacular American military victory and suddenly those same people are deaf, dumb and blind.

We at SFTT.org believe that the veterans who have suffered medical casualties from Gulf War I deserve the attention and support not only of the news media but of our public officials as well. We also believe that this medical tragedy should be fully examined in terms of the health implications facing hundreds of thousands of American troops who may be called in to invade Iraq the second time around.

For those who wish to get involved, here are some useful websites:

E-Mail Congress: http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html;
Write The Wall Street Journal: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com;
Write The New York Times: Letters@nytimes.com;
Write "Meet The Press": mtp@nbc.com;
Write Bill O'Reilly at Fox News: oreilly@foxnews.com;
Write Sean Hannity at Fox News: hannity@foxnews.com;
Write Dan Rather at CBS News: insidescoop@cbsnews.com;
Write The Washington Post: Letters@washpost.com.

Robert L. McMahon is President of the Soldiers for the Truth Foundation. He can be reached at rmcmahon1@rcn.com.