Mystery sickness creates new battles

The obituary and portrait of Persian Gulf War veteran Doug Scott are some of the mementos his mother, Martha, keeps almost a year after her son's death.

JONATHAN ERNST/STAFF

Mystery sickness creates new battles

Web posted Sunday, September 15, 2002

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By Mike Wynn and Johnny Edwards
Staff Writers

On May 3, 1991, Carolyn Dixon hung a red, white and blue wreath on her front door and decorated her front lawn with yellow ribbons and a welcome-home banner.

Her husband, Aaron Dixon, had been away for seven months, hauling fuel through the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.

After a long flight home, he and the rest of the Army National Guard 1148th Transportation Company rode in buses from Bush Field to Fort Gordon, where a cheering crowd awaited them.

As Mrs. Dixon drove her husband home, she knew right away that something had changed about him. He barely spoke. He seemed solemn, disconnected and sedate.

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"The same body came back, but not the same person," said Mrs. Dixon, 51.

Other changes would emerge later. Mr. Dixon, like a large portion of 1148th veterans, soon developed health problems that he says were caused by his service in the Saudi Arabian desert. First his joints began aching, mainly in both hips. He had trouble sleeping, suffered anxiety and memory loss, tired easily and had difficulty breathing through his nose.

"I've forgotten the times when I used to go to bed and sleep all night long," said Mr. Dixon, 50. "For the first few hours, I sleep like a baby, but after that it's catnaps."

First Sgt. Steve Lineberry displays the sign the 1148th company made for its second base camp, Camp Fain Augusta II, in the Saudi desert. When translated from Arabic, the name of the camp is "Where is Augusta."

SPECIAL

The Augusta Chronicle tracked down 102 of the 166 people deployed with the 1148th, in some cases speaking with close relatives of veterans who had died. Seventy-five of the 102 said they have illnesses or ailments they attribute to gulf war service.

The most commonly reported problems were rashes and joint aches, along with memory problems, sinus problems and sleep disorders. Cases ranged from vets with mild joint pain or headaches to vets who have contracted cancer and died. At least three men - Douglas Scott, John O'Donnell and Willie Wright - have died in the past three years. Their relatives all say the same thing.

"Desert Storm is the cause of his illness," said Katrina Wright, Mr. Wright's widow.

Exposed to it all

For the 1148th, the Persian Gulf War really was all about petroleum. Its members never fired a rocket, a bullet or artillery shell during Desert Storm.

Their job was to keep the juice flowing, hauling fuel in tanker trucks through the bumpy, mine-laden desert terrain, where it would be pumped into jets, cargo trucks, humvees, tanks, cooking ranges and cars driven by senior officers. When it was over, the 1148th had carried 9.7 million gallons of fuel and trucked 527,000 miles - the most of any unit in its battalion.

Based on the array of theories about so-called gulf war syndrome, if any group of soldiers was susceptible, the 1148th was.. Its mission, in support of the 7th Corps, took it all over the theater of war, exposing its members to a range of hazards now believed to be possible causes.

For example:

They were in the area of fallout when weapons caches were destroyed at "the Pit" near Khamisiyah in Iraq. Rockets and bunkers blown up on March 10, 1991, were later found to have contained the nerve agents sarin and cyclosarin, and members received letters from the Department of Defense six years later saying they might have been exposed.

In January 1991, just before the launch of the ground war, doctors showed up at their base camp and injected them with the anthrax vaccine. Studies have shown that the vaccine given to soldiers was different from the drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the vaccine figures into various theories about the cause of gulf war illnesses.

They were ordered to swallow Pyridostigmine Bromide - or PB - pills to boost their immune systems in case of a nerve agent attack. The Department of Defense released a report in 1999 saying the pills cannot be ruled out as a contributor to veterans' illnesses. PB had not been fully approved and licensed by the FDA as a pretreatment for exposure to chemical warfare agents.

They inhaled toxic fumes emanating from the oil-well fires in Kuwait, set by retreating Iraqi troops.

They were often near the carnage left by battles where U.S. forces used bullets and shells containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal that produces uranium oxide dust while burning.

They bathed in water that had been transported in a tank that also had been used to haul diesel fuel.

Before being sent home, they made camp in Dhahran over the cleared foundation of a building that had been destroyed by a Scud missile Feb. 25. In the deadliest attack on Americans during the war, a missile exploded over the Army barracks housing a reserve unit from Greensburg, Pa., killing 28 soldiers. Rumors persist that the Iraqis used chemical warheads in some Scud attacks, although it has never been proved. Chemical alarms went off frequently in the desert, prompting soldiers to wear chemical suits for extended lengths of time.

A researcher at the Medical College of Georgia who has studied symptoms of Desert Storm veterans said exact causes of their health problems may never be uncovered. Soldiers who traveled through various areas, such as those in the 1148th, came back with a wide array of nonspecific and inconsistent ailments.

"The problem is the clues are just all over the place, and we can't seem to put together a single picture that explains it," said Dr. Jerry Buccafusco, the director of MCG's Alzheimer's Research Center. "If people came back from gulf war and all had Parkinson's disease, or came back from gulf war and had bad kidneys, it would be a lot easier to track down what happened."

Desert duty

The 1148th's call to active duty came Sept. 17, 1990. The 166 reservists and their families gathered at the armory on Milledge Road six days later to say goodbye.

It was a bright Sunday morning. The soldiers were dressed in camouflage uniforms, their gear strapped over their shoulders.

They posed for snapshots with their wives, husbands, children and girlfriends. They gave hugs and kisses. Some cracked jokes. Others wiped away tears.

Flag-waving crowds shouting "God bless America" lined the streets as the soldiers pulled away in tanker trucks. They stayed at Fort Gordon for six weeks, then headed out in buses to Charleston, S.C., where they took a chartered Pan Am flight to Europe, which continued to the Middle East. They arrived in Dhahran on Nov. 6.

During their six months in Saudi Arabia, they would occupy two camps in the desert. They arrived Nov. 30 at the first location, Log Base Bravo, about five miles southeast of King Khalid Military City, an operations base where thousands of troops were stationed.

They called their first Saudi base "Camp Fain Augusta." In Arabic, fain, pronounced "fah-een," is the way to ask, "where is ...," so the name conveyed a sort of homesickness.

Carolyn Dixon made a banner for her husband, Aaron, when he returned from the Persian Gulf. She said she knew he was different immediately after his return home.

MICHAEL HOLAHAN/STAFF

The unit made trips to the big refineries in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and Dhahran on the coast of the Persian Gulf. It took the fuel northward toward Kuwait and Iraq, dropping it off at various transfer points where it left full trailers and retrieved empty ones. Other units would take the fuel to the front lines and pump it into vehicles.

Despite being in the hub of the world's oil production, there was no place for Army and Air Force vehicles to gas up.

"The area is so large and so dispersed that the infrastructure is not in place like it is in this country," said Steve Lineberry, who was a first sergeant with the 1148th. " You can look at the map and see that."

The 1148th's ability to surmount this problem of petroleum resources and geographic distances among Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq earned the unit a meritorious award.

When the men and women weren't on missions, they passed the time playing football or volleyball and watching movies on television. From their camp, they could see the road leading north and could see the military buildup happening as the traffic went by. They stocked up on cigarettes, soft drinks and candy at the shops in the area.

On missions, they often came across dead camels and goats. Victor Vining, a staff sergeant, recalls finding 50 to 100 dead sheep during one run. One of his duties was to check the chemical alarms, which went off constantly but were always ruled false alarms by the Army, he said. Other veterans recall sleeping in their chemical suits and gas masks.

Some gulf war researchers, including Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, say these alarms may have been triggered by low levels of chemicals and nerve agents dispersed by bombings of Iraqi weapons depots during the first few days of the air war. The Department of Defense contends that the alarms were usually activated by diesel exhaust, after-shave and cigarette smoke.

Ten days before the ground war began, the 1148th moved to its second camp, about 40 miles west of Hafar al Batin, not far from the Iraqi border. They called it "Camp Fain Augusta II."

It was here they were exposed to the black smoke of the burning oil wells of Kuwait, set ablaze by departing Iraqis. Thick clouds drifted over the camp, blotting out the sun.

"The smoke was so heavy it looked like it was 7:30 in the evening all the time," recalls LeRoy Brinson, 56, a sergeant during the war. "It seemed like the sun never did shine."

Missions after the ground war also put them in the path of the fallout when the Army destroyed munitions around Khamisiyah. About 100,000 members of the U.S. armed services may have been exposed to a plume of nerve agents.

Still wondering

Like many 1148th veterans, Charles Cramer has no way of knowing what is causing his health problems.

Mr. Cramer, 53, has trouble sleeping and has had surgery to help relieve sinusitis since returning from the gulf. He thinks the drugs the unit was forced to take are partly to blame.

"After we came back, we started hearing all these stories that this wasn't approved by the (FDA), and that wasn't approved," Mr. Cramer said. "During the gulf war the statement was made that what we did was validate our equipment that was built during the 1980s - the Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting vehicles, the Apache helicopters. Also in return, I think they validated their medication."

He, like many other gulf war veterans, says the government has not been forthcoming about what happened to them.

"Somewhere in the halls behind closed doors at the Pentagon, I guarantee you, someone knows," said Mr. Cramer, who retired from active National Guard duty in 1998 after 26 years. "But bureaucracy is not going to let it happen. It's going to have to be dug out ... slowly but surely."

The cause of their health problems, many in the unit believe, will point back to Jan. 12, 1991. That evening, as the shadows of dusk crept over the camp, doctors showed up carrying syringes.

They told the soldiers to form a line and roll up their sleeves.

WHO TO CALL

If you are a Persian Gulf War veteran and believe you or someone in your family has been affected by gulf war illness, you can set up an examination at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Augusta by calling (706) 823-3999 or (800) 836-5561, Ext. 3999. The national help-line number is (800) PGW-VETS ((800) 749-8387).

For medical research information, log on to www.va.gov/gulfwar; or www.GulfLINK.osd.mil/medsearch.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Augusta Chronicle tracked down 102 of the 166 men and women who served with Augusta's 1148th Transportation Company during the Persian Gulf War and looked at what has happened to its members and their families since, and what could happen if U.S. forces return to the gulf.

SUNDAY: The 1148th Transportation Company's job of hauling fuel during the war put its reservists all over the theater of combat, exposing them to almost every hazard associated with Desert Storm.

MONDAY: On Jan. 12, 1991, members of the 1148th were injected with the anthrax vaccine, in some cases against their will.

TUESDAY: When their bodies began deteriorating after the gulf war, some veterans say, they didn't get the help they needed from the federal agency charged with caring for them.

WEDNESDAY: There is growing evidence that the men and women who served in Desert Storm are not the only victims of gulf war-related health problems.

THURSDAY: Some fear another war with Iraq could bring a repeat of the health problems plaguing so many Persian Gulf War veterans.

Reach Mike Wynn at (706) 823-3218 or Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225.