Here we go again. Another hideous legacy from another catastrophic war which never should have happened. I don’t know if you guys remember the devastating effects of agent orange on returning Vietnam vets’ health that the government denied for a couple of decades. Well, it was real after all, and even became known as the Gulf War Syndrome. Now we have an even more serious and deadly attack on our U.S. soldiers and it’s not from IEDs or bullets. It’s called “depleted uranium” and it comes from exploded tanks and armored vehicles. This is the stuff that the U.S. military is most proud of because it is very effective at penetrating armored vehicles. It accomplishes its task by using radioactive chemicals which are known as depleted uranium. What happens is as these munitions explode they diffuse a substance that hits the air as fine dust which is easily inhaled. Of course, again, the Pentagon is denying that any ill health has resulted from depleted uranium. So, what is going on with our returning soldiers that is causing them to die from extremely aggressive cancers?

From an article on alternet.org, the news is startling of young men dying of extremely aggressive cancers that take them down with alarming speed. No one knows for sure what is behind the latest vet death sentences. But last month, the Iraqi environment minister blamed the tons of the chemical dropped during the war’s “shock and awe” campaign for a surge of cancer cases across the country.

Jim Lauderdale was the victim of one such cancer upon returning from the Iraq War where he served on the Iraq/Kuwait border helping transport arriving soldiers and Marines into combat areas. He was a strong man who never got sick or missed a day of work due to illness. But upon returning from Iraq, he was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth which is unusual for someone who never smoked, drank or chewed tobacco.

His doctors couldn’t explain why he got this form of cancer. But what was more mysterious was how aggressive it was. All that they could get from the soldier was that he felt he had been exposed to highly toxic agents while in iraq. He described a scene of oil refineries, a cement factory, a chlorine factory and a sulfuric acid factory, all spewing unfiltered and uncontrolled substances into the air. Anyone stationed in the area complained of burning eyes and sore throats. Another soldier reported burning skin as they walked toward the port where there was sulfuric acid spewing out of the stacks. Not long after, the soldier developed intense rectal pain and was finally diagnosed with colorectal cancer and given less than 2 years to live.

And, remember Jim Lauderdale? In April 2005, he underwent extensive and disfiguring surgery to remove half his tongue to get to the tumors in his mouth and throat. He had a second surgery a month later to clear out more tumors and a couple of weeks later, the cancer was back and growing rapidly, forcing another surgery in January 2006. By this time, much of his neck and shoulder tissue was removed. Doctors tried to reconstruct his tongue by using tissue from his wrist but he still couldn’t swallow and had to be fed through a tube. Then, just 4 weeks later, four more external tumors appeared on his neck literally overnight. Radiation treatments were tried which ended up burning his skin and at which more external tumors appeared at the edges of the radiation field. The doctors were baffled by the aggressive nature of the disease and finally abandoned treatment. At the end of his life, Lauderdale had hundreds of thousands of tumors erupting all over his upper body. Jim Lauderdale finally died on July 14, 2006 and was buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.

So many of the soldiers who have cancer at Walter Reed complain about the polluted air they lived in, the brown water they had to use, and the dust they breathed from exploded munitions. The soldier with the colorectal cancer said…

There’s so much pollution from so many sources, your body can’t fight what’s coming at it. And you don’t eat well or sleep well, ever. That weakens you, too. There’s no chance to gather your strength. These are kids 19, 20 and 21 getting all kinds of cancers. The Walter Reed cancer ward is packed full with them.

The situation has gotten so bad for returning soldiers that finally Congress has gotten involved. Congress has ordered a comprehensive independent study, due in October, of the ill effects on health of depleted uranium exposure of U.S. soldiers and their children. Fortunately, unlike the agent orange debacle, there is a bill working its way through Congress that is called the “DU bill” that will order all members of the U.S. military exposed to depleted uranium to be identified and tested.

Let’s hope that our returning vets will be recognized for their service other than just giving lip service that Bush and Co. seem to do so well, and get the help they desperately need. What this illustrates again is all the hidden horrors of war, over and above the obvious death and casualties, that seem to mysteriously creep into our vets lives. Let’s hope the Pentagon does the right thing this time and owns up to their mistakes and gives these long-suffering vets the help they so rightly deserve.