tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35427822463972478512024-02-06T19:44:43.068-08:00Fort McToxicFormerly "Stateside Agent Orange Disease"
A blog for and about survivors of service-related toxin exposure at
Fort McClellan, Alabama,
and those who are concerned about this issue. Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-51804529667962000632013-09-04T16:00:00.000-07:002013-09-04T16:00:20.075-07:00Betrayal of McClellan's Agent Orange Vets ContinuesThe government will never help McClellan vets because there's no money (in kickbacks or pork) to be made from us. We have no lobby and no one has any money to make off us--unless some ambitious law firm wants to make a mass action lawsuit of our cause. But that's not our only concern.<br />
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The people we entrust with our medical care also refuse to accept that the legitimate claims we are making are true. Who wants to believe that this country would stoop so low as to sweep tens if not hundreds of thousands of women and men under the rug after honorable service to their country? Surely that's not how things work in the United States. We're the "good guys" right? WRONG!<br />
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We seek medical care for the toxicity that has ravaged our bodies since our teens or early twenties--for the multi-system autoimmune disease which is the hallmark of the heavy Agent Orange and PCB exposure we endured--and are told we have "too many complaints" so we must "just be depressed." While I certainly agree that it becomes depressing to be sick and in endless grinding pain from sharp spurs of malformed bone digging into one's spinal cord and other nerves, what these alleged care givers always seem to forget is the order in which the events occurred.<br />
<br />
FIRST came the toxins, then the physiological damage and then, much later, came the depression. Most people who are betrayed by the people they should be able to trust have a tendency to become a little despondent over years leading to decades of negligence and abandonment by their government and the for-profit medical establishment.<br />
<br />
Given our only great sin was to serve our country, most of us at a time when it was damned unpopular to do so, certainly before all the "display the flag" (which was made in China) rah-rah "support the troops" (unless it increases our taxes by a few pennies a year) mania that exists today, it also tends to piss a person off!<br />
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A Soldier’s 39-Year Battle</h1>
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<span style="border: 0px; color: maroon; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“My Life Has Been Ruined, Destroyed,” Says Susan Frasier</span></h2>
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<span style="border: 0px; color: grey; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">by Dennis Yusko</span></div>
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ALBANY — Disabled Army veteran <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Susan+Frasier%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Susan Frasier</a> rides an overnight Greyhound bus alone each month to Washington, D.C., to walk the halls of Congress in search of elected officials who will support her where the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and federal courts have not.</div>
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Frasier, 60, blames her five months of Army training at <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Fort+McClellan%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fort McClellan</a>, Ala., in 1970 for decades of crippling health problems. She says toxic chemicals at the base poisoned her, causing her to suffer from fibromyalgia, autoimmune disorders and asthma. She underwent a</div>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/01/a-soldiers-39-year-battle/women-at-fort-mcclellan/" rel="attachment wp-att-83837" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="lazy size-full wp-image-83837 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/women-at-Fort-McClellan.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="188" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/women-at-Fort-McClellan.jpg" style="background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); display: inline; margin: 0px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="women at Fort McClellan" width="240" /></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Women’s Army Corps at Fort McClellan, Alabama</dd></dl>
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hysterectomy at age 37, and surgery to remove a life-threatening stomach blockage in 1991, when she was forced to retire from General Electric Co.</div>
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Despite her health problems and living on a fixed income, the Albany woman has for eight years traveled to the nation’s capital to press lawmakers to examine the health records of Fort McClellan veterans. She also wants state leaders to investigate past corruption of disability claims in the VA’s New York office, which has rejected her applications for monthly disability payments stemming from her military service.</div>
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Driven by a belief that the VA has abandoned her and others who served, the ex-soldier has turned into a “protester” for veterans rights. Frasier counsels others who served at Fort McClellan, some of whom have also experienced health problems that are similar to those caused by Agent Orange exposure and Gulf War Syndrome.</div>
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“My life has been ruined, destroyed,” Frasier said.</div>
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The Corinth native joined the Army as a healthy, fiddle-playing teenager in 1970. She wanted to serve at a time when women were integrating into new military roles. Like most female recruits and military police near the height of the Vietnam War, the Army assigned her to train at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Ala. “There was very aggressive recruitment for women to join the military in those days,” Frasier recalled. “They promised us a lot.”</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Principal training center</strong></div>
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Established in 1917, Fort McClellan was the home of the Women’s Army Corps, <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Military+Police+School%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Military Police School</a> and the Chemical Corps. As one of the military’s principal chemical and biological training centers, some of its troops were subjected to live chemical agents in training, reports say.</div>
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The base maintained an annual average population of 10,000 troops, but the federal <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Base+Realignment+and+Closure+Commission%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Base Realignment and Closure Commission</a> voted to shut down Fort McClellan, and it closed in 1999.</div>
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At Fort McClellan, the Army assigned Frasier to its 14th Army WAC Band. The young private played percussion in a marching band and 12-string guitar in its dance band, which performed at officer clubs. Frasier remembers smokestacks emitting dark smoke and a fog-like haze, but no strange smells or tastes. She was there from July through November of 1970.</div>
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What Frasier and tens of thousands of vets who passed through the base didn’t know — and many still don’t — was that the Army’s experiments with chemical munitions on the base turned Fort McClellan into a hazardous waste site, according to the <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22U.S.+Environmental+Protection+Agency%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency</a>. But that’s not all.</div>
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Anniston, a city about the size of Saratoga Springs, grew into the most contaminated place in the nation, according to scientists. Located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, soldiers on the 42,286-acre base drilled just miles from an enormous chemical manufacturing plant owned by Monsanto Corp., which produced and discharged tons of polychlorinated byphenyls — PCBs — into the air, soil and water for several decades until 1971, according to the <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22EPA%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">EPA</a>. Located just east from the camp is the <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Anniston+Army+Depot%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anniston Army Depot</a>, which incinerated nerve gas and contaminated area soil and ground water with cyanide, lead, pesticides and more through the late-1970s, the EPA says.</div>
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PCBs were banned in 1979 due to environmental and health concerns. But the 70-acre Monsanto factory, the birthplace of PCBs, leached the chemicals into creeks and buried tons of PCB waste in two mountainous landfills, the EPA says. Residents were ordered not to grow vegetables, eat fish from rivers, even smoke cigarettes in their yards.</div>
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Monsanto and Solutia Inc., which was spun off from Monsanto in 1997, have paid more than $1 billion in damages and clean-up costs to residents of Anniston and face additional legal actions, including some lodged by Vietnam veterans. In 2005, Frasier filed a personal injury suit against Monsanto in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. U.S. District Judge <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Karon+Owen+Bowdre%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Karon Owen Bowdre</a> dismissed it, saying Frasier disregarded court orders and deadlines and filed incorrect paperwork, according to public court documents.</div>
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The suit is one of at least eight legal actions that Frasier has lodged against corporations and governmental agencies for her health problems and alleged violations of her civil rights without the guidance of an attorney, according to court papers. She represented herself, she says, because she could not afford an attorney. All the suits were thrown out.</div>
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Frasier was honorably discharged as a specialist on Aug. 12, 1972. She retired from GE in Schenectady, and volunteers for Albany’s <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Office+of+Special+Events%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Office of Special Events</a> in her spare time. She is divorced with no children, and lives on disability payments and a small pension.</div>
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Frasier is one of the first persons to demand answers about how PCBs and other toxins in Anniston impacted the health of soldiers at Fort McClellan. Her persistence is beginning to pay off.</div>
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Her years as lead spokesperson for Fort McClellan veterans with the Veterans’ <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Disabled+Benefits+Commission%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Disabled Benefits Commission</a>has become the guiding reference for Rep. <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Paul+Tonko%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Paul Tonko</a>‘s Fort McClellan Health Registry Act. The bill would have the VA establish a list of service members stationed at Fort McClellan between 1935 and 1999, and examine their health records for toxic exposure. Tonko will reintroduce the bill to Congress this year. “We need to know the answers,” his spokesman said.</div>
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For many, the results are already in.</div>
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Like Frasier, <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Diana+de+Avila%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Diana de Avila</a> of Malta fell sick weeks after completing basic training at Fort McClellan. De Avila trained as an MP at Fort McClellan from 1983 to 1984. She, too, lost her ability to have children, and her thyroid, appendix and gall bladder have been removed. Doctors diagnosed de Avila, 45, with multiple sclerosis in 2002. “It’s been extremely difficult,” she said.</div>
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Frasier and de Avila learned randomly about the PCB threat at Anniston from a 60 Minutes news segment in 2003. De Avila also retired from GE after her symptoms grew unmanageable. The two say that many of the people they served with are ill. “I think Sue is doing a great service,” de Avila said.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Record of Pollution</strong></div>
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PCBs and other toxic materials made Anniston the most polluted place in the U.S., said Dr. <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22David+Carpenter%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">David Carpenter</a>, director of the University at Albany’s <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Institute+for+Health%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Institute for Health</a> and the Environment. He testified in court cases for residents around the Monsanto plant, and has studied their health patterns for the last five years. Carpenter has discovered increased rates of heart disease and high blood pressure, bone and joint pain, nervous system problems, diabetes and more.</div>
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“We think the major route of exposure was breathing the air because it was full of PCBs,” Carpenter said. PCB exposure causes cancer in animals and increases the risks of cancer, reproductive problems and autoimmune diseases in humans, he said. Nearly everyone in Anniston suffered PCB exposure, he said.</div>
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Neither Monsanto nor the EPA warned Fort McClellan vets of possible health threats, even though the company suspected by 1969 that PCBs would become “a global environmental contaminant,” and the EPA was aware of the problem since the 1970s, according to the 60 Minutes report. Neither 60 Minutes nor Carpenter’s research addressed Anniston’s veterans.</div>
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Frasier fell ill weeks after she left Alabama for Army Signal Corps School at Fort Gordon in Georgia. She was then transferred to Fort Rucker in Alabama, where she delivered death notices to families of those killed in Vietnam. Frasier’s medical records reflect her health problems. Unaware that Anniston was polluted, she returned to the area and lived there from 1973 to 1977.</div>
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Veterans say that most of the general public are unaware of the problems at Fort McClellan, but word has begun to spread on blogs and Facebook. The story, they say, has an outspoken martyr in <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Agnes+Bresnahan%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Agnes Bresnahan</a>. Less than three years before dying in 2009 from chemical exposure, the Army captain testified before the VA Disability Commission in Washington, D.C., that doctors at Walter Reed Medical Hospital had diagnosed her with exposure to Agent Orange, PCBs, mustard gas and sarin gas from her time at Fort McClellan. Bresnahan told the commission in 2006 that she wanted to address “the total and intentional failure of the VA in processing and approving service-connected entitlements for women and men exposed to weapons of mass destruction.”</div>
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Frasier became a lead spokesperson for Fort McClellan vets after Bresnahan’s death, said <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Paul+Sutton%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Paul Sutton</a>, the former longtime chairman of the Vietnam Veterans of America’s National Agent Orange/Dioxin Committee. A former Marine who was exposed to Agent Orange twice in Vietnam, Sutton is an advocate for sick Vietnam-era and Fort McClellan vets.</div>
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During the Vietnam War era, the military experimented with Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant, at Fort McClellan, and stored cannisters of it near a women’s training center and barracks, Sutton said. “Virtually every woman who cycled through there in the late 1960s and early 1970s probably have had health affects,” Sutton said. He estimated that up to 6,000 women and about half that number of men were made ill by PCBs or Agent Orange at Fort McClellan during the Vietman War years, and the VA has paid out disability benefits to “probably less than 50″ of them for health complications.</div>
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Unlike Frasier, de Avila receives VA disability payments because it ruled that her MS is service-connected. The VA, however, does not acknowledge that de Avila became ill at Fort McClellan, she said. It can be very difficult for older veterans to prove that their illnesses are service-related, Sutton said.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hazardous Waste Sites</strong></div>
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<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/01/a-soldiers-39-year-battle/agent-orange-1/" rel="attachment wp-att-83838" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="lazy alignleft size-full wp-image-83838 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/agent-orange-1.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="184" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/agent-orange-1.jpg" style="background-color: white; border: 1px solid black; display: block; float: left; margin: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="agent orange 1" width="274" /></a>The military practiced with many hazardous materials at its bases before environmental laws took hold. More than 170 military bases in the U.S., including Fort McClellan, are designated hazardous waste sites, says the EPA, which tracks nearly 1,600 such sites nationwide. The EPA has not tested Fort McClellan for PCBs.</div>
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The Army says it is cleaning up munitions, explosives and sites on Fort McClellan where “contaminants” were released. The VA declined to answer questions for this article, even though Frasier signed a form allowing discussion of her confidential file.</div>
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But VA Director <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=local&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Bradley+Mayes%22" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Bradley Mayes</a> told the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in 2008 that the Department of Defense had concluded that there was little or no PCB contamination at Fort McClellan. Soldiers living off-base, however, “may have been exposed to PCBs,” he said.</div>
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The VA does not support creating a health registry of Fort McClellan veterans because it is “unlikely to improve the health or otherwise benefit” them, Mayes said. He added that it would be difficult to locate personnel who served and find accurate information about their medical conditions. The VA is instead monitoring health studies being done on Anniston residents by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Mayes said. Veterans who can prove that their illnesses are related to exposure during military service can obtain a related disability claim, Mayes said. But that hasn’t been the case for Frasier.</div>
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She applied for VA disability benefits weeks after her discharge, but is still appealing her denials 39 years later. A VA hospital nurse filed Frasier’s original disability application in 1972, but did not submit necessary paperwork, which damaged Frasier’s application for benefits, she said.</div>
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In interviews and court papers, Frasier alleges that the VA has relieved itself from paying disability claims to her and other Fort McClellan veterans through phony hearings, tampering with or trashing claims and other legal maneuvers. She had spoken out about VA claims issues before 2008, when officials found widespread backdating of claims and piles of unopened mail in its New York City office.</div>
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Fraiser’s most recent legal maneuver over disability benefits is an appeal filed against VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in which she seeks to overhaul the VA disability claims system to make it what she says will be more accountable to veterans. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit became the fourth entity to rule against her.</div>
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<a href="http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/A-soldier-s-39-year-battle-1032634.php#ixzz1FDlYLQ3T" style="border: 0px; color: #00659c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">View Original Article</a></div>
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“That’s a lifetime lost to process with no accountability on the other end,” Frasier said.</div>
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<cite class="fn" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BArry W.Sellmeyer</cite><div class="comment-meta commentmetadata" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 3px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/01/a-soldiers-39-year-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-180730" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #8f8f8f; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">March 6, 2011 - 1:33 am</a></div>
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Thanks for your work Hr2254 and S1939 would cover the Blue Water Vietnam Veterans if ever passed. As per the web site 100,000 vets have been denied coverage my battle is over 10 years old. been denied several times and now in flux. Keep up the good fight. Barry Sellmeyer</div>
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<cite class="fn" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">T S Umbra</cite><div class="comment-meta commentmetadata" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 3px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/01/a-soldiers-39-year-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-179076" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #8f8f8f; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">March 2, 2011 - 12:16 pm</a></div>
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And the list of contaminated sites continues to grow:<br />“The Silencing Waters of Leon Creek”<br /><a href="http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=177327" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=177327</a><br />and grow:<br />“Silent Island” et al.<br /><a href="http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=173720" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=173720</a></div>
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Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-73287826113538258842013-05-11T23:16:00.000-07:002013-05-12T03:10:39.862-07:00We're Not Going to Stop!<br />
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<img src="http://www.fortmcclellantoxicexposure.com/AL%20FMC%20article-1.jpg" /><br />
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For those of you with bad eye days (like I often have) my apologies...this is the best I could do for you. But this is good news. We are becoming more mainstream. When this issue first became an issue, when I joined AOL back in 1997 and started talking to a friend in Intel and a couple Generals and lower echelon "brass" who were just political junkies like me--just explaining how I was not feeling well and about the rumors I'd heard while at McClellan and the discrepancies between my immunization record and how many injections I got, and some other stuff--I thought they'd laugh at me. They did the OPPOSITE! They encouraged me to start writing about it. I was so surprised, and THEY were so intense about it. Looking back it makes sense now. They KNEW! At least the main General I spoke with did. He was... I guess you'd say connected, and he was the one who pressed me the hardest to keep at it. I felt like I was being a major conspiracy theorist, but this was before 911, before so much innocence was lost. I was so young for my age. I really did earn that nickname, Polly Anna. Now they'd be more likely to call me PANDORA!<br />
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Anyway, they said I should get in touch with as many people as I could remember (not easy to do when you have fuzz-brain most of the time) but I did it, and I found out that every single person I spoke to had significant health issues. That isn't just statistically improbable, it's off the charts.<br />
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To complicate the issue further, the majority of us seemed to have had "issues" getting our benefits from the VA because our service records had been 'lost'. I was not the only one who had to have my member of congress threaten a congressional investigation in order to get a home loan or educational benefits. Freaky deaky right? I seriously thought I was the only person who'd ever had to have that done. When they told me that ridiculous story about the fire that only destroyed records of McClellan vets even young me thought, "Uh, yeah... .sure." ...but beyond that, I never really gave it that much thought, at least until my tendons and ligaments started popping out of my bones for almost no apparent reason.<br />
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Seriously, I rolled my ankle stepping into a pot hole, wearing tightly laced BOOTS, and tore the retinaculum (the little U shaped piece of "cartilage" that holds your outer ankle ligament, the peroneal ligament, to the ankle bone). I had bruising all the way up to my butt and was in a cast for weeks before starting PT. It was such an unlikely thing to have happened with someone as young and healthy and fit as me that neither me, my own sports medicine doc nor the physical therapist (who was becoming increasingly frustrated by my lack of progress and what he saw as dramatic tears, which I was doing everything but asphyxiating myself to keep from shedding because I'm so damned over-proud of how tough I am) ...he just never thought to look for it until he finally heard/felt something when he moved my ankle a certain way. I knew what it was right away and it I hadn't known it meant immediate surgery I'd have been tempted to tell him, "IN YOUR FACE!" It was the subluxation of my peroneal tendon which was going all over the place because it was shredded almost to snapping totally and the retinaculum was completely torn off the bone...and I'd been doing PT on it for WEEKS. Immobilizing a simple sprain would have healed it, and it just never occurred to them I'd torn that retinaculum all the way out like that or shredded my ligament so badly just rolling my ankle. I was just too young and apparently healthy and the injury was not that severe...or so they thought. They just figured I bled a lot and got the bruising because I was taking fish oil AND garlic oil, which are both blood thinners.<br />
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Sorry this is getting long, but there is a lesson coming, I promise. The poor PT went exceedingly pale, exceedingly red, then back to pale again, apologized profusely and had the doc come to see me, at which time he heard/felt the same thing, cleared his throat, smiled reassuringly and called the surgeon who does all the ortho surgery for the professional football team in town.<br />
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Aside on how important it is to <b><span style="color: red;"><i><u>be assertive in your own medical care</u></i>:</span></b> I had worked with a certain anesthesiologist and knew him to be very personable, the life of every "attitude adjustment" (party) the staff ever threw, but highly unprofessional while working and incredibly, as in, '<i>how on earth does this guy keep his licence to practice medicine, much less his malpractice insurance</i>?' careless. Needless to say I requested that he NOT do my case.<br />
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Fast forward a few days. The Surgeon calls and says he's doing an emergency surgery the following Saturday on one of his athletes and will fit me in too if I want so I can get back to my own patients sooner rather than waiting for his next opening a few weeks later. I'm thrilled, say yes, call the OR to make sure Dr. Dopey isn't the Anesthesiologist on duty that weekend, and CRAP...he is, but there's also a Nurse Anesthetist, so I say, "Okay, just PLEASE make SURE I get the Nurse Anesthetist! I want it official, on my chart, in writing."<br />
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Day of surgery I get there, all is going well, and in walks Dr. Dopey. I won't repeat the string of words I uttered under my breath. "I know you requested not to have me do your anesthesia," he cheerfully blurts, "But do you mind if I just do your pre-op? The Anesthetist will do your actual anesthesia as requested." Then he winked, and it dawned on me. He thought I didn't want him to see me naked because they scrub the whole leg! The egotistical LECH!<br />
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WT inglorious F. This is where I should have been assertive and said, "Actually I do mind, please let the RN or Nurse Anesthetist do it." I suspect Dr. Dopey couldn't quite place who I was given we practice different specialties and he'd known me by my married name when last we'd partied together.<br />
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That was the time my then-husband impressed upon him the importance of our marital bond after Dopey, who was especially so that night, so maybe he was Happy, no, actually his nose was runny, so maybe he was Snorty, I mean Sneezy, asked me, for the third dance in a row, to slow dance, to fast music. (Somewhat hypocritical on my husband's part given future events in our marriage, or outside it I guess you'd say, but hilarious at the time.) I have since changed back to my maiden name and Dr. Dopey no doubt simply wanted to see who'd had the poor taste to value her health over the whimsy of having the doctor with the Pee Wee Herman doll in his anesthesia cart. Not that I have anything at all against Pee Wee Herman!<br />
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I am strongly against continually letting little kids' oxygen saturations go from the high 90's where they belong-nice and pink, to the low sixties or worse-very blue, for minutes at a time because Dr. Dopey can't flirt with the new nurse or surgical tech du jour and properly operate an ambu bag at the same time and likes to run "his OR" with alarms OFF ...and it's the same if not worse with his adult patients. I had visions of waking with a CO2 headache the size of Texas and barfing for the next four hours. No thanks. I never trusted that all those narcs he signed out went to his patients either. His patients always seemed to come out of anesthesia faster and in more pain than everyone else's while he always seemed to be happier and happier the later in the day I saw him. You do the math on that one!<br />
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I once saw him berate a professional nurse, BSN, for insisting that he check the numbers on a bag of blood with her per hospital protocol instead of just handing it over to him, saying "I AM the double check, sweetheart, M and D as opposed to R and N." She blandly stared at him over her mask without blinking her rather striking green eyes for just an extra beat or two before calmly beginning to read off the numbers, which did not match, which was all the more embarrassing for him because he had already signed off on that unit and would have given it to the patient, which would have resulted in a severe transfusion reaction because of the kinds of blood involved. Transfusion reactions can be deadly. If that kind of thing happened only on the times I attended surgeries with my patients, I cannot imagine how many other errors the man made on a regular basis! So, as you might now better understand, I really did not want him anywhere near me in the role of Anesthesiologist.<br />
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But then I thought to myself, what possible damage can he do starting an IV and giving me my pre-meds before surgery? I have difficult veins and the nurses can rarely start my IV's anyway, so he'd probably have been called to do that anyway. The surgeon was already kind enough to fit me in. The least I can do is keep his day moving along smoothly. Surgeons REALLY value that! It was kind of a way of saying thanks and repaying a professional courtesy in kind.... or so I thought.<br />
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That jack-ass, Pee Wee Herman doll waving, skirt chasing, a-hole almost killed me! That's what damage he could do. He gave me a med, one the hospital had recently begun receiving from a new supplier, and instead of READING what the vial said, he went by the COLOR OF THE LABEL and gave me ONE HUNDRED TIMES the maximum human dose (like for a 300 pound human!) of a very dangerous drug (and he gave it all at once instead of over a fifteen minute period as it should be). It's used to raise blood pressure, and what I was supposed to get was a simple anti-nausea drug so I wouldn't barf after surgery. The thing is, I will never know if he subconsciously did it intentionally or not. One of the hardest things I have ever done is stay calm as I requested to be hooked up to monitoring immediately because I believed I was having a bad reaction to a medication or may have been given the wrong thing, because my head literally felt like it was going to explode. I now KNOW for SURE what a 10 on the pain scale feels like, but through that haze of pain I HAD to stay calm because if I "lost it" they would think I was just getting hysterical about the impending surgery and try to talk me down, wasting precious time during which I NEEDED OXYGEN, STAT and whatever the hell they give to counteract a massive overdose of what he just walked over to the med cart and almost passed out when he realized he gave it to me before quickly throwing it into the needle sharps disposal container, from which it is irretrievable, and therefore unable to be witnessed by anyone else, the evil bastard. His shaking and pallor gave it away anyway, not that it did me any good, but that slow motion thing really does happen.<br />
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And now I know what "my" heart attacks feel like. I don't know if I'll have the head exploding thing with it, but the chest being squeezed, compressed to 1/4 its size is unmistakable. And yes I thought of <u>How the Grinch Stole Christmas</u>--THAT was almost my last thought--the cartoon of that tiny, teeny little too-small heart and that stupid dog with sticks on its head with the belt squeezing around it--amazing the mixed images your mind comes up with under duress. But if the "big one" ever hits again, I'll know it for what it is. Odd thing is, I was in denial about it for years afterward. Even through the lawsuit, neither I nor my HORRIBLE lawyer (who I later found out usually represents insurance companies) thought of the fact that a squeezing band around one's chest might mean one had a heart attack and might have life long heart damage. That is how damaged my brain was, and how long it has taken me to return to "myself."<br />
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At least I was able, along with Dopey's ashen color and shaken appearance and call for the Anesthetist to come and take over for him STAT, to convince them that I really was in trouble physically and they finally took my BP and it was off the limits of the machine. When it finally registered it was 262/210. Prior to that it was 72/50 because I was in good shape and on pain meds. Quite an abrupt change, hm? Normal/ideal is 110/70. My guess is if I didn't have any aneurysms at the time, I may now though my pulse pressure wasn't really that wide, so who knows. Thank GOODNESS I was still fit at the time! I honestly believe my devotion to...well Tae Bo itself saved my life. Thank you Bill Blanks!<br />
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They gave me oxygen, tilted the bed to Trendelenburg, and shot something else into my IV. My guess is it was Versed, and LOTS of it, but bad luck for him, it does not cause amnesia in me for some reason--in fact since it did do half its intended job and put me to sleep immediately after the incident it was like cementing the memory in my mind for all time--otherwise there's no WAY I would recall it all so clearly ...a gift of the McClellan Cocktail is our outright WEIRDO reaction to a lot of medications, am I right or am I right?<br />
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But that was the final insult that began the cascade of events that led to my disability. So, lesson: BE ASSERTIVE AND STICK TO YOUR GUNS! ALWAYS! Doctors are not gods, they are people and YOU know YOU better than they do! If something makes you think, "Hmmm" SAY so! Doctors make mistakes, and when they do, it destroys peoples' lives. Don't let that happen to you. If you disagree with your doctor, no matter how NICE he or she is, or get a bad gut feeling about that person, do not hesitate to get another opinion. It's not like you're getting a car fixed. You only have one body...one life. It may suck a bit more than someone's who hasn't had the McClellan cocktail, but it's worth caring for! And for the record, no, I did not make money on the incident. There's an old adage among the medical community. If it's not charted it didn't happen. I'll let you take it from there. Nurses are easily bullied, especially in small town Catholic hospitals. If enzymes aren't run right away after a heart attack it can't be proved to have happened. If someone has brain damage on MRI and they only have a clean CT to prove they didn't have brain damage before, it's not good enough. Given a choice between helping a colleague stand up to another doctor or helping cover another doctor's butt, doctors will ALWAYS opt to help cover another doctor's butt, and that is why there are so many crappy, unsafe, disreputable doctors killing people in this country! They really like small to mid sized towns so beware and look up your doctor's record. If he's been sued for malpractice or disciplined by the State you can find that information online.<br />
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To return to what happened when I contacted people I knew from McClellan...<br />
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The health stuff among the people I contacted started sounding very familiar from case to case. SO many of us had had early term SA's (SA means spontaneous abortion-the medical term for a miscarriage) as opposed to elective abortion or terminated pregnancy...or the 1960's standard euphemism, D&C. Almost all of us had had at least a couple early term SA's, which is just plain unheard of as far as statistical significance goes, and they all happened with our pregnancies closest to when we'd been AT McClellan. As I've told my patients countless times when they grieve over miscarriages, often there is good reason for them, and in the time since I've started studying the chemicals we were exposed to at McClellan and the birth defects associated with them, I have no doubt that my own SA's were a mercy. Those chemicals are highly teratogenic. Its amazing how the reproductive systems in humans are so hard hit, from the organs themselves to multiple miscarriages to birth defects. I had issues, and lost my ability to have children which lost me one extremely significant relationship, maybe my most, and no one really knows what early loss of ovaries as well as the uterus does to women. I was barely thirty! That is a LONG time to be on unopposed estrogen. I know I have suffered from the loss of testosterone and that my entire endocrine system is FUBAR (nice military term, that). From thyroid to hypothalamus ..none of it works right, though my doctor is a "by the numbers" man, not realizing that over time organisms, especially humans, adapt. Those adaptations are not always healthy though, or for the best...just a struggle for homeostasis. If I wanted that I'd be on some numbing antidepressant and just stop experiencing my life all together. NO THANKS.<br />
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Worst is what they've allowed to happen to our children though. WE volunteered to serve, and like it or not we became property of the US military when we did so. Our kids never made that deal and it's just not right they THEY are suffering for OUR mistakes. I have little doubt that my oldest child has McClellan-related neurological and connective tissue issues, while my much younger child appears less affected, though not completely healthy either. Both have issues with bones and my elder child has spina bifida occulta with negative history in both his father's and my side of the family. I took plenty of folic acid before and during my pregnancy too, so it SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED!<br />
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So, thank you very much for the knowledge that my son works every day in excruciating, crushing pain, Monsanto--glad our pain and suffering has increased your damned profit margin and made life nice for whoever you paid off to keep the heartless and hapless VA in charge of our health and well being. And thanks to the lobbyist or other military-industrial complex enabler who got service members and their families EXCLUDED from both the Agent Orange settlement AND the Anniston, Alabama, v Monsanto settlement, and most of all thank YOU, Veteran's Administration for continuing to deny us the care and compensation you were COURT ORDERED TO PROVIDE by continuing to insist that proof of cause and effect does not exist, despite the fact it absolutely DOES exist, IN PUBLIC AND JUDICIAL RECORD NO LESS! ...or do you really expect us to believe Monsanto lost that long and hard-fought case against such a tiny little town in Alabama because they, the multi-national corporate GIANT, despite still swimming in billions of dollars from no bid contracts awarded to BLACKWATER which it also owns, could not afford lawyers powerful enough to take on little ol' Anniston, Alabama.<br />
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Without logic, compassion or a legal leg to stand upon the VA spits in the face of the judge who ordered that we be cared for and compensated based on the notion, CLEARLY disproved in Anniston v Monsanto, that no cause/effect exists between the chemicals leaked into the environment by Monsanto and the high instance of diseases, reproductive issues, cancers and premature death...therefore CONTINUING against all reason, logic and HUMAN DECENCY to sweep us and our suffering children under the rug like yesterday's spilled coffee grounds.<br />
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How long are we going to stand (or sit) silently and let them get away with it?Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-63533240320645661512013-04-29T03:56:00.000-07:002013-04-29T03:56:43.223-07:00McClellan Vets vs Medical "Professionals"<br />
Before I dig into this issue, I just want to share this post I found, because it is in formulating a comment to it that today's topic actually came to mind. Most of you have probably seen it, but it's excellent, and a good, comprehensive piece to bring with you to any doctor's appointment. So don't let the title throw you, and here's the url:<br />
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<a href="http://www.veteransunited.com/network/will-ft-mcclellan-exceed-camp-lejeune-status/#comment-35629">http://www.veteransunited.com/network/will-ft-mcclellan-exceed-camp-lejeune-status/#comment-35629</a><br />
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Something I didn't note below is this: Monsanto LOST a lawsuit over this issue. They LOST. Let me say this one more time. THE MOST POWERFUL CHEMICAL (followed by countless etc.'s including Blackwater, the Bush/Cheney Iraq and Afghanistan war profiteering corporation which had to change its name to Xe amid rape and murder allegations --> convictions) ...America's biggest, baddest corporation <u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">LOST </u> hundreds of millions of dollars to the people of tiny little Anniston, Alabama over the very same issue WE have with the VA! THAT is called SETTING A PRECEDENT! In legal terms, that is HUMUNGO --which I realize isn't a word, but it should be!<br />
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Seriously, Monsanto's loss means the FACTS are SO INDISPUTABLE and the PHYSICAL DAMAGES TO HUMANS SO BEYOND QUESTION that absolutely ZERO chance exists that those chemicals are not toxic to human beings who come into contact with them, because trust me, if anyone can afford the best lawyers on the planet, it is Monsanto, and they fought this hard, bitterly and for years.<br />
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Yet still they lost. <br />
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So any doctor who tries to tell you that your auto-immune disease, arthritis, heart/circulatory disease or your child's unusual birth defect is just a product of your lifestyle, you tell that doctor, <b><i>"Only if you consider choosing to SERVE MY COUNTRY to be a lifestyle choice." </i></b><br />
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We WERE poisoned, it is indisputable fact, Monsanto has already lost its case against the "small folk" of Anniston, Alabama, and only one thing is keeping the VA from compensating and caring for active duty and military vets who were also poisoned, who were exposed to far MORE than the good people of Anniston (because we also had the experimental crap the military cooked up and tested all over the base as well as that slight matter of ionized uranium to add to the "McClellan Cocktail" Uncle Sam mixed up and served us).<br />
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Yum yum. "Pardon me, dear, but you're looking a little green around your new orange gills, or is that just because you're glowing in the dark?"<br />
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Seriously, no one wants to be <u>The One</u> who opens up this can of worms at the VA because it's going to <b><i>cost</i></b> Uncle Sam brownie points with his contractor buddies who would far rather he continue spending barrels of cash on their no bid contracts and off shore excursions with their Military Industrial Complex BFF's. Quite literally, no one wants to be Debbie Downer and be the person who pulls the plug on the 24/7/365 <i>big brass turned big wig pool party </i>just because a bunch of (mostly) former<i> enlisted</i> people are inconveniently sick and dying. "Isn't that what we pay them practically minimum wage to do? ...now where's my $5K/night call gi...I mean escort? We have some negotiating to do."<br />
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And that is what this is really all about. No one "up top" wants the good times to end. They have become so corrupt that our pain and that of our children means less than nothing to them. They will do <i>anything</i> to keep their own lavish lifestyles protected. Some even figure they've<i> earned</i> it! Well, we have <b>earned</b> our health care and compensation too, and our children, innocent of even the decision to volunteer to join the military in the first place, <i>certainly</i> deserve medical care more than these fat cats deserve to keep their tee times with Halliburton and KB&R!<br />
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The genetic damage passed on to our children has already been well documented in Anniston vs Monsanto, and unlike Monsanto, which is getting off exceedingly easy with a few hundred million dollars, the VA is looking at full compensation and care for <i>generations</i> of people affected by the McClellan Cocktail. So they are racing around like rabbits trying to maintain the media and medical literature blackout on this thing.<br />
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It quite literally reminds me of the time a huge storm came out of nowhere in the midst of a huge military family and friends Memorial Day camp-out at Kentucky Lake, which I'd attended while stationed at Fort Knox. With winds gusting at least to 60-70 mph ahead of the storm it was decided one gigantic tent in a relatively safe spot was the best place for everyone to shelter. The roads out of the area were just logging trails with trees close on either side and many had come on motorcycles, so leaving was not an option.<br />
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As the full force of the storm hit, the wind and debris was ripping this gigantic tent to shreds, and once the sides started to lift people where scooting around like crazy inside the thing trying to keep first one spot then another tacked down from inside so the wind wouldn't launch us Wizard of Oz style into the air. As soon as one spot would get tacked back down another spot would start blowing and some brave butt would plant itself there, not knowing what was going to hit next from outside, and on and on it went for what seemed like hours. As it turned out we had just survived a tornado, well actually a water spout from across the man-made lake, but only barely. If that wind had gone on even five more minutes I don't think we'd have made it.<br />
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That's where the VA is right now with us. The wind is whistling around them and getting louder and louder and they're scrambling to keep everything tacked down--business as usual. Eventually they're not going to be able to keep the cover-up going. WE are the wind, and we can't let up; we just have to last those few more minutes than they can scramble--then WE WIN! It's going to be a war of wills and they are counting on us being too sick and too tired to fight, but we volunteered to serve this nation and more importantly to look out for each other. That does NOT end when we take off the uniform. That doesn't end EVER!<br />
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So for today some suggestions for dealing with your doctor.<br />
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One of the MAIN issues you're going to run into with your doctors (as far as how they are taught to evaluate people) is that you have "too many complaints". They are going to assume it's "just depression" because the government (VA) has done such a great smear (misinformation) job on the McClellan issue in the media, including "reputable" or "mainstream" internet sources. They've already got fake vets posting on many of the more popular boards talking about how they've lived around Anniston "forever" and no one's sick, etc. Of course that is total crap. People are told not to chew gum outside or have private gardens because of the chemicals in the soil. They are told to use air conditioners rather than having their windows open even on cool nights because the dust around the area is still so toxic. Swimming anywhere in the area is out of the question and entire areas have been paved over because they could not be reclaimed. Many of the chemicals live inside plants, which, when they decay, turn to dust, and the process of spreading the chemicals continues in a cycle. It's endless. The rates of miscarriage, still birth and major deformity are far higher than the national average. All this is covered in the link at the top of the post, which in turn has links to the studies involved, which may or may not get your doctors' attention. Good luck.<br />
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Then there's pain.<br />
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Gone are the good old days when a person could get pain medication without having damage done to her/his body. Now pain is an INDUSTRY, and if you want someone to write you a prescription for pain, you will damned well suffer for it (as if you're not already suffering enough...).<br />
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Medical "Professionals" do this to NO other group of patients. We do not make diabetics have treatments done to their pancreas before they get insulin, or make heart patients have open heart surgery before they get Digoxin. We don't force people to undergo ECT (shock therapy) before providing any of the obscenely vast array of highly profitable and ridiculously redundant psycho-active medications on the market, some of which purport to "cure" pain, but DO NOT. That is a LIE...an out and out LIE, and a dangerous one at that! Doctors don't even fully understand the exact mechanism of action of most antidepressants, and to say any of them cure pain is just plain irresponsible. The only reason those ads get away with saying it on TV is that no one can prove that it's not true either, plus a LOT of money changes hands. The Pharmaceutical Industry spends more money on lobbying than on all other aspects of their business combined, including executive salaries and research and development, and much of that lobby money goes to the FDA! ...and I'm digressing.<br />
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Doctors are busy (seeing as many patients as possible in order to make as much money as possible) and most exist in a rut and are inherently lazy...more interested in their golf game than your health. Dr. House, jerk that he is, does not exist except in a very few teaching hospitals, which is the kind of hospital you want ...no, need to go to if you have any real hope of getting real help for what ails you. This applies to anyone with complex health issues, but most especially for women and absolutely for McClellan vets!<br />
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If it's easier for docs to label you as depressed, a malingerer or malcontent, or "<i>a woman of a certain age</i> having a rough time adjusting to her change of life" (remember, McClellan was the W.A.C. training facility for much of the time the poisoning was going on) they <i>will</i> fall back on those diagnoses rather than looking any deeper into the issue, <b>even if you <i>spoon feed the McClellan/Monsanto facts to them complete with references</i>!</b> How do I know this? I am part of that corrupt medical system, I am ashamed to say, and I know that 99% of doctors given facts and printed literature and links will not ever bother to read the information, much less look up the links before hitting all together different kind of links.<br />
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They will complete your appointment, dictate their pre-conceived notions about you into the chart (especially if a previous doctor has given you the "depression" label--that one pretty much insures you will never have a valid health concern taken seriously again as long as you live). This new "confirmation" of "depression" will follow you around to every doctor you see from that point forward, thus tainting every OTHER doctor's opinion about you, and all the information you provided will go in the circular file. This is why you DEMAND that the information you have collected be included in your chart along with a brief letter explaining it in context to your health (it is your legal right and prevents him from tossing it away). Then do not let the appointment end until you make him/her read the information and discuss it WITH you DURING your appointment. And don't be bullied or rushed. You are paying that doctor for a service. GET WHAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR! If he/she is over-booking appointments, that's not your problem. You deserve decent care. A doctor cannot walk out on a patient "in need." That is law.<br />
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So, say the worst happens and you have failed to get through to your doctor. Then do this:<br />
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When faced with a lunk-head doctor who will not listen to reason, make a written request to that doctor's clinic, attn: Medical Director, and request that his/her findings NOT be included as part of your medical record. That is also your right. You may or may not receive a follow-up phone call, but they can't take any kind of action against you for a reasonable request or difference of opinion. Explain that you felt you were not taken seriously and go into detail. Maintain a respectful and professional tone, but be firm in stating that you did not see eye to eye and that you disagree strongly enough that you do not want that faulty visit to influence your future medical care. Then find a different doctor, as noted later below, preferably from a different "system" if your insurance allows. When possible always choose PPO insurance/Medicare if you have that, because you have far more control and choice over variety of doctors, specialists and hospitals. HMO's stick you in ONE system and you pay a huge penalty if you leave that system, and they also really rush their doctors and HATE to use specialists and provide diagnostics, all of which cost them money! It's a BAD route to take unless you're 18 and healthy as a horse and want to take the cheapest way out that is still at least literally considered insurance. PPO is the way to go! (That's the best way to remember it).<br />
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What else can you do when faced/stuck with an obstinate doctor? 1. DEMAND TESTS! I recommend at the very least a Urinalysis, BUN, Creatinine, CA 125 (checks for cancer) CBC/diff, Colonoscopy if over 40 for McClellan vets, full body skin exam for cancer, mammogram, Pap if you still have a cervix, baseline MRI and one from neck to "tailbone", bone density scan, cardiac stress test, ECG, blood pressure on all four extremities, tilt test, balance and grip tests, complete eye exam (including glaucoma) and I'm sure I've forgotten something because I'm tired. If you are a female vet, have your children checked for Spina Bifida Occulta, especially if they have a dark mole and/or patch of hair at the small of their back or mention back pain at an early age or ever say they have leg pain or numbness.<br />
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Most of you will very likely show osteo (bone) arthritis or other bone abnormalities by the time you're feeling symptoms. Fibromyalgia, MS, CFIDS and Lupus (often hard to tell apart and often overlapping, are common with McClellan vets, along with other autoimmune diseases like diabetes). *Note--just because your sedimentation rate isn't off doesn't mean you don't have Lupus. A LOT of doctors get that wrong.*<br />
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Even though none of us is "well" after leaving that place, we are all so used to<i> never </i>feeling as well as we did the day we set foot an that contaminated soil--we have coped with it for long we have a adopted a different sense of what normal is. Humans are remarkably adaptable, but if you really THINK about it, I'll bet you felt better the day you got there than the day you left, even though Basic is supposed to make you feel strong. Am I right? We were not only poisoned and then left to our own devices to die, utterly abandoned by the government that damaged us and our offspring. We were robbed of EVER reaching the true prime of our lives. That makes me indescribably angry. But to move on, on most testing, our bodies will show advanced degeneration for our ages, even if we look young for our age on the outside.<br />
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Personally, I kept going like the Energizer Bunny until an anesthesia error brought me low, and from that point on it was like my body's last insult. I couldn't "fake it 'til I felt it" anymore. I was just done. It was that fast.<br />
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One day I was Superwoman, doing three miles or so and a Tao Bo routine between 12 hour shifts at the hospital at least 5 times a week along with being a divorced mom and making it all work just fine and then BAM! I was just....done. Couldn't even walk around the block without nearly passing out. Work was out of the question because my brain forgot how to make the right words half the time. Thankfully I've made some new pathways and can communicate fairly well many days, but I'm still not "me".<br />
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Someone once said, "It's like the Army wanted to make a Super Soldier, shot us up with something, and then when it timed out we just suddenly felt everything we never felt in all the time prior. I say that only half joking, actually. How many of you recall getting far more injections/immunizations than were listed on your little booklet? Anyone else get in major trouble, as in drop and give me 40, for simply mentioning it out loud to a friend when not even in formation or anything? Anyone else get super sick afterward? I mean hell, if they can poison us and not tell us, what's to keep them from experimenting on us outright? They did it with the Anthrax Vaccine on the way over to Iraq for thousands of squids and Marines, probably soldiers and airmen too."<br />
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I laughed. I'm not laughing so much now...<br />
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Back to business: Be persistent. If your small town doctor isn't willing to listen to you, go to a major city University Hospital or a large, well respected facility to have what is physically wrong with you DOCUMENTED, and make sure you get a copy of all films and reports to keep with you. THIS IS YOUR INFORMATION and they can not deny it to you. I cannot over emphasize how important this is, because the other thing you do not want to do is get involved in any of that computerization of your medical records where you are allegedly made more safe because your medical history is made available in an instant.<br />
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Wear an allergy bracelet or medic-alert necklace or get a DNR tat if you don't want heroic measures done, but<b> ***DO NOT get your PRIVATE information computerized. If the system gets hacked, and who better to do THAT than Uncle Sam, your whole case against the VA could disappear in an instant.*** </b>Besides, there's just no way to guarantee your privacy or protect yourself from dip-wad doctors once something's in a computer! Sorry trees, but medical information belongs in files.<br />
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Write down all your physical symptoms and their date of onset because chances are the military has "lost" your medical records along with any and all records of any sick calls that may have been related to skin rashes or suspiciously severe second degree (blistering) sunburns that happened exceedingly quickly during or within a short time after leaving Fort McClellan. These are the first signs of M&M (Monsanto & McClellan) poisoning. (I got a blistering sunburn in under fifteen minutes at around 0800 on a Saturday morning and only recently learned that extreme sunburns are a very common early stage reaction to Monsanto's little gift to us at Fort McClellan).<br />
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Also try to remember repeated sick calls for headaches, nausea, dizziness, skin rashes and absolutely for miscarriages too, and any and all other health issues suffered while in service. (I have read something recently about hysterectomies possibly becoming presumptive for PCB exposure, even for McClellan vets, so women, if you had an early in life hysterectomy, DO get in touch with DAV, Disabled American Veterans, and see if they can help you get some benefits for that).<br />
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Even if health issues seem nonsensical to you, they could mean something BIG regarding chemical/bio weapon exposure. My medical records were "somehow misplaced during filing" and I have heard that happened to many other McClellan vets too. My guess is it happened to ALL of us who had significant health issues that pointed to Monsanto like a brilliant neon orange arrow!<br />
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Best wishes everyone, and KEEP MAKING NOISE! We want to huff and puff until we blow that tent and the greedy old bastards at the VA sky high--nonviolently of course. They have to be healthy to help us. : )<br />
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Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-72569450661707194032013-02-20T23:51:00.000-08:002013-03-22T18:58:34.882-07:00Sixteen in the House Care About McClellan Vets...and the really amazing thing is that THREE, count them, Duncan Hunter, Walter B. Jones, Jr. and Tom Marino are actual REPUBLICANS! The first two I could tell by the pretentious names and the third I guessed because he was from Pennsylvania, where people imagine themselves to be free-thinking, but they're just the same bigots and idiots and racists in nicer digs with better credit....kind of like New Jersey meets the rural Southeast. (Politically speaking...not everyone of course!) Pennsylvania conservatives just get on the very last frayed edges of my rawest nerves because they're SO pretentious and so utterly ignorant at the same time. It literally drives me effing nuts. They listen to their little egg headed hate radio personality as if he's some kind of god and spit it all back verbatim as if it's all original thought, or some kind of Teaocratic gospel. They just need to get the hell over themselves.<br />
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If you're a redneck just BE a redneck. There's no shame in it. Take this guy for instance. He looks so much like a friend from my Army days at Fort Knox. Ahhh memories...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once upon a time in Kentucky in a setting remarkably similar to this, my ex husband's very best buddy Douglas stood atop a hella-huge pile of wood and it was decided among the men folk that, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">"Sure, gas-O-line will work, now hold my beer, woman while the men git this done!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> Said men had spent the day drinking and pulling down an old barn on the property and it and its contents "needed burning" which was easier (and at that point more legal, despite the fire hazard) than hauling it all to the dump. More than one hillbil--I mean southern gentleman poured gasoline in addition to lighter fluid and I believe someone added turpentine too--"to get that sucker started with a BANG what'll knock yer socks off! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAW!" </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Five grown (or mostly grown) men then stood in a circle around a two story high pile of wood and tires and holding Army surplus smoke grenades which they would use to ignite the behemoth they'd built. The plan was to use a simple </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">1-2-3-THROW count, then turn and ...hope <i>not</i> to burn. Most men in Kentucky can do a one, two, three, GO count properly by adulthood, so all agreed it was a decent plan. 1-2-3-pull the pin, throw then turn around and haul ass the other way before you go airborne in a very unpleasant way. 3 really should have been a safe count even considering the alcohol involved, and they even practiced it several times with rocks, but of course the "most men in Kentucky can count to three" factor came into play when, after practicing correctly 3 times in a row, the youngest and drunkest of the men in the bunch got over-anxious with the real smoke grenade and pulled the pin on 2 and threw <b style="font-style: italic;">on</b> not <b style="font-style: italic;">after 3!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This was verrrry not good because as large as this pile was, each man couldn't see the other, so only one turned and ran in time and the other guys didn't react until they finally saw him bookin' it full speed away from the pile! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Needless to say, all "<i>them good ol' boys</i>" got a free flight that night, backward, most of 'em, with their legs and arms grabbing at a lot of nothing as that pile of former barn (complete with nails!) exploded with such a </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">KA-WHOMP!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">...it sounded like driving down range road at Fort Knox when the tanks are firing live rounds and looked like a small nuke had gone off complete with a mini mushroom cloud. My ears popped from a good 50-60 yards away. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">By some miracle the only loss was one really nice beard and pretty much all of 5 sets of eyebrows...4 sets in the original blast and one set intentionally burnt off in the name of fair play and brotherhood and upon threat of an ass whoopin' if he didn't cooperate, since the whole thing was his fault in the first place! Gotta love southern justice. Quick and clean, except when it's wrong of course...and you can't bring back the dead. *shudders*. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">As for the environment, luckily there was a pond nearby for the volunteer Fire Department to use to put out some singed branches on a few nearby trees. They really did choose the spot well. Damp ground, next to a pond in spring, which is very wet in Kentucky. All that said though, we were all a lot more lucky than smart back then,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">that's for sure. Don't mix moonshine and bonfires. Wait, what am I saying? Some of my happiest times involved both back then! Moderation, moderation is the key..</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, when I saw the clip the above photo came from on Tosh it was a real trip down memory lane. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Now back to the issue at hand...</span></td></tr>
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Kentucky really is a charming place to visit and people really do know how to live down south. Say what you want about hillbillies and rednecks, but they pack more genuine life and feeling in their years than most "coasties" or most people freezing up in the northern tier of the U.S. too!<br />
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The down side to that is that politics isn't taken as seriously as it should be. It's more like a big ol' stupid game to them. Even the colors work out, because it's always a battle of blue vs red down there. You're either a U of K (blue) Wildcats fan (that would be me) or you're a Louisville Cardinals fan (red) ...and the symbolism almost kind of works too, because it's the big city/big money preening Cardinals who are born and fly safely above everyone all their lives (red/republicans) vs the true blue state school that represents equal opportunity--the American ideal that <b><i>everyone</i></b> should have a chance to claw their way to the top, like the Wildcats (blue/democrats).<br />
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For some, sadly, it does still come down to race though. "I don't want that there O-bomber feller." So they vote for some "so stuck up he's gotta clean the bird s#i+ out'a his nose-<i>Mormon"</i> ...someone they'd usually accuse of being the next worst thing to the Anti-Christ himself, well aside from the Pope of course; Southern Baptists are not fond of the Pope, no sir. He's almost s bad as women who drink alcohol and/or don't stay in the kitchen where they belong at social events!<br />
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Oh yeah. HR 411 has been referred down to the Subcommittee on Health...whatever that means. What I found really rather odd, and actually got to TELL the Library of Congress when I was researching for this little note (because they asked me to take a poll, the poor unsuspecting fools) is that they now list legislators alphabetically rather than in the order in which they sign on to co-sponsor, which the LoC the flimsy as HELL excuse to put a NUMBER (the order in which they signed on) where they USED to put the legislator's political party! NO FAIR!<br />
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As for "our" legislation, HR 411 shares the same name as HR 2052, and has, I think, already gone one step farther than it did, though I'm not sure if it's a positive step or not. The wording is different I think too. It says nothing about identifying and informing us of exposure any longer, just keeping track of veterans (and their family members and survivors) who make VA claims. My memory is shot, so maybe HR 2052 never said anything about informing those who have no idea they've been exposed either. I guess that's always been up to us. I don't know. What I do know for a fact is that the VA is just playing a waiting game...waiting for us all to DIE so even if they do pay for a few of us, it will be very damned few by the time any meaningful legislation comes around. In that way they are eerily similar to disability insurance providers who stall and stall before finally providing benefits (and no, they don't pay you interest on what they've withheld during the "approval process" either). Both are holding on to OUR money and hoping and praying for our DEATH in the meantime. What a great thank you for our honorable service, hm?<br />
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I didn't let the disability insurer wear me down, even though they made me HOMELESS for a while, and I won't let Uncle Sam wear me down either. I REFUSE! I'm going to stay alive just to spite them. I'm not giving up. I may be driving my Facebook and other social networking and "real life" friends crazy but so be it. By the way isn't it funny how the sicker you get the less dependable your "real life" friends are than the online ones? Amazing how a little thing like a major disability will close up your social circle, isn't it?<br />
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Well that's really all for today. Just had to share the absurd news about how only THREE members of the self proclaimed "pro-military" party is for us and the rest of them are dead set against us, or maybe just too busy counting lobby money to notice we're <i>dying</i> out here. Eh, they always <i>are</i> too busy for us unless there's blood money to be made off us.<br />
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How they can look at their own reflections in the mirror each day is just <b><i>beyond</i></b> my comprehension. It truly, seriously is. Meanwhile, we who serve are supposedly the ones who "loathe the military" even though we have far more Blue than Red members of Congress (oh the irony just never ends, does it?). Still, we soldier on year after year, congress after congress, waiting for our chance to get back in charge and <b><i>get things done again</i></b>.<br />
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(The following is sardonic humor, which I am told, frequently does not come across well on the internet, so I just wanted you to know... I s'pose I should have put this disclaimer up sooner, but my eyeballs are about to fall out of my head.)<br />
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I don't know <b><i>why</i></b> we didn't manage to do <b><i>all</i></b> those things we planned in the few magical months Obama had between health crises and shootings of members and other members dying or leaving for other reasons. They would have Americans believing we had this GREAT super-majority for at least Obama's first four years, and if not that, the first two...but they forget Kennedy's health and death and the tragic shooting that took Gabby Giffords away from us and other issues that kept things topsy turvy and kept everyone from being present and able to work and vote in the House and Senate. Besides, it's like there was, like, a war or two going on or people were out to get him or something...just weird, right? Sha... I know....<br />
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<br />Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-36849323076789884472013-01-16T03:42:00.000-08:002013-01-16T03:42:53.060-08:00From McClellan Vets to Monsanto - We Were Not Weeds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The CBS program 60 Minutes once called Fort McClellan the most toxic place on the planet. It is the only Chemical Warfare facility in the Army where <u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">live substances were manufactured, stored, and used in training.</u> I was trained there. I am a disabled US Army Veteran, but am not recognized as such by my government. I have been exposed to more chemicals than most Agent Orange veterans, and over the years during my flares my sons have put more work into caring for me than the children of most Agent Orange vets, but as far as the Army, the VA and an UNGRATEFUL nation are concerned, uncounted thousands of us simply do not exist.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What Monsanto did with its sink holes leading straight into the ground water and its open pits and dumping of PCBs into West Anniston Creek sickens me, but what baffles me beyond belief is that they are still in business at all with only the lightest of slaps on the wrist and a warning to choose their hidey-holes more wisely in the future. I mean to Monsanto a $ Billion, I'm sorry, actually they paid less than that to the people of Anniston and they paid nothing at all to American service men and women. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Studies by Monsanto began in 1966, when they tasked a University of Mississippi biologist with testing the water. He placed bluegill into one of the streams to test the water’s effect on wildlife, and the results were startling. <b><i>The fish became disoriented within 10 seconds, he reported, and were dead within four minutes.</i></b> Monsanto filed the report away, never raising the concerns to environmental officials. Many more tests would be done as time passed, but nothing was ever announced publicly.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What's worse is that <b><i>even MONSANTO assumed the Army and VA would take care of us!</i></b> It was a part of their agreement with the U.S. government. Monsanto would deal with the civilian population of Anniston and the clean up of areas outside Fort McClellan and the government would see to cleaning up the base and the health care needs of we who served; people who were just as affected as the folks in Anniston. Well, the way the Army and other services who sent people to Fort McToxic on TDY, and of course the VA, has been 1. to order us not to even use the words Agent and Orange when filing claims because the claims will automatically be denied, and 2. to simply deny cause and effect. Never mind people are getting multiple diseases in their twenties, thirties and forties (or being born with them) that people don't normally get until close to the end of their natural lives, in their seventies and eighties. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">THAT doesn't prove anything as far as the all-knowing VA is concerned. Never mind</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I was told <b><i>ten years ago</i></b> that the CT of my brain looked like that of an 80 year old! I didn't even have crows feet yet for God's sake! Thank goodness I started out with an ..above average IQ or I'd be drooling by now, and I'm not kidding!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">As far as I'm concerned, whoever made that devil's deal with Monsanto should be taken out and shot! I don't care if William Jefferson Clinton himself made that deal, though I know he didn't. And no, just because it may have finally come to light on his watch does not me HE did it, so any of you sheep ...dating knuckle draggers out there who want to play that game, go back to Ba-a-a-arbra-a-a-a-a or whatever you call her, k?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Ughh, the power of the lobbyist in government today! It's not only that, but now Monsanto has partnered up with Dow and they want to put one of those EXACT SAME chemicals into the HUMAN FOOD CHAIN...in corn seeds, to make them herbicide resistant. <b><i>That way farmers can buy more of their other products and spray the shit out of their crops, thus further decimating and despoiling the planet</i></b> (and poisoning some MORE innocent people) but that corn will still grow. It will be poison as seven hells, but it'll grow! </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Is that their anti-immigrant plan? Are they going to poison all the corn tortillas?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Below this paragraph you'll find a link to a brief, informative article exposing just how poisonous and radioactive Fort McClellan was, and for how long, and how the government TO THIS DAY persists in covering it up, and what follows is a creepy little quote from said article itself about testing Monsanto did on the water near Anniston, way back in 1966, when it had only been polluting there for about 30 years. The test and the results were hidden away, marked "secret" and "destroy" etc. and practices only got worse from then on, so imagine how much worse it got</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.veteransunited.com/network/will-ft-mcclellan-exceed-camp-lejeune-status/#comment-4641</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.veteransunited.com/network/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Anniston-300x225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><img alt="Fort McClellan was one of the largest Army training posts." border="0" height="240" src="http://www.veteransunited.com/network/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Anniston-300x225.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Other excess Monsanto chemicals also made their way into Anniston’s environment, including different kinds of dioxins and herbicides, <b><i><u>including the infamous Agent Orange.</u></i></b> The effects of these chemicals were far-reaching.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Service members and civilians living in the area have since developed serious health conditions, including: various cancers, autoimmune disease, heart disease and diabetes. But these health concerns weren’t limited to the soldiers that were stationed there.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">According to a report in the <a href="http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=379951">Archives of Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine</a>, babies born in Anniston have a higher chance to suffer from structural birth defects like missing limbs, malformed hearts and <b><i><u>underdeveloped spinal cords.</u></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That last little underlined bit has a special significance to me, you see, because it's not only children in ANNISTON who were born like that. So was my oldest son! Still, against reason and science, the Army and VA claim no causal relationship. They're full of shit! </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For an idea of what a typical morning feels like for a mildly affected person, there's the following...you don't want to know what it feels like to be profoundly affected, trust me. I will tell you that this person is going to look back at this in a few years and think wow, those were the days, because any time you have spinal cord damage that high up, it's only a matter of time before the rest goes to hell too. It's inevitable. You can delay it, but it WILL happen. Be warned, as in my blog posts, sometimes the brain fog just takes over and syntax goes out the window. You just have to kind of guess at the general intent, but s/he makes the important stuff more than clear.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anonymous 1:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is getting current comments which may help some, so thanks for reading this and your comments. This is just a note however, and there is A LOT of work ahead of us. EVERYONE should be writing letters to every newspaper in your area, and to individual writers. If you knew someone you saw daily that has been suffering from this exposure you would be more energized. I can tell you I pray every night for just one morning that I don’t dread waking up. It beats the alternative, but imagine a migraine, a nasty hangover, and having been beat up the day before, plus an almost drunken disorientation every moment of every day combine with shooting nerve pains throughout your arms, neck, and the base of your skull. Welcome to my world. HR 2052!</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then on the opposite side of the "human" and I use the term very loosely, spectrum, comes this incredible piece of literary poop:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anonymous #2:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You must remember the curent administration believes us army types to be subhuman you are supprised that they do not care? </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">[[This was what's called class b derpitude, too dull and </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>OKAY STOP THE PRESSES...</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I just read something that has me scared, truly scared, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">for the first time since I lived alone in the barracks room all those years ago and I heard that master key turning in the lock.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Monsanto Owns Xe ...otherwise known as</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Blackwater International</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> The Biggest Privately Owned </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> International Mercenary</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> In The World</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Verified</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ugh.. suddenly the rest of this doesn't seem so important, so I'm just plastering it up as is. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sorry folks... I really don't feel well. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We are SO fucked.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let’s keep the politics out of this please. This has been going on from 1935 through 1999, when McClellan was at least closed and paved over so it wouldn’t continue to be a health hazard. If you think one man, even the president, can fight the entire corrupt machine that is the military industrial complex, you have much to learn…you have much to learn indeed. I doubt Bush knew about us and I doubt Obama does either, no matter how many of us have written to them both, myself included!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Right interesting article, but the post was closed as a result of a round of Base Reduction And Closure (BRAC) findings in the late ’90s and not the EPA. I do know for a fact that the wooded area around my old Military Working Dog section was used by the Chemical School for open air agent training in the 1950′s–freaked me out when I first read the historical file but after a time a few OFF LIMITS signs never really stopped a bunch of crazy dog handlers from froliicking in the woods with impunity</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anonymous 5: </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So let me get this right. You are really trying to sell US the line that our oh so dearly beloved Uncle Sam<br />“vewwy vewwwwwy quiet-weee”<br />(as if he was chasing wabbits)<br />tried (and failed)<br />to do soil remediation (decontamination) 1.in the areas where all those nasty leaking barrels were stored,<br />2.where all the open air drills were held and<br />3.in the areas where the ash burn-off of the improperly incinerated chemical and bio waste landed<br />…as part of BRAC.<br />Then, having nothing better to do, he figured he’d just have the Corps of Engineers or some local outfit (or most likely whomever could do it fastest and cheapest) do all that “pretty” paving-over of *surprise!* those EXACT, I mean PRECISE same areas –mehhh, you know, just for the fun of it! Sure, why not? Happy coincidence.<br />That’s really your story? You really want to go with that, like seriously.<br />Nah…I didn’t think so. But you gave it your best shot. No one can say you didn’t.<br />BRAC indeed. How the military loves its innocuous sounding acronyms.<br />“Noooo-uh, the place wasn’t SO far beyond repair that we had to treat it like Japan’s nuclear reactors after the tsunami …sillyyyy! It was just a routine BRAC, ya gooooof. Tsk, geez-uh!”<br />And they’re NOT CHEMicals…they’re “open AIR agents. Get it RIGHT-uh.”<br />Now, all we sick, dying people with every bone, tissue and nerve screaming at us with every breath and beat of our hearts…don’t we feel just ever so much better??? I’m like, so embarrassed?<br />Seriously…<br />I wonder what the Powers That Be would tell our “friend” Mike to call the ionizing radiation and PCB contaminated waters? Maybe “secret night glows” and “special aquifers”?<br />I don’t know about you, but I feel healthier already!<br />Now, I wonder if he can explain why Monsanto was ordered to pay the good folks upstream in Anniston 7 hundred million dollars in damages for the deaths, early life cancers, auto-immune diseases, lost reproductive capacity, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, and pain and suffering (just to name a few) caused by the “magical elixir” that seeped into those handy sink holes, I mean “mystic cenotes” and open air pits, and West Anniston Creek…</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To continue, the base of the "McClellan Cocktail" consisted of water with exceedingly high concentrations of PCBs, direct from the source, the Monsanto plant at nearby Anniston, as we've established. The rest was a mixture of Depleted Uranium, Sarin (nerve gas), Mustard Gas, Heavy Metals (mercury, lead, etc.), and an unknown (to me) variety of Weaponized Bacterial, Biological and Chemical agents. In addition to being a Basic Training Center for the Army, Fort McClellan was also the Chemical Warfare Headquarters, something I don't think is at all coincidental. Who better to test things on than a bunch of ignorant trainees? "Gas drills" are part of basic training, but they were never intended to be as they were at Fort McToxic. They're only supposed to make you <i><b>feel</b></i> as if they're killing you. They're not supposed to really do the job! Then of course there's the gas chamber, and with everything else that went on, who knows what mixture of what shit they made us breathe? I remember vaguely that it didn't seem quite the nightmare people who'd been through it tried to make it sound, but back then I still had the constitution of not yet twenty year old. What a difference 2-3 months makes (our cycle arrived early, so we had time to adjust before the real fun started.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then days or maybe weeks later we had our battery of "vaccinations", and we all did the snake walk, up one line of techs and down the next, up the one after that and down the following, and so on, until we finally emerged, holding our arms, head-buzzing like crazy on alcohol fumes, into the blazing Alabama afternoon. Oh how I loved that sun! Eventually it dawned on me, looking at that sheet with us we carry from duty station to duty station, that I got FAR more shots, sprays up the nose, plus a sugar cube, some of those air injector things, an inhaler ...and I think that's when they did a second blood draw. They did one at AFEES too, but I remember the day of the vaccines so clearly because it's my last clear memory for quite a long time. I literally "lost time" between doing push ups outside the vaccination hall/building and then being in my bunk looking at my card and talking to my friend. We both had kind of "huh?" looks on our faces, with must be light red flags, I swear, to drill sergeants, because she was there in an instant, assigning us extra duty, even though I was super dizzy and felt like I'd been in bed for days. Why we were being so severely reprimanded for discussing the number of holes, snorts, cubes, etc. vs entries on our immunization records, I had no idea, but I have a suspicion now. Very shortly thereafter, my friend, my best friend, was transferred to a different platoon a few weeks behind us for just barely missing an artificially inflated score on a test after we got yelled at. Sorry Teenybelle. I was squad leader so I guess they didn't want to move me. Knowing what I know now, I honestly think we were given something like Versed but not Versed (it causes sedation and brief amnesia in a large percentage of people) but they had to have been testing something else or maybe it was a side effect of something else we were given, because Versed has never worked on me, ever.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So in addition to being directly dosed as trainees, we not only drank buckets of toxin laced water, but showered in it a couple times a day too. Add in all the outside exposure via air transmission, drift from the Chem School, contract through ground and foliage ...OMG it was RAINING throughout Bivouac, so we were steeping in the runoff from the hillsides for over a week and those big leaves have a LOT of surface area; it's like north American jungle there. Then we had different colors of stuff sprayed on us in "gas" drills (see above) and again during live fire exercises. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Most horrifying of all to me medically, we received several daily doses directly into our bloodstreams in aerosolized form via hot steam inhaled into our lungs and taken directly in through capillary exchange. Several times each day we used tap water-filled steam to "press off" (steam iron with starch) our uniforms before duty, classes, meals and other assemblies. Fort McClellan's trainees were given the nick-name "Susie Home-makers" due to the frequency with which drill sergeants forced us to iron our uniforms so that we always looked pristine and creased, even in the muggy Alabama heat...all through basic. There were no shorts and t-shirts and running shoes like now. We wore OD green fatigues, starched and pressed, with lace-up spit polished combat boots, and not nice cushy jump boots either, just those nasty flat things with wool socks that gave me God awful blisters because I'm sensitive to wool and my boots never did wear in right. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Those of us who had experience ironing quickly learned there was a profit to be made doing this chore for others less deft with iron and board. Now I wish I'd been one of the clumsier ones. It would have actually been safer for me to be one of the ones sneaking a smoke break...several times a day. Now that is ironic! </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Speaking of irony, maybe earning the right to spend the day at the motor pool firing (YAY!) and cleaning (not so yay, but still fun) M-60 Machine Guns wasn't such an honor. <b>Men</b> who qualified as Expert on the Range got to try out for Sniper School if they wanted. I got one hour of playing with big weapons...and the rest of a Saturday cleaning them. Woo. (mind out of the gutter...this is serious) It was actually pretty fun though. I thought the guys were just trying to scare me with all their stories about the badges they had to wear for radiation (I didn't get one) and the stuff they said about the leaking barrels of stuff "you do NOT want to know what that is" stored all over the place. I really didn't take them seriously until ...really until years later, when I started getting migraines, then daily headaches with more frequent migraines, then continued having them even after going through major mandibular surgery plus braces and having my jaw wired shut for months. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I still have metal plates in my jaw and chin and some permanent swelling that's NOT good for my vanity ...and I still have daily headaches and migraines, unless I'm very, oh so very careful about ...absolutely everything from sleep hygiene, to when and what I eat and drink to when and how I take supplements and how much water I drink and the frequency and intensity of stretching and exercising I do. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then eventually, after more surgeries and more diagnoses, I became disabled. And even then I blamed it on something else. I should have realized something was wrong so much sooner, but you want to believe the country you served in good faith is going to treat you in good faith in return, you know? That's how I was raised. You do the right thing. Americans do that. That first shock of reality can be a harsh thing. I wish I could say it gets easier after that, but it doesn't...it doesn't ever get easier.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So far veterans of Fort McClellan, male and female alike, are not even being officially notified of their exposure, much less being treated or compensated for it; and they are sick, dying or already dead, having passed the genetic damage on to future generations without so much as a warning to have precautionary genetic counseling. Neither the Army nor the VA nor certainly Monsanto (though in fairness it's not their job to inform people in the military about military matters) can pretend ignorance at this point. They're even talking about compensating the Vietnamese! Yet here we we are, trying, through the effluvium of purposely obtuse military bureaucracy and red tape and our own brain fog to make our way through a medical system that already sees women with complex symptomology as either depressed (the great circular file of the medical profession) malingerers or pre, peri or post menopausal! </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Male vets do have a leg up on the women. And you can take that any way you wish. Thanks to the tirelessly dogged and heroic (yes, he deserves that title for what he did) efforts of Tom Daschle, Vietnam Veterans exposed to Agent Orange (dioxin, 2,4 D ...the stuff I'll be talking about with the corn seeds below) finally got the care and compensation they deserve, at least a great many of them did. He didn't win the war completely, but he helped a lot of people who deserved it. I wish we could get someone like him to help US! </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Way too MANY of us lost out because Monsanto played a better game of semantics, because although were were exposed to Agent Orange, which was one of the many things spilled along with so many others from that plant in Anniston, Monsanto's lawyers earned their money and got Uncle Sam to agree that only people exposed IN Vietnam were poisoned by Agent Orange. Whether that's the TRUTH or not has no legal standing what so ever. That's not how our great and mighty judicial system works in this country...Harrump, Harrumph. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh, and obviously far too many of us were simply not the correct gender to even be considered for benefits! So we were swept under the very center of a HUGE rug for that reason alone. But let's not fool ourselves here, MP's are not beloved. Female soldiers are not beloved. People who work in Chemical/Bio Warfare are not beloved. Ancillary staff are overlooked. We are all easy to fuck over because no one gives a rat's ass about us in general. ALL of us. As a rule we don't fly fancy jets. We don't parachute from planes, we don't go out on special ops missions they make ethically questionable films about, and if we do, we can't talk about it anyway. It's gonna be a helluva job getting anyone, much less someone "major" to stand up and speak for us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Now the U.S. Army, the VA, Congress, and even this President of the United States, who initially inspired so much hope for a new way of doing things, are continuing the "sweeping" policy Monsanto started, and have kept Fort McClellan all wrapped up after making the GRAND GESTURE with Camp Lejueune. I guess Marines are in style this war. Well, they deserve a turn I guess, though I wish I did't have to die for their little opportunity. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So Mc Toxic is paved over because it was beyond salvaging or reclamation, just like the nuclear reactors in Japan after </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">their</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> environmental </span><wbr style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></wbr><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">holocaust. In their way they have paved US, the survivors, over too, but instead of concrete or cement they have used denied VA claims and "lost" medical records. Thousands upon thousands of service records "lost in fires" bury us in their ashes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In my case alone early promotions with waivers, gone. Letters and commendations, medals, scores and personal letters of recommendation, gone. A paper trail documenting symptoms beginning with a rash a few weeks into basic training, recurring during </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">AIT</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, then frequent sick calls (but almost NO lost duty days out of sheer determination despite severe headaches and dizziness) ...all "gone." PROOF of what happened to us beginning at the beginning, not just of our time in the military, but what should have been the beginning of our lives, but instead what turned out to be the beginning of our slow decline without ever having reached the full flower of our adulthood. We were like Spring blossoms blasted by herbicide. We were exactly like that...except<b> <i>we were not weeds</i></b>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">1. <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0101-02.htm" target="_blank">http://www.commondreams.org/<wbr></wbr>headlines02/0101-02.htm</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sweet Home Alabama! I'll never hold it against ya, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Clay and gravel, hill and holler, creek and river, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Field and forest piece of heaven that you are. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The devil just had to leave his mark on you, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> And it begins with M</span><span style="color: #ffd966;">onsanto</span></span></div>
Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-594431704895890622012-10-22T03:35:00.000-07:002012-10-22T05:59:49.351-07:00ACTION ALERT! Dow (Monsanto) Seeks Approval of Agent Orange Component 2,4-D<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Bad news for anyone who eats corn in the United States of America, as we, the poisoned and dying can attest!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Monsanto and Dow have joined forces to create the mother of all herbicide resistant corn seeds, and the chemical they will be using is 2,4-D which is approximately half of our favorite chemical, Agent Orange. As a veteran seeking compensation for PCB-related disability, I have already been warned not to use the words Agent or Orange in my application/appeal process because apparently Monsanto has already done all the compensating they plan to do on that front, and it all went to the MEN who were exposed in Vietnam.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">We who were exposed near the plant where they actually MANUFACTURED the stuff and spilled it willy-nilly into the water system (sometimes those spills were, by some miracle, caught; other times, I am QUITE POSITIVE they were not.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Either way, as you all know, the civilian population of Anniston, Alabama, was generously compensated for said spills. Fort McClellan, which is widely considered the most toxic place on the map of the United States of America, and which not only used Monsanto's magical herbicide during and no doubt after the Vietnam era (directly after which yours truly served there) but stored barrels of all kinds of lovely toxic matter in nice leaky barrels...most of which was eventually incinerated. Parts of the grounds of Fort McClellan were simply paved over because it was impossible to get rid of all the toxic ground and ground water beneath the base. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Women's Army Corps trained there, and inhaled PCB contaminated steam into their (our) lungs several times a day, which is why so many of us are so much sicker than many of the men there. Inhaling is the next best thing to shooting a substance right into a vein and in some cases it's worse, because the toxin remains IN THE LUNGS and continues to be exposed directly to the blood of the victim with every breath they take for whatever the life of the substance may be. With PCB I believe that is somewhere near forever. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">You may be certain that this body of mine WILL be well studied upon my death, unless Uncle Sam arranges some kind of "accident" for me involving fire, which would not surprise me, given the resistance we have faced so far, and the utter ruthlessness with which our requests for information and assistance have been stonewalled. The Army and VA KNEW what was going on at Fort McClellan for YEARS, yet not only are they doing nothing to help us (the most recent bill to start the process of informing and tracking us...those first baby steps...languishes in congress) but now we hear they are actually considering RE-APPROVING substance previously BANNED as a KNOWN TOXIN!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Worst of all this BANNED TOXIN is going to implanted into corn seeds. CORN--a major source of our FOOD!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This is just such an obvious case of how money (lobbyists) talk and the rest of us can walk...to our deaths. The whole process just REEKS of bribery and malfeasance. Agent Orange is a KNOWN KILLER. How in the world can they be considering implanting half of what makes it what it is into a FOOD CROP?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">My suggested action is to contact EVERYONE you can think of. Here is a list of possibilities, but please don't limit your own list to the few ideas I can think of and please get back to me with more ideas as you think of them!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Your member of congress--don't just email, CALL! Tell them you're a sick veteran and HOW you got sick...that you're wise to what's going on and that you are NOT going to shut up about it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Same with your senator.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Local media, print and television.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Talk to all your friends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Tell your doctor(s) and any support groups you may be involved with, and ask them to keep the word going!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THIS EXPLAINS WHY OUR ISSUE IS FALLING ON DEAF EARS! IT IS ALL ABOUT MONEY (as we probably suspect, but it's even worse than we realized.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If you're brave, contact Dow Chemical directly. Be warned though. I have read of several instances in my research in which they have used pretty harsh intimidation tactics against anti 2,4-D activists. This is mostly involved with Prop. 37 in California, which would simply require labeling (and the fact that they are SO upset about it proves that they KNOW they are POISONING PEOPLE).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Put something up on YouTube. Tell about yourself and a little bit about your experience (don't get too weird like that right wing whack-job with the beard who thinks there are black helicopters hovering over his house and that Obama has the military on high alert to storm his house to take away all his guns....or whatever his fantasy issues are...) There are pages and pages of references to this issue all over the internet from reputable sources, so you'll be able to direct people to the search engine of their choice to look up "2,4-D and Agent Orange"...and whatever else you want to add.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I have had to change the name of my blog because I've been told what we have isn't really Stateside Agent Orange Disease. Of course it is...it's just a matter of legalities...you know how that all works. We are PCB-poisoned, and passing genetic damage on to our children, and it is ABSOLUTELY service-related. There's no maybes about THAT, just like there was no maybe about the fact that the people of Anniston who all those millions of dollars suffered from the same thing. They just didn't have the extra "frosting on the cake" of the Chemical Warfare Command "goodies" to deal with as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">My best to you all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">PS. My email to Speaker Boehner--I was a tad animated. If you don't hear from me again you'll know why...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I know why Paul Tonko's HR 2052 Fort McClellan Health Registry Act isn't being brought out of Committee for vote. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dow wants 2,4-D approved, so their lobbyists are busy lining republican (majority party) pockets while we the sick, suffering and dying veterans, wait and hope for HR 2052 to come out of committee for a vote--a vote which will never come if you don't act. Of course you won't act, because it would look pretty funny if you admitted that thousands and thousands of people were poisoned by something you now want to put in CORN SEEDS.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ohio congressmen can play coy, and ask for proofs of ranges affected, and play all kinds of cute little games, but the fact of it is...the truth is out now. We know, Bill Maher knows and had it on his show, and pretty soon a WHOLE LOT MORE people are going to be talking to their local press, making YouTube videos, writing letters to everyone they can think of, and basically sending a growing snowball your way just in time for the election.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So the way I see it, you can be a hero or a zero here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's a shame none of your contractor buddies gets any business or kickbacks for taking care of veterans. That's why when the first injured Iraq and Afghanistan vets came back during the Bush administration they waited in moldy halls in dilapidated buildings and weren't even SEEN by a medical professional--sometimes for MONTHS after they got home. Yeah...you guys are REALLY all about taking care of the military. How can you people even look at yourselves in the mirror? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've taken care of people like you when they're dying, and I'll tell you something. I have never seen such abject PANIC in my life. They know what they have to answer for. I wonder how it will be for you when your time comes. How will your good deeds measure up against the suffering you have knowingly caused? What good will all that money do you then? You're not so young any more. I'd be giving that some thought if I were you. You have a chance to do the right thing here, for people who volunteered to serve their country, many of us at a time when it was a highly UNpopular thing to do (post-Vietnam).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My guess is you are going to stand by and let people continue in complete ignorance of what's really wrong with them even though the Army and VA have known for DECADES and covered it up. And yes, I'm going to continue to suffer and die. My guess is that you don't care about that because I'm just a woman and so are a lot of the people poisoned at Fort McClellan, but a lot weren't. They were MPs and they also worked other jobs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Either way, I promise you this. Before my time comes, I and thousands of people like me are going to make sure the world knows that YOU are the one who stood by and let us all die without the compensation and care we and our children deserve!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With all DUE respect...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">cc Reid Ribble</span>Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-52793446662531801972012-09-20T18:42:00.000-07:002012-09-20T18:59:42.270-07:00Triple Back Treachery on Jobs Bill for Veterans<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">There they go again...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Wednesday the Senate, usually the more adult of our two legislative houses, failed to pass actual bipartisan</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">***gasp***</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">legislation that would have granted an already funded Job Corps to our 220 thousand unemployed veterans during a time when <u>a veteran is committing suicide every 80 minutes in the United States</u>. I do not know how they could ignore that statistic and leave our veterans hanging, too many of them quite literally. As a family member of someone who committed suicide this statistic saddens me. As a veteran who has contemplated suicide, this dismissal of veterans, as usual, by republicans in congress, frightens and angers me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Democrats were so committed to passing this bill that they offered to allow republicans to add literally anything they wanted to this precious, life-saving legislation to make it "passable" for them, and boy-howdy, did they! The republicans had a big old PORK-FEST with what started out as good, clean, lean legislation, but the Dems ground their teeth and bore it for the sake of our vets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Then in what may be the most treacherous move since the U.S. lost our AAA credit rating for the first time in history over GOP intransigence (and in my opinion an even larger one because of the service of the human beings attached to it) the same "champions" of the bill who initially worked for its passage not only voted against it, but abused the power of the filibuster to defeat it, for nothing more important than party politics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Four men's actions were particularly craven regarding the Job Corps for Veterans bill, for which there is no "do over. It's dead. No second chances. Someone else will have to start the whole lengthy process all over again in the new (hopefully more SANE) congress. </span></div>
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<b style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">These are the four men who spat on our current vets in a way far more damaging than any Vietnam-era stories:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">John Boozman, [R] Arkansas </span><a href="http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me" target="_blank">http://www.boozman.senate.<wbr></wbr>gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Mike Johanns, [R] Nebraska </span><a href="http://www.johanns.senate.gov/public/?p=EmailSenatorJohanns" target="_blank">http://www.johanns.<wbr></wbr>senate.gov/public/?p=<wbr></wbr>EmailSenatorJohanns</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Richard Burr, [R] North Carolina </span><a href="http://burr.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home" target="_blank">http://burr.senate.gov/<wbr></wbr>public/index.cfm?FuseAction=<wbr></wbr>Contact.Home</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pat Toomey, [R] Pennsylvania </span><a href="http://www.toomey.senate.gov/?p=contact" target="_blank">http://www.toomey.senate.gov/<wbr></wbr>?p=contact</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This is one of the dirtiest of all the ugly tricks from the republican tea bag collection. It goes like this. Write and/or co-sponsor legislation (in order to take credit for it while on the campaign trail) then double back and vote <i>against</i> that same legislation, and in the case of the current job bill for vets, take it one sinister twisted step farther and use the filibuster to <b><i>triple</i></b> back and <i><b>block</b></i> it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I think...at least I </span><i style="font-size: large;">hope</i><span style="font-size: medium;"> this time it's going to go against them. Even our ridiculous excuse for news has made it pretty clear to anyone paying attention that for President Obama's entire administration the laser-assisted aim of the theocratic tea party has been to make the president look bad at any and all costs. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This time, on this particular bill, a lot of people on both sides are extremely angry, because even though approximately 1% of us serve at any one time, most of us have family, and families for the most part pay attention to these things. I don't think they're going to get away with "crop dusting" this one and pointing the finger the other way. The blame here is very clear. It wasn't Democrats filibustering or adding pork. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">It is 100% apparent to any thinking human that just over six weeks prior to the election the republicans in the Senate have followed form and thrown our veterans under the bus because they dare not do anything this close to the election that might make President Obama look good...especially not something that was HIS idea. For the GOP tea-baggers it's just politics as usual. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">They are so "pro-life" when it comes to a raped woman that they fully expect her to give up her life for having "sex" even <u><b><i>without</i></b> consent</u> (because make no mistake, it's<b><i> all about punishing female sexuality</i></b>) and give birth even if it's sure to cause her DEATH but when it comes to caring for <b><i>anyone</i></b> from <b><i>any</i></b> point after they have taken their first independent breath it's <b><i>all over</i></b>, even if they have lost a limb or the use of a good part of their <b><i>brain</i></b> for their country! There is <b><i>nothing</i></b> pro-life in that!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">If you support using and abusing our veterans this way, by all means vote for republicans this coming election. <b><i>Reward</i></b> them for playing with the lives of our finest men and women who have already given <b><i>so much</i></b> for our country. Be just like Mitt Romney and write them off and turn your back on them and let them fend for themselves. They're just the "<i>little people</i>" right? <b><i>Some of them even get food stamps for their children. They need to take some personal responsibility, for Jesus Christ of Later Days Saints sakes! Right? WRONG!</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Sure, according to Mitt, vets just need to<i> pull themselves up by however many bootstraps they have left (if any) with whatever digits remain on whatever arms remain on their bodies (if any) with whatever coordination their possibly damaged brains may be able to muster (if any) and get a job</i>! Oh wait...there AREN'T ANY because employers often don't quite "get" former military skill sets and job descriptions and bosses may even be a little afraid, given our wonderful sensation-seeking media have made all veterans sound like ticking time bombs rather than the ultra-responsible, hard working, forward thinking, motivated men and women most of us are. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">You know, if Mitt and his one percent club could have carried their own damned water in this campaign the unethical slugs that inhabit seats in our congress might have been able to vote YES on that Veterans Job Corps Bill that would have introduced employers to VETERANS WHO DESERVE TO HAVE WHAT JOBS <i><b>"THOSE PEOPLE"</b></i> HAVEN'T YET MOVED TO CHINA!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Good ol' Thurston Howell Romney gets a real chuckle out of that one, especially when he talks about the women he saw locked in, twelve to a room, at gunpoint, when he visited over there while</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><i style="font-size: large;"><u>officially</u></i><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">still working for Bain. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">America's veterans have voluntarily taken on a tremendous burden in war time. They are risking life and limb in two wars of choice, started and maintained in large part for the purpose of profiteering by the military-industrial complex...wars which have destabilized the entire middle east to the point of literal explosion. Now to add insult to injury they have dangled the promise of a jobs bill, HOPE OF WORK, something as simple as that, in front of these men and women, then snatched it away for something as craven as political expediency. If you let them get away with it, or heaven forbid, vote more like them in to the House OR Senate...well, that is between you, your mirror and your Maker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, another three veterans have killed themselves while I labored past my own military-related disability to piece this blog post together. The four men above don't care about those dead veterans or any other. </span></div>
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Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-21284932480322068472012-08-02T15:58:00.001-07:002013-04-28T23:08:31.223-07:00Update on Fort McClellan Health Registry Act<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="640" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQj0WJVxzM0jYGDK3kwNuwbyTcU7tKp_AkvBFQtgdcwK7y77fTgzg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="494" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">UNLESS YOU WERE EXPOSED AT <i>FORT McCLELLAN </i>!</span></td></tr>
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Here's the update on <u style="font-weight: bold;">HR 2052 </u>(Actually now <span style="background-color: #e69138;"><b>HR 411 for the year 2013</b></span>--just to avoid confusion for any reading back) the <u><b>Fort McClellan Health Registry Act</b></u>, which would require the VA to inform and track the medical condition of veterans who have been exposed to various sundry and assorted toxins, including Agent Orange, PCB, Nerve Gas, mercury, lead and other heavy metal contaminants and chemical warfare agents during their time of military service at Fort McClellan, Alabama. This is the all-important first step in recognizing, officially, that we EXIST, in thousands upon thousands, and that our health has indeed been compromised by our "good friends" at Monsanto, who brought us Agent Orange, and other corporations too....there's plenty of "thanks" to go around. Of course we must also "thank" the Army, which was so incredibly negligent in handling these toxins and OUR LIVES!</div>
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This piece of legislature may be the ONLY HOPE any of us has, because most of us are dying prematurely of gruesome and painful cancers and other auto-immune disorders. The fact that we are female and were never even INFORMED so that we could obtain proper care at our own expense, while those who receive treatment from the VA are almost exclusively male is not lost on us. As in the case of rampant sexual predation, female victims are of no consequence to the military. To be blunt, they just don't give a rat's ass and that lack of care, literally and figuratively, is carried forward in the practices of the VA.</div>
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It is heartening to see that since the beginning of this blog the number of co-sponsors has SKY-ROCKETED from 3 to 11. Yes, that is sardonic humor, which is my coping mechanism of choice, but it does not in any way reduce the sincere gratitude I feel toward those who have stepped forward to co-sponsor this important legislation. Now if we could just get some media attention during this election season, we'd be all set...</div>
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If I were just a bit sicker I could light myself on fire and leave a nice manifesto, but I'm not quite that desperate...yet.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span><a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d112:5:./temp/~bdFwiW::" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">H.R.2052 </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">: Fort McClellan Health Registry Act</span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Sponsor:</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span><a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/?&Db=d112&querybd=@FIELD(FLD003+@4((@1(Rep+Tonko++Paul))+01942))" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Rep Tonko, Paul</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> [NY-21] (introduced 5/26/2011) </span><a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d112:5:./temp/~bdFwiW:@@@P" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Cosponsors</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> (11) </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Committees: </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">House Veterans' Affairs; House Armed Services </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Latest Major Action:</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> 6/24/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.</span>
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<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/R?d112:FLD003:@1%28Rep+Tonko+Paul%29:">http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/R?d112:FLD003:@1%28Rep+Tonko+Paul%29:</a><br />
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<img src="http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/532546_464797353531508_1259834097_n.jpg" />Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-52091014432328753702012-02-12T23:51:00.000-08:002012-02-12T23:51:33.484-08:00"I'm Sorry, Yours Was Not the Ambulance I Was Looking For"<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>A quick note from the land of Absurdia,</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>While perusing one of several sites dedicated to Fort McClellan vets, I happened to notice a Law Firm trolling for business and thought, what the heck. So I put forth the Herculean effort of trying to put into words that sounded at least somewhat sane and not totally paranoid, what the U.S. Army and VA have done to us. The effort took several hours. As you also know, I PAID for several days for that output of mental and physical energy. Ohhh how I paid. In closing, I politely asked the "nice" attorney if he could please offer some advice for someone like me even if his firm was unable to take on a case like mine.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>After all that effort, and all the suffering, and worst of all, the FALSE HOPE so cruelly held out by his "ambulance chase", I got the usual, trite, impersonal, boilerplate, "sorry, we can't comment as to the merits of your case, but our firm is not choosing to assist you at this time. No "I was saddened to hear of your suffering" or "thank you for your service" or any hint that the guy had even done so much as even SKIM OVER the hundreds of words I had sent, because they asked for "as much detail as possible." </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>Of course I fired off a not very friendly response, to which he replied that he has vets in his family and prays for veterans all the time. (I'm sure he meant "real" vets, not ones like us...you know...gah...women.) It made me feel LOTS better though, and I'm sure it does you too! He also added a completely gratuitous and disingenuous comment that not only does he not own a $3,000 pair of shoes, but never has he ever even heard of such a thing! </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>Yeahhhhh....right, and pretty pink and purple butterflies are flying out my ....ears as I write this! </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>And then he added the comment that always makes me feel better than any other. "I truly hope you get the help you need." I could just hear the condescension dribbling thickly from each of the words as I read them. Of course he really meant "I hope someone commits you, because I think you're a raving nut case," but given he's just a F.I.B. anyway (regional colloquialism--I was born in Door County, Wisconsin, a once beautiful place now turned into a FAR northern "quaint" suburb of Chicago) I won't be losing any sleep over it one way or the other.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>It's just all so ironic really. First we hear the "it's all in your imagination" thing from the doctors, then when a medical cause is finally found for our illnesses and they can no longer throw us in the "loony bin" (figuratively speaking) the LEGAL PROFESSION steps right in after them and takes over, with absolutely NO thought to the fact that we have perfectly valid grounds and reams of medical evidence to back our claims. But, since lawyers can't make money off us, meh...who cares. Send out the boilerplate and if we're unhappy with that, treat us like WE are the ones with "issues."</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>I am beginning to hate lawyers almost as much as doctors....except my pain doctor. And no, he doesn't prescribe me "fun" drugs. Quite the opposite in fact, but he treats me like a HUMAN, unlike nearly everyone else I've run into since I was 19 years old and in basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama!</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>As for most doctors and lawyers, a pox on both their houses. In fact if THEY had to deal with some of these symptoms maybe they'd be a bit more understanding! But no, I wouldn't wish this even on them.</b></i></span>Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-20055968415659336632011-12-14T08:15:00.000-08:002011-12-14T08:15:03.606-08:00Fort McClellan Health Registry Act (H.R. 2052) Tonko's Statement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<h3 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(55, 100, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"> <u> ***</u></span><u>Please read note at end of text of Tonko's Bill!</u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; text-decoration: underline;">***</span></span></i></h3><h3 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(55, 100, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; color: #37649b; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">TONKO BILL TO TRACK VETS EXPOSED TO TOXINS AT FORT MCCLELLAN</span></h3><span class="contentdate" style="display: block; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">06/02/11</span></span><div class="contentdata" style="vertical-align: top;"><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Paul Tonko has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that will help track the health problems of thousands of veterans who were stationed at Ft. McClellan in Alabama, and who were exposed to dangerous levels of PCBs and other toxins. The Fort McClellan Health Registry Act (H.R. 2052) requires the Veterans Administration to set up a health registry for vets who served at Fort McClellan between 1935 and 1999, in order to track their medical history to establish a firm connection between their service at the base and medical conditions related toexposure to toxic substances. Congressman Tonko first authored the bill in the last session of Congress, following meetings with local veterans who were stationed at Fort McClellan and are suffering with numerous health problems.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">“The veterans who served at Fort McClellan deserve answers – we must investigate the link between the toxic exposure at the base and significant health problems those veterans are experiencing,” said Congressman Tonko. “My bill will start the process of tracking health issues with those veterans so we can finally establish a link and get our veterans the care they deserve.”</strong></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Fort McClellan is located in Anniston, Alabama, and served thousands of Army Veterans during the Vietnam era up until its closure in 1999. Many of those veterans were unaware that the base and the surrounding town were contaminated with PCBs, cyanide, nerve gas, lead, pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Fort McClellan was home to the Army’s Chemical Corps and ran experiments on chemicals such as Agent Orange. The town of Anniston was home to a large factory owned by Monsanto that manufactured PCBs. Anniston is widely regarded by scientists as the most polluted area in the nation.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Many veterans who spent time at the base have experienced a number of significant health problems – such as multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, diabetes, heart disease, and issues affecting the reproductive, autoimmune and neurological systems. Many Fort McClellan veterans are women, because the Women’s Army Corps was headquartered at the base. While there have been many efforts to better document and understand cases of toxic exposure impacting primarily male service members, Fort McClellan, with its unusually large population of female soldiers, has been overlooked for too long.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">In addition to creating the registry, the Fort McClellan Health Registry Act also requires the VA to notify the veterans listed on the registry about the consequences of toxic exposure at the base and let them know about their options.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">“We can no longer ignore the veterans who became sick as after serving at Fort McClellan,” added Congressman Tonko. “We must take action – they deserve better.”</strong></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">The bill has been referred to the House Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">_____________________________________________________________________________</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I called my congressman's office and the nice lady Kerry (who may or may not have read some not so nice letters to her employer mysteriously posted from MY email somehow, ?grudgingly? gave me some good advice anyway) so here goes. As you read above, this is in its infancy and could drag on for years. This is good news and bad news. Good if we survive, bad if we don't...unless we are married in which case it it still good for our spouses, BECAUSE our compensation from VA, regardless of whether or not we are receiving Social Security and Medicare and/or Pension benefits already, accrues from the DATE WE FIRST APPLY if we reach that golden promised land of VA proof and approval of our illnesses and passes to our spouses if we don't...make it. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So my advice to you is MAKE YOUR APPOINTMENTS NOW! Even if you don't have all your ducks in a row, they have the burden of requesting the medical proofs from your various doctors and specialists! That is the straight poop from the VA this AM. So get in there and get your claim made and worry about proving your case as things develop, and claim as many of the mentioned disorders as you legitimately can. Cover every possible one that you can realistically link to your chemical exposure. I'm also thinking, as plan B, if VA won't give over, we could maybe go class action against Monsanto unless they've already got some sweetheart immunity deal, which also wouldn't surprise me. NOTHING about the military and human experimentation will EVER surprise me again. And to think, a few short years...well okay a decade and a half ago, I was in a TIZZY because someone I "think" was a Marine (an online person, what can I say?) Jet Jock was having unpleasant side effects from his immunizations. Poor effing baby. I'm sure the officers got the pure stuff, it's the people who work for a living who get to eat pesticides and neurotoxins.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Good luck, all. Until further notice, CE, OUT.</span></div></div>Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-89280551397932500172011-12-14T05:19:00.000-08:002011-12-14T05:19:54.575-08:00PS to Fun and Games at Fort MacToxic<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i>Incase you missed the comment to the previous post, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">I have been told the bill is H.R. #2052. All bills must be brought forward by the House first so work on your CONGRESS PERSON first...then IF it is brought forward by them, start hitting up your SENATOR. Meanwhile hit OBAMA HARD! ...and as I said, repeat, repeat, repeat. Full auto, boys and girls! </span></i></span>Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3542782246397247851.post-69510990725570034552011-12-14T04:57:00.000-08:002012-08-02T17:50:50.668-07:00Fun and Games at Fort MacToxic!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was at Fort McClellan for Army basic training (and bonus toxic exposure). I was face down in foul smelling stuff on the firing range. They sprayed it "to keep the dust down" everywhere, on a daily basis, except when it rained. They sprayed other stuff "to keep the bugs away." There wasn't a weed ANYWHERE, but there were plenty of tanks and sprayers. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They sprayed HELLISH stuff ON US as we recited the alphabet, then said and spelled our names and shouted our service numbers through the tears and mucous pouring from our noses and mouths in the "gas chamber." They later told me I had "sensitive skin" when I broke out in weeping blisters and started having dizzy spells and headaches, even though I did as I was told and didn't rinse off afterward, and those symptoms lasted throughout and long after my time in service. I am talking floor-tilting-sideways-dizzy, not just a passing episode of vertigo here. I am now, decades later, finally diagnosed with MS, CFIDS, PTSD (not related to the toxins), and Degenerative Disk Disease, requiring frequent shots into my spine because my body can't tolerate the level of pain medication needed to try to cover up the pain. I have had 2 separate skin cancers removed--before age 40. That is NOT normal, and I've had several several other precancerous lesions removed prophylactically, and I have Barrett's Esophagitis and polycystic breasts. How long until that turns to cancer, I don't know. I feel like a ticking time bomb now that I know the truth! I also sound like a drama-queen, but I'm actually fairly low-key in person. I just get animated when it comes to things like justice and fairness and people being treated unequally due to gender, etc....</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of my sons has spina-bifida occulta, which is a deformity of the spine which ranges from disabling to barely noticable. He's in some pain but is able to work and even play football. My other son got Shingles...SHINGLES...something 88 year olds get...at 15 years old! So apparently I have passed this "gift" from Monsanto et al on to my children, as so many other Agent Orange and other toxin vets have...only as the female parent, obviously since I was also the "biological incubator" ie: the one with the uterus and thereby provided the toxin-spiked blood supply during their development, it's even worse than if I were only supplying genetic material. So, while female vets exposed to this stuff suffer just as much and are more likely to pass MORE damage on to their offspring, the VA refuses to even acknowledge we exist! That is just SO EFFING WRONG!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I visited a site on Blogger where someone said the VA was treating anyone who had served at Fort McClellan as a "presumptive case" of Stateside Agent Orange Exposure, which IS a real thing...for men. NO SUCH LUCK FOR WOMEN. That blogger was either woefully misled, hopelessly optimistic, or a very gifted psychic, because it hasn't happened yet. I choose not to think she was just plain CRUEL. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To back-track just a bit, McClellan was the WAC basic training facility and MP school as well as the Chemical Warfare Headquarters most of its existence (and "shhhhhh" leaky depository of said chemicals while I was there and until it was closed in 1999 due to all the toxins found in the water, air and on land. This was a <u>BIG concern to the civilian population of a town SEVERAL MILES AWAY whose population did NOT have their collective heads in said toxic waste for WEEKS at a time or have it sprayed into their eyes, noses, mouths and skin while singing the Star freaking Spangled Banner</u>!) </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">God, where is Tom Daschle when you need him? He's the one who fought for SO LONG to get the Vietnam vets compensated. How ironic that I took care of some of those guys and didn't know I had trained in a literal swamp of the stuff? I remember cleaning M-60's (my "reward" for scoring "Expert" on the rifle range and getting to fire one) and hearing the guys talk about how they kept leaking BARRELS of the stuff nearby and the barrels were deteriorating and leaking right out onto the ground...and no one was doing anything about it. At the time it was just another "stupid Army" thing. We had no idea it was going to kill us someday. I was going to say we did everything but bathe in it, but we DID bathe in it because it leaked right into the water system. Waste not, want not, right? ...but no great loss because the vast majority of us there were "just women." We all know how the good ol' boys network works...ohhh yes...but that's a whole different story....the PTSD one, which I may or may not tell another day.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ugh...the way I see it I'm screwed seven ways to Sunday no matter how you look at it, but it would have been nice to leave some hope for my children. I'm just as sick as the men exposed to that crap, and though I did my bleeding, sweating and crying in an all together different way, I DID do it. The bastards who caused it were "friendly" (ha...odd term, that) but I digress...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Tell ya what though. If you share a similar experience, get in touch...preferably with your congressional representative or with Paul Tonko, the sponsor of HR 2052. Feel free to get in touch with me too, but they can do more for you!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span><a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d112:5:./temp/~bdc2QZ::" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">H.R.2052 </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">: Fort McClellan Health Registry Act</span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Sponsor:</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span><a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/?&Db=d112&querybd=@FIELD(FLD003+@4((@1(Rep+Tonko++Paul))+01942))" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Rep Tonko, Paul</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> [NY-21] (introduced 5/26/2011) </span><a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d112:5:./temp/~bdc2QZ:@@@P" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Cosponsors</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> (11) </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Committees: </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">House Veterans' Affairs; House Armed Services </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Latest Major Action:</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> 6/24/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I am working with my congressman on some issues related to my disability, and I HOPE he may help me look into this too, though I have my doubts as he's one of the Teavangelicals owned by the Koch brothers. In the meantime, CALL YOURS! Every single incumbent, be they democrat or republican is sweating bullets right now, so PRESSURE THEM TO PASS THIS LEGISLATION. It's in committee and just needs to be brought to the floor and voted upon. They are wanting to look good...especially these republicans who have done nothing but OBSTRUCT, OBSTRUCT, OBSTRUCT. If they do something like this even *I* may vote republican...so get busy. Write, call, email...and repeat. GO!</span>Emmy129http://www.blogger.com/profile/14764878978512460752noreply@blogger.com1