McClellan Vets vs Medical "Professionals"

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:

http://www.veteransunited.com/network/will-ft-mcclellan-exceed-camp-lejeune-status/#comment-35629

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 LOST  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!

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.

Yet   still   they   lost.    

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, "Only if you consider choosing to SERVE MY COUNTRY to be a lifestyle choice." 

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).

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?"

Seriously, no one wants to be The One who opens up this can of worms at the VA because it's going to cost 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 big brass turned big wig pool party just because a bunch of (mostly) former enlisted 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."

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 anything to keep their own lavish lifestyles protected. Some even figure they've earned it! Well, we have earned our health care and compensation too, and our children, innocent of even the decision to volunteer to join the military in the first place, certainly deserve medical care more than these fat cats deserve to keep their tee times with Halliburton and KB&R!

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 generations 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.

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.

 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.

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!

So for today some suggestions for dealing with your doctor.

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.

Then there's pain.

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...).

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.

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!

 If it's easier for docs to label you as depressed, a malingerer or malcontent, or "a woman of a certain age 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 will fall back on those diagnoses rather than looking any deeper into the issue, even if you spoon feed the McClellan/Monsanto facts to them complete with references! 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.

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.

So, say the worst happens and you have failed to get through to your doctor. Then do this:

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).

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.

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.*

Even though none of us is "well" after leaving that place, we are all so used to never 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.

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.

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".

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."

I laughed. I'm not laughing so much now...

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.

Wear an allergy bracelet or medic-alert necklace or get a DNR tat if you don't want heroic measures done, but ***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.*** 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.

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).

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).

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!

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. : )

From McClellan Vets to Monsanto - We Were Not Weeds

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 live substances were manufactured, stored, and used in training. 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.

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. 

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. The fish became disoriented within 10 seconds, he reported, and were dead within four minutes. 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.

What's worse is that even MONSANTO assumed the Army and VA would take care of us! 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. THAT doesn't prove anything as far as the all-knowing VA is concerned. Never mind I was told ten years ago 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!

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?

 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. 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 (and poisoning some MORE innocent people) but that corn will still grow. It will be poison as seven hells, but it'll grow!  Is that their anti-immigrant plan? Are they going to poison all the corn tortillas?

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:

http://www.veteransunited.com/network/will-ft-mcclellan-exceed-camp-lejeune-status/#comment-4641

Other excess Monsanto chemicals also made their way into Anniston’s environment, including different kinds of dioxins and herbicides, including the infamous Agent Orange. The effects of these chemicals were far-reaching.

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.

According to a report in the Archives of Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine, babies born in Anniston have a higher chance to suffer from structural birth defects like missing limbs, malformed hearts and underdeveloped spinal cords.

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! 

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.

Anonymous 1:

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!

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Then on the opposite side of the "human" and I use the term very loosely, spectrum, comes this incredible piece of literary poop:

Anonymous #2:

You must remember the curent administration believes us army types to be subhuman you are supprised that they do not care?

[[This was what's called class b derpitude, too dull and                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             poorly constructed to really be class a derpitude.]]

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OKAY STOP THE PRESSES...

I just read something that has me scared, truly scared, 

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.

Monsanto Owns Xe ...otherwise known as

                                       Blackwater International

                                          The Biggest Privately Owned 

                                              International Mercenary

                                                Organization  

                                                    In The World

Verified

Ugh.. suddenly the rest of this doesn't seem so important, so I'm just plastering it up as is. 

Sorry folks... I really don't feel well. 

We are SO fucked.

Anonymous 3 replies:

• 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!

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  Anonymous 4:

1. 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

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   Anonymous 5: 
   • So let me get this right. You are really trying to sell US the line that our oh so dearly beloved Uncle Sam
     “vewwy vewwwwwy quiet-weee”
     (as if he was chasing wabbits)
     tried (and failed)
     to do soil remediation (decontamination) 1.in the areas where all those nasty leaking barrels were stored,
     2.where all the open air drills were held and
     3.in the areas where the ash burn-off of the improperly incinerated chemical and bio waste landed
     …as part of BRAC.
     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.
     That’s really your story? You really want to go with that, like seriously.
     Nah…I didn’t think so. But you gave it your best shot. No one can say you didn’t.
     BRAC indeed. How the military loves its innocuous sounding acronyms.
     “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!”
     And they’re NOT CHEMicals…they’re “open AIR agents. Get it RIGHT-uh.”
     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?
     Seriously…
     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”?
     I don’t know about you, but I feel healthier already!
     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…

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 feel 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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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! 

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. Men 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. 

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. 

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.

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! 

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! 

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. 

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. 

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. 

So Mc Toxic is paved over because it was beyond salvaging or reclamation, just like the nuclear reactors in Japan after their environmental 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. 

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 AIT, 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 we were not weeds.

1. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0101-02.htm

Sweet Home Alabama! I'll never hold it against ya, 

Clay and gravel, hill and holler, creek and river, 

Field and forest piece of heaven that you are. 

The devil just had to leave his mark on you, 

     And it begins with Monsanto