Before I got Gulf War Illness

When I was younger I was proud to join the U.S. Navy. I was twenty when I volunteered. I never really gave it much thought, but a friend went to a recruiter one night and invited me along in 1988. He showed us pictures of The Phillipines and Australia and discussed how fun it was to go overseas while we drank a 12 pack of beers. One thing he said resonates with me to this day. He said twenty years from now you will come home from being out to sea and have a million stories to tell. Your friends, however, will still be working in those dead-end jobs and sitting on that same old bar stool they were when you left. You will have travelled the world, maybe got a college degree, and you'll have a nice retirement check for the rest of your life along with healthcare for you and your family if you have one. He had a point.

I wanted to go quickly before I changed my mind. I had become quite accustomed to having long hair. (It was good for picking up girls in the days of head-bangers and heavy metal). So when I went to the recruiting center I just took whatever job was available at the time without thinking. I was a mess-specialist which is a fancy way of saying cook, or burger-burner. I didn't care, though, I was off to San Diego in two weeks.

After two years on shore duty at the Oakland Naval Hospital I found out that I was attached to the USNS Mercy TAH-19. It's a converted oil tanker used as a floating hospital. It's very impressive inside. I was back to the galley again after spending my last years in the Navy in the supply department driving a forklift and other things. I liked that better than cooking. I hated being a cook, but I was good at it. I got really good at taking four orders at a time from patrons in the breakfast line for eggs to order. The trick was to balance everything when the ship was rocking.

I spent nine months out to sea and after I got back I spent another three years in the Navy. My last duty station was at a bombing range in Astor, Florida. While I was there I met my wife and I stayed here. My wife had three kids when I met her. She had been abused and so had the kids by her ex-husband. I fell in love with her and the kids, quit drinking and settled down to make a life with her.

After I got out I went to school to become a graphic designer. I was very good at it and eventually worked my way up to $50,000 a year. I worked as an Art Director for a retirement community for a year and a half and then for myself for a while before I got very sick. I tried very hard for years to work with the many symptoms of Gulf War Illness, but finally I could hardly get out of bed. I have to take several medications just to get up and around in the morning. I can't walk more than about 100 yards before I have immense pain and have to sit or lay down. My life revolves around pain.

My kids are all grown now and my wife is disabled as well so we are lucky to have my daughter to help take care of us. I try to do as much as I can, but I never expected life to be like this at age forty-five. I have been fighting to receive service-connected disability for almost four years now. I receive a pension, but it's not for service connection and is hardly enough to live on. My wife receives Social Security supplemental income or SSI and that is just a few hundred more a month and we barely pay the bills.

I am writing this blog to try to raise awareness of this illness which afflicts many veterans who served in the gulf recently and over 20 years ago. The VA claims they want to help us, but the doctors I have seen offer no help and do not want to even hear the words Gulf War Syndrome or Illness. All they want to do is throw a bunch of pain meds at me and silence me. I am not going to be silenced. I am fighting to do something about the problem and I hope you will join me.