Marines Also Blame Illness on Gulf Duty

While the Pentagon has acknowledged that 15,000 mostly Army soldiers in Iraq may have been exposed to deadly nerve gas when the U.S. destroyed an ammunition dump in the Gulf War’s wake, Marines stationed almost 100 miles downwind are now saying they too were contaminated.

Some Marine veterans from Orange County and elsewhere in Southern California said their believed exposure to chemical agents may in fact be linked to an Iraqi Scud missile explosion over Jubail, Saudi Arabia, on Jan. 19, 1991, or other enemy ammunition bunkers that were later blown up in Kuwait.

Among those Southern California Marines who believe their lives were devastated by fallout from chemical weapon explosions are Charles Arce, 39, of San Bernardino County, Anthony Joseph, 45, of Santa Ana, and Don L. Hairston, 47, who lives in Laguna Niguel.

Arce gets around with the aid of a walker and wheelchair.

Joseph is chronically fatigued and hampered by various gastrointestinal problems and bleeding gums. Shortly after his return from the gulf, a fungus began growing on his hands and under his fingernails.

“Tony and I used to be gung-ho Marines,” said Arce, who currently resides in the town of Highland. “We were in shape and our uniforms fit perfectly. But look at how we are now. The government doctors say Tony is hallucinating. I also had a military doctor at Bethesda [Naval Hospital] tell me that my problem was in my head. But there is nothing wrong with his head, or mine.”

Arce, who served 17 years on active duty, was a staff sergeant and motor transport chief with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which was based at Camp Pendleton before it was shipped to the Persian Gulf.

Joseph, who was on active duty for 16 years, was a gunnery sergeant and motor transport chief for Marine Air Control Group 38 at El Toro.

Major Don L. Hairston retired in June 1994, after 22 years as a Marine, and now works for the American Red Cross in Santa Ana. Hairston said he suffers from chronic nausea, which causes him to vomit. His unit, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, was at the Saudi Arabian port city of Jubail on Jan. 19, 1991, when he saw an Iraqi Scud missile explode overhead in the darkened sky.

Members of the 24th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion, which was also camped at Jubail at the time, said last month that when the missile exploded it rained a chemical agent over their position that left many of the unit’s Seabees seriously ill.

“I was on duty and remember coming out of the command center to watch, because someone said there was a Scud inbound,” said Hairston. “It was an air burst, and it exploded straight up, overhead.”

Although fallout from the explosion triggered a chemical alarm at his Jubail encampment, Hairston said he and the other Marines in his unit did not suffer any immediate effects.

But some of the Seabees from the construction battalion have said that the gas cloud that floated over their camp immediately after the blast caused many in their unit to experience numbness and suffer skin blisters and shortness of breath.

In recent interviews with the New York Times, these sailors said they now suffer from gastrointestinal problems, rashes, chronic fatigue and memory loss, all considered symptoms of so-called Gulf War Syndrome and remarkably similar to ailments reported by men who served in the Army engineer battalion that blew up the chemical weapons dump.

Last summer, the Pentagon admitted that members of the 400-strong 37th U.S. Army Engineer Battalion were exposed to the nerve gas sarin in March 1991 when combat engineers blew up an Iraqi ammunition bunker complex at Khamisiyah, Iraq, about 100 miles north of the Kuwaiti border.

Then, Pentagon officials last month revised their estimates of the numbers, saying that 15,000 or more U.S. troops may have been exposed to the nerve gas when a dark cloud created by the explosion drifted southward.

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Most Marine units were stationed either in Kuwait or in Saudi Arabia, near the border with Kuwait.

Veterans interviewed for this story say they are suffering ailments with the same symptoms attributed to Gulf War Syndrome, including gastrointestinal problems, chronic fatigue, insomnia, neurological disorders, skin rashes and fungus.

Most of the high-profile cases of Gulf War Syndrome involve Army troops, who were apparently exposed to chemical or biological weapons during or after the war in Iraq.

After years of U.S. denials, recent Pentagon admissions that American forces may have been exposed to nerve agents have raised hopes among some Marines that the government will finally recognize that their medical problems are linked to service in the Persian Gulf.

If Gulf War Syndrome is ever recognized as a service-connected disability, veterans will be eligible for free medical care and disability payments. For now, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs say there is no medical evidence that links any specific illness to service in the gulf.

A Pentagon spokesman who answered questions Friday on the condition he would not be identified by name said the Defense Department believes the cause of the Seabees’ discomfort after the explosion was most likely red nitric acid, used as a rocket propellent in the Scuds. He said, however, the Pentagon is still studying the incident.

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Joseph, whose unit was also at Jubail in January 1991, said he remembered a nighttime Scud explosion that triggered chemical alarms at his encampment. Joseph said the Marines in his unit were ordered to put on their chemical protection suits. But after the attack, he said, they were told the explosion had been a sonic boom.

After the Jan. 19, 1991, Scud exploded, some Seabees said they too were told the blast was a sonic boom.

Hairston, Arce and Joseph said they were surprised that media reports of Gulf War Syndrome rarely mention Marine victims. Capt. T.V. Johnson, a Marine spokesman in Washington, said he too is surprised that “so few Marines are popping up in these reports.”

“But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any Marines who have these ailments,” said Johnson, who quickly added that there is “no medical evidence that shows these ailments are related to service in the Persian Gulf.”

Pat Kelly, spokeswoman for the Balboa Navy Hospital in San Diego, said that Navy doctors treated Joseph from October to December 1994.

She said he complained of bleeding gums, headaches, fatigue and a fungal infection of the hand.

“We treated him successfully for the fungus and diagnosed him with depression. However, the doctors could not attribute any of his ailments to service in the gulf,” Kelly said. “But we did refer him to the V.A. hospital for further tests related to the [V.A.’s] Persian Gulf Illness Registry.”

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Both Joseph and Arce are being treated at the V.A.’s Jerry L. Pettis Medical Center in Loma Linda. Hospital officials declined to discuss either man’s medical history, despite a signed waiver by Joseph authorizing the release of his medical records.

Arce’s world collapsed in April 1993, when he was given a medical discharge. He was suffering from chronic fatigue, body aches, gastrointestinal problems and tremors. His weight had dropped from 150 pounds to 103 pounds, and doctors gave him but five months to live. He was hooked up to an oxygen mask and was being fed through his nose.

According to Arce, military doctors at Balboa Navy Hospital and Bethesda Navy Hospital told him at various times that he was suffering from AIDS, tuberculosis and multiple sclerosis. In fact, he did not have any of those diseases.

Instead of accepting the doctors’ diagnoses that he wouldn’t survive, Arce asked to be taken to the V.A. hospital in Loma Linda, where he recovered enough to return home. He lives on a monthly military pension of $2,000 and Social Security disability payments of $740 each month.

The Veterans Administration has rejected his application for financial assistance to modify his mobile home for wheelchair access and to buy a van to accommodate his wheelchair, Arce said.

“They say they don’t know what caused me to go from a gung-ho Marine to this,” said Arce.

“But I think they just don’t want to tell me. I’ve asked them for help, but the government has turned its back on me. I loved the Marine Corps. It was my life. The Marine Corps always treated me right. It’s the government that ruined me. People who make decisions that affect people like me were probably never in the military.”