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Q: What were they?
A: I don't know. The only one that I know of that a medic had told me
and that was yellow fever. I do remember that shot, but the rest of them
--....we were in a hurry and so you didn't have a lot of time to ask and since
that time I've come to learn that it wouldn't mattered if I asked anyway, we
wouldn't have been told what the shots were. For instance, like anthrax and
botulinum,we wouldn't been told what those were. We were not supposed to have
knowledge of any shots or anything that they gave us in case we were captured
over there, we wouldn't be able to tell me what were inoculated with. Also,I
mean these shots were experimental, so of course they're not gonna tell us you
know that we're using experimental drugs and even though it's against the
Nuremberg Code we're still gonna do it anyway.
Q: How did you find this out?
A: Through my research over the past six years, I found out.
Q: Do you have any information about what kind of vaccines they were?
A: Well, I do know speaking to our old battalion commander, -- he has
reassured me, and I believe that he would never lie to me.... He told me that
our unit did not have anthrax and botulinum, and I believe him. Now he might
have been told differently, I don't know. I don't believe people above him.
The higher ups over Lt. Colonel, I don't believe..... I think the Pentagon and
I think the VA and the National Institute of Health and I think a lot of these
people -- oh yeah, the information we have now about the NIH is unbelievable
and their collation with General Blank and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. We
received those shots and then once we got overseas, three months later, we had
to go through it again, and they told us that every three months we would have
to get these shots for the duration of the time that we'd be there.
I feel like a walking medical experiment in a sense... I know my past,
I know my health, and my physical being. They took what I considered a
perfectly healthy, all American boy and turned him into a crippled old man. I
have illnesses that old people have, I have aches and pains and cramps and
headaches and I've never experienced that kind of physical pain before, that
kind mental anguish before that I have now.
Q: When did you first learn how bad you were ...??
A: When I was 30, I was told you probably won't live to be 40. We don't
know what has attacked your body except my very first consult sheet from the VA
hospital they stamped on it that I was exposed to chemicals. They found things
wrong with me that were very un-normal. I was the first Persian Gulf veteran
that they had seen in this hospital and there was only about 13 of us in
Michigan at the time that had gone to VA hospitals and I thought great, you
know, I mean they don't know what's going on here.
I had gone to family doctors, I had gone to bone specialists from referrals
from family doctors that they just could not figure what's wrong with me. I
mean my knuckles were swollen, my feet looked like toxemia, I couldn't walk, I
was crawling everywhere, I mean they had no clue what was going on with me, so
they said go to a VA hospital. When I reported to the VA hospital, they looked
at me and they said they were amazed I had an enlarged prostate, I had welts
all over me, I had rashes, I had -- my -- it was the weirdest thing; while I
would talk to the doctors blood would just start seeping out of my skin. There
would be no wound, no scratch, no cut, but I -- but the doctor would hand me a
Kleenex, I would have blood just running right out of the pores of my skin.
They wrote on my medical records that I was exposed to chemicals and it was
unclear which chemical...
About two weeks ago, my arm, I was sleepin', this is the second time it's
happened to me in six years -- my arm just raises up and it's like I can't move
it. You know, I'll put it down and it won't go down. My leg, I woke up two
days ago ....and I went to get up and my right leg would not move. It was like
my right leg was not even part of my body, I couldn't even feel it, it was just
totally numb and just there. I couldn't even get up. About a half an hour it
straightened out.
Q: The war ended. You came home. Could you describe when you
started first to feel symptoms and what were your symptoms.
A. My mom would notice me -- 'cause we stayed here with my mom and
dad when we came up here and my mom would get up for breakfast in the morning
and I would be at the table holding my head, like 5, 6 o'clock in the morning.
I just had my arms over the head and she would ask me what's wrong, and I'd
just tell her, -- I can't stand this headache, my head's gonna explode..there's
no words to describe that pain. It was very similar to like an ice pick
running right through my eye or like a magician's box where they put the swords
through all the different sides of the box, that's what my head was feeling
like.
I would go to bathroom and I'd walk away and five minutes later I felt like
some was still coming out. Diarrhea constantly. I was 30, 40 episodes of
diarrhea a day. I mean I was always in the bathroom, running to the bathroom
constantly. Everything I ate, everything I smelled, everything I did, I'd just
vomiting up and I thought --I honestly believed that it was just I was having a
hard time acclimating back to the States. I was used to that weather over
there, that smell, that stink, that stench, the nastiness of the Arab countries
and I get back over here and there's trees and there's oxygen and pollution,
and cars everywhere, and you know maybe I'm just having a hard time with
that. It will go away.
Well, in that 30 days time I started breaking out with these big red spots
all over my body that would get like dry skin on 'em and if I -- the ones that
are on my back, if my shirt snagged against them or something, it felt like
somebody had touched me with a lighter or a flame or something, just burned,
but I got back to Fort Bragg 30 days later and our battalion was coming home
and everybody took a leave and I think it was about June -- the end of May or
June, or early July -- I can't remember exactly when, but our battalion
reformed and went through our command changes and everything and we started our
PT back up, our physical training. Every time I would try to run I would
violently vomit up.
Now I've been ridiculed by a man named Mike Fumento who wrote an article
called Gulf Lore Syndrome. I describe my vomit as fluorescent looking, kind of
like chem lights that you'd break and the shiny light. I've described it like
that to congress and to the press and he's made fun of me saying you know that
there's no such thing as fluorescent -- and I mean he's taking it too serious,
so I don't care I'm gonna say it anyway. My vomit was a bright orangish-yellow
and every time I would try to run -- and I would get delirious and I'd almost
pass out and guys would actually have to -- you know, fellow friends and
veterans would grab me and take me to the side of the road while I would vomit
and spit up this stuff and an ambulance would have to come get me.
The medics, Scott Rafferty, I'll never forget this man because he took care
of me almost every day that this happened to me. He would pick me up with the
humvee ambulance and boom, boom right away, IV's in each arm, and I'd get
rushed to Womack Community Hospital on Fort Bragg. This was a daily
occurrence. It happened every time I tried to run. I would just violently
vomit up this orangish-yellow stuff.........
Q: Okay, so you would come home and you decided that you were having
some trouble, personal troubles with, you know, the higher ups and so you
decided to leave the military. Tell me about -- so you and your wife left Fort
Bragg, obviously. Where did you go and where were you living and from then how
was your sickness affecting your life?
A: Well, at this point, the symptoms and -- I still hadn't had a clear defined
diagnosis except for the stomach viral infection. We came up here, we moved
back to Niles and we lived here with my parents for about ten months until -- I
was remodeling their second house -[cough]- 'scuse me -- like wallpapering and
cleaning up the yard and stuff. My parents own another house and it took me
about ten months to get that ready to move back into the way we wanted it
done.
Q: Wait, just one second. So you were doing this when you were
sick--How was that?
A: At this time, I was only having headaches and nausea and diarrhea.
I wasn't having the chemical sensitivity yet, I wasn't having the
forgetfulness, the mood swings. I didn't experience any of this yet. Just
four or five basic symptoms that hung in there with me and so we moved into the
house and then what we wanted to do is open up our own little restaurant and in
South Bend we opened up a little tiny food joint, I mean just a small one
inside of a bar. A friend of mine owned a bar and she had a kitchen that was
inactive and she said "would you like to have the business?", and sure, you
know, it's free, we've never done anything like this before, but let's do it
and surprisingly enough in four days we earned our first dollar profit, and we
did well.
We were making between $200-$400 a night sometimes, and we did very well for
just the two of us and I had gone out and bought a new pair of tennis shoes and
-- 'cause I was on my feet a lot and about three weeks after I'd boughten those
shoes my feet started hurting really, really bad, like needles, and I thought
well, it's just the shoes. You know, maybe it's just a cheap pair of shoes or
something, I'll go out and buy a newer pair. I went and bought two new pairs
of shoes and my feet only got worse, and one morning I woke up and this knuckle
right here and -- let's see, it was -- I'm trying to remember, it was my right
hand, it was this knuckle right here. These were outsized, but this one right
here swelled up like a golf ball. I mean I just woke up one morning and my
hand was like this and this knuckle was like that, and I -- I mean I'm freakin'
now, I'm thinking what the hell is wrong with my hand here.
So I called my family doctor, right away he got me in, he sent me for x-rays,
we came back and he couldn't figure out. He said "I see nothing in these
x-rays that should be making your knuckle do this." So he sent me to a man who
was a bone specialist here in South Bend and I went to him, and this man was
amazed. I mean he just kept looking at my knuckle. He's like "oh, my God",
you know, "I don't see anything like this unless it's a break usually." So he
again sent me out for more x-rays, different views, different machines or
something, I don't know what he did differently, but it was -- his film was
different than what the other doctor had, and again, he could not see anything
in the x-rays that would cause this.
So he gave me five cortisone shots in one knuckle and he said come back in
about three weeks and we'll check the swelling. I didn't even make it to three
weeks. These other two knuckles here swelled up just like it and then my feet
--
My feet had swelled like elephantitis, black, blue and purple. I couldn't
walk on 'em. If I touched my feet to the floor just getting out of bed just to
touch my feet on the floor, it felt like I was standing in hot fire. So I
would have to crawl from room to room. I'd have to crawl everywhere and
obviously the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me, they were definitely
not going to do anymore cortisone because they thought that helped spread it.
So what they did is the suggested I go a VA hospital, and that's when I went
to the VA, but now at this point I'm scared. You know, now for the first time
in this -- dealing with these symptoms and these illnesses I am scared to
death. My feet, I couldn't put shoes on because I didn't have any to fit, my
feet were so swollen. I had -- Kim and I had just had a son in May of '92, so
he was just a couple of months old. I couldn't work our grill anymore, our
restaurant, and she couldn't do it alone. I mean the demand for our food was
so high there was no way she could have done it alone and we really, at that
point, didn't want to hire somebody because we were having to use this money
for medical care and we eventually had to close down the grill and Kim, my wife
at the time, she got a job at an RV industry place converting vans and I stayed
home with the kids. Now our daughter at this point was 2 years old and our son
was just a couple of months old and I refused -- I refused to let people help
me in a sense. I guess airborne pride or male ego, I don't know, but I would
literally lay in bed all day long until my son needed me or my daughter and I
would crawl out of bed, and I would crawl to his crib, with my one good hand,
'cause my right hand was pretty much worthless and it was bent over like this,
I would lift myself up to his crib and I'd snatch him like a monkey. I mean I
would grab him and I'd hold him and I'd crawl to the refrigerator and I would
get up and I'd open the refrigerator and I'd get his formula out and I'd get
his formula and I'd crawl over or scoot over to the microwave and -- I mean
that's how I took care of my son.
Until there was days that I just couldn't wake up. I mean I would just --
I'd hear them crying or my parents would be calling and I would wake up and I
would go in and check on him, but I would -- I'd fall asleep. I mean I'm
holding my son on the couch feeding him and I'd fall asleep. I was never so
ill that I couldn't take care of them, I was just ill enough that I wasn't
comfortable with the way I was taking care of them. My dad would come over
sometimes and actually pick me up out of bed and carry me, like when I was
child, to the couch and lay me down, or my aunt and my dad would come over and
watch the kids while I was allowed to sleep all day.
I didn't know what was going on. I mean I didn't want to be awake, I didn't
want to move. If I just moved a shoulder or if I reached to scratch something,
it was just so much pain. My knee swelled up, my feet were swollen still, but
then what happened to my feet is I started getting areas in my feet that were
swollen like one ankle joint would swell and then I would get like a -- what
looked like a vein running down my foot would swell, but it wasn't a vein, it
was just an area that would swell up real bad.
My vision -- it was getting to where I couldn't focus on things. I
would see things and I would think that they were there -- not like I was
having a mirage or anything, but like I'd swear I saw my keys laying there, but
they wasn't laying there, or I would look at my keys and not see them sitting
there. I don't know what it was, if it was an attention problem or what, but I
was -- I just didn't trust my own eyesight anymore and then driving -- I -- a
friend of mine lived about six miles away and I've driven to this man's house a
thousand times or more. I got totally lost coming home from his lost.
I love to drive....but I know it was getting bad. My body was still
on a fast track so I would drive 70, 80 miles an hour and it feel 40 or 50
miles an hour to me at the time. I didn't realize I was going that fast
because it seemed slower to me. Sometimes now when I walk, even though my feet
hurt real bad, I walk faster than people that I walk with actually because it
doesn't feel like it's that fast to me. It feels much slower.
I'd get lost just driving from my house to here a couple miles away I would
get lost. I mean I would totally just have to ask Kim. I don't even remember
the street I'm on, or I don't remember where I'm going I'd be on a road and I'd
totally forget where I was going. .....it was to the point where I couldn't
drive alone. People were scared to ride with me because I was driving so fast.
I've never given up driving, but I've slowed it way down. I'm more particular
and careful-- it was incidents like that that got me start realizing it's
getting worse, it's getting worse.
Then I started having mood swings. Violent mood swings. For instance, I
remember one incident I was trying to use a salt shaker and I can't remember if
it was humid or if the salt shaker got wet or whatever, but the salt clumped up
in it and just that little -- 'cause I couldn't get salt on my food I threw it.
I mean just, boom, I threw it. I have hit walls. These -- it's a rage that
comes upon me real quick and then is gone just as fast and I don't even
remember it, I don't remember what made me angry, I don't remember, you know,
what actions I took. Never physically violent. I mean I've never beaten
anybody, I've never beaten my wife, I spanked my son one time. I do remember
spanking my son one time under one of these fits and as I snapped out of it, I
immediately called Dr. Murphy in Washington, DC and told her something is
wrong. You know, I am realizing I cannot control this anymore and she
immediately put me in a hospital in Michigan and ran a few tests, but the
Michigan hospital screwed up and they discharged me before I everything was
done -- but, I mean that's how I progressively watched this. When I felt each
symptom got to a point where I couldn't control it anymore, I was on the phone
with Dr. Murphy or some hospital or some doctor saying, you know, I'm realizing
this now, you guys gotta do something about it.
Q: Were you having anymore symptoms?
A: Kim was having a problem with burning semen and a lot of
gynecological problems, yeast infections. Wherever my semen would land on her
skin it would leave a rash. I mean like if -- I don't want to seem too
graphic, but we did not want to have another child, okay. Birth control pills
were not very healthy for Kim, we did the condom thing and all that and that
was a bad experience, you know, at that time and we didn't know that there was
burning semen problem. Kim just always had this burning after we would
consummate our marriage and there was times that, you know, you would draw and
ejaculate and if it landed like in an S shape or something, that's a red mark
she would have on her skin. It would be -- it was really wild. Now I've heard
-- I've heard Dale Cooper from Soldier of Fortune write it -- he explained it
like -- he said we said it was like napalm, we've never said it was napalm.
Napalm was a whole different thing compared to semen so I don't even know why
he made that comparison 'cause we never did, but it was the strangest thing. I
mean wherever it landed on her stomach or her thigh, or if it landed on her arm
or hand or something, it left a red patch there and she was constantly having
problems and then she was diagnosed with having tumors and cysts on her uterus
which is -- if you want we can get into that whole thing at Walter Reed, but
that was -- that was a prominent symptom, the forgetfulness, the mood swings,
the eyes, I had no strength, I couldn't open up a mayonnaise jar or a pop with
those plastic caps that you have to snap that little ring around it. I
couldn't open those. I would either have to put it in the crook of my arm and
open it that way or have somebody do it for me. When I drive, if I try to
shift gears, it felt like somebody was running a needle right through the palm
of my hand so I had to go to an automatic car after that. You know, I mean
I've done everything that I could possibly do to adjust to this because it has
never adjusted to me. So I've had to adapt and overcome it -- you know with it
other than it adapting to me.
Q: Let's talk some more about your wife's symptoms more.... What
was going on with her?
A: Well, she had started to have all these female problems, the
infections, the burning, the irregular menstrual cycles. Sometimes her
menstrual cycles was like tar. It would be a real dark, muddy, blood looking
color like a -- I mean just a purple. I mean not a blood looking color, it
didn't look like blood, it looked like a thin tar. It was blackish color. It
was terrible when she would have these things and her menstrual cycles were so
irregular sometimes she'd be on her period for maybe a day or two and two or
three days later she'd start up another one for maybe two weeks, and it was
like his throughout the year, all the time, and she started getting real bad
lumps in her breast. These lumps would grow. Not just a small lump that would
stay small, they would grow and then they would shrink again and sometimes they
would grow so big that she would wear three different bra sizes. You could
actually watch her breasts get bigger from these lumps and then when they'd
shrink her breasts would get smaller. Kim's a very flat-chested woman, she
didn't have breasts to begin with, but when these lumps would -- I mean it
looked like she had breasts when these lumps got bigger and -- you know, that
we watched very closely. Family doctor again, you know, everything he could
do, could not figure out. He even wrote up a consult sheet to the Pentagon
saying that he believes that her illnesses were do to a connection with me
somehow.
Skin would peel in between her fingers. It was really weird. It
wasn't like a rash as much as it was -- she would get like these little white
pimple looking bumps in between her fingers and if she scratched 'em, they
would turn into like -- I don't know what to call it, but it was like her skin
was just peeling away in between of her -- in between her fingers, and it was
something that she -- if she left alone, I mean, she wouldn't peel 'em, and it
didn't go down into her hand or onto her arm anything, it was just always right
in between her fingers, and she -- on the palm of her hands, she would get
these red dots all over her and on her thighs, her butt, her back, and her
breasts, the same as me, we would get the same rashes. The same red dots, the
same rashes and probably the most prominent symptom that she had was she had
developed a soft spot in the back of her skull that was about this big around
when she first noticed it, and our family doctor took x-rays of it and you know
this is a phenomenon he thought -- you know why is the skull softening and
thinning here. Well, over a short one-year period, two more spots had appeared
on the sides of her head that was also caving in and very thin.
That's when Ross Perot got involved with this and Ross Perot started sending
her to neurologists, and bone specialists, and head doctors, and all kinds of
things -- about $15,000 worth of x-rays and medical work-ups. They had
discovered that bone in her skull was thinning almost to like paper in these
areas. Now the one in the back of her head over a two-year period had gotten
to where you could place your whole hand right into the dip of her skull. It
was kinda like -- you know them cubes that are not perfect, they've got like
dips and shapes and you can roll 'em and they'll land on the flat spot and stay
there? That's what her head was like. Over a period of four years, she
received five total spots and there was the beginning of two more
smaller ones that we thought, but you know, we haven't been able to check
on those.
Q: One other thing about your own symptoms--Susan mentioned you had a
problem with mosquitoes?
A: This is funny. Mosquitoes die on me. The mosquitoes that bite me,
die, and I've had so many people watch this -- I've invited people over to
watch it. You know, come on over here and we'll see if these mosquitoes bites
me, and I will actually sit out without a shirt on, try to get these mosquitoes
to bite me, and if they'd bite me, they'd die. Or if they even land on me
enough to taste me, or whatever, they'll hurry up and fly away, but if they are
on me long enough to suck blood, they die right on the spot.
........
Q: Brian, tell me, are you compensated?
A: It was kind of amazing... August of '94 my service officer who lives
right across the street from right now called me on the phone kinda laughing,
and I said, well, you know, "what's so funny?" and he said "I've got your
rating decision here", he says "but I can't officially tell you what it is
until you get your letter from the VA", and I said "well, give me a hint" you
know I mean 'cause I had already had 20% given to me in '93, and -- for
tinnitus in my ear and lower back pain, I had 20%, and he said "I can't tell
you", he says, "but you'll be astounded", he says "I've never seen a rating
this high in my life, in 20 some years of being a service officer, I've never
seen a rating this high." So I got my letter, and I'm already adjudicated by
social security. Social security had already given me total disability about
seven months or four months, something like that before this, and in August of
-- no, I take that back. In August of '94, is when I got social security. On
my birthday, October 15, 1994, I got a letter from the VA saying that I had
Reiter's syndrome at 100%, chronic fatigue syndrome at 50%, the inflammatory
bowel disease 30%, which is 180, then I had the 20% still. So the numbers
added up to 200, but they don't call it 200, they call it 100% plus special
monthly compensation, and I said well what's -- you know, "wow this is neat,
you know, they finally agree that I'm totally disabled, but what does this
mean?" He said this rating is so high that once they give you permanent total
your kids will be able to go to college for free, you'll get -- they'll have
free medical, free dental, free everything. I mean the VA pays for everything
from now on
Q: You're involved with Congress, you're involved with the media, they
listen to you. What's that like for you?
A: Sometimes it's embarrassing because I'm still Brian Martin, -- I
didn't mean for any of this to happen, actually. I was sick, I was told I was
gonna die before a certain amount of time. They had actually estimated my life
and I know too many Vietnam veterans that have died and their family's got
nothing. I know too many Vietnam veterans that are sick and they got nothing.
Too many Korean veterans that their family's have nothing. I wasn't gonna
allow that to happen. Somebody somewhere was gonna admit something happened to
me somewhere at some time no matter what. If I drew my last breath trying to
prove that something happened to me, I was gonna do that, and Senator Reigle,
who kinda threw me into the national spotlight by appearing with him -- I was
kinda like his poster boy, you know. Here's my constituent, he's sick, I've
done this for him, I've helped him, but he's never asked anything in return,
he's never said vote for me or stand by me in this and everything. He's never
asked for anything. Same thing with Congressman Upton. I mean this man from
day one, from the first phone call I made to his office, he believed me and he
helped me and he still is staying with me every time I'm in DC.
I really enjoy like when I get to do the shows. I don't get paid to do
television shows, but my trips are paid, and I would have never seen Los
Angeles or New York, I don't think if it wasn't for this issue. I've met a lot
of wonderful people. I've met so many good veterans and so many hard working
spouses that love their husbands, that are fighting -- you know, spending every
dime that they have fighting this issue to prove what's happened to their
husbands.
My whole mind is changed about government. I used to say "our government is
covering this up." It's not the government. If I said government, I would
include people like John Rockerfeller, Joe Kennedy, Fred Upton, Chris Shays,
Bernard Sanders, Daniel O'Cocha, I mean I would be including that if I sum that
up as the government covering up. I've had to learn how to specifically point
fingers at the government entities that are covering it up, like the Defense
Intelligence Agency, Dennis Rosen in particular. The man I almost got into a
fight with in the hallway at the NIH because he said that the only way we were
exposed to chemicals is if "little Iraqis jumped out of little fox holes and
sprayed us in our little faces with little aerosol cans", and you know, what
kind of mentality is that for a DIA agent to come to me and say this publically
at the NIH?
................
Q: Do you think this is a coverup, on a big scale?
A: Oh, a much larger scale. It's not like maybe the Watergate thing or
the Whitewater whatever with Nixon and the Whitewater things down in Arkansas
there. I don't think it's a cover up like that. I think what it is is it's a
bunch of mistakes that were made, our leaders were not prepared for us to go
into battle properly. I think that there's too many chiefs and not enough
indians and now they're scrambling to figure out how to cover their butts.
I don't think anybody said "we're gonna purposely make these people sick." I
think when they gave us PB pills they wanted it to work. I think they really
thought in their little minds that this is gonna work, but then again..I look
at it and say if you're gonna experiment on people, what's the largest control
group you can do it with? The military. You have men, women, black, white,
Asian, Mexican -- I mean you've got all walks of life from different ages,
different races, different areas of the United States, and so you give 250,000
of these soldiers PB pills and you give this 250,000 a different kind of shot.
You know -- when they say we didn't have enough batches for everybody, you
didn't want enough batches for everybody. If you knew we were going to war,
you thought this was gonna work, you should have had enough batches for
everybody. Why did the Pentagon force a waiver on the FDA? To give us
experimental vaccinations and pills. To experiment on us. So you know that
part of it is a cover up, but I don't think anybody said "let's give 'em
squalene and make 'em sick." I think they said "let's see what squalene can
do", you know and find out what the end results will be and I think that's
where they should be held accountable.
I definitely will not quit this crusade until someone is sitting in prison,
whether it's George Bush, whether it's Colin Powell, Schwarzkoff, Dr. Joseph I
want to see in prison. Dr. Stephen Joseph who used to be the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. I want to see that man rot in prison
as long as we are sick because he's lied, I want to see John Deutch when he was
Secretary of the CIA, he got up there and told Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes these
troops were not exposed to any widespread use of chemicals, widespread
exposures, but when Ed Bradley says "any exposure, widespread, little spread,
any spread, were they exposed?" he refused to answer it. To my knowledge. We
have documents up the butt from GulfLink and everywhere else with his name all
over it that he knew about chemical exposures all -- I mean we have the
Khamisiyah documents, there's about 800 and some pages to Khamisiyah going as
high as the White House.
You know the only person that's gonna escape me is Les Aspin and that's 'cause
he died. That's the only person, and 'cause I'm gonna go after 'em all. I
definitely want to see 'em in jail. Schwarzkoff, Powell, Bush, Chaney, James
Baker, all of them has been found guilty of the Tribunal War Crimes by the UN
for atrocities on the Iraqi people and the American people....
Q: What symptoms are related to Gulf War Syndrome?
A: A bunch -- mood swings, night sweats, insomnia, fatigue, joint and
muscle pain, blurred vision -- burning urination, diarrhea, short term memory
loss -- I'm trying to remember them all -- the rashes, fungus on the toenails
-- like, my big toe is being eaten away by this old fungus thing. Gosh,
there's just so many.
Q: What about cancer?
A: I think there's three strong types of cancers. It's melanoma,
lymphoma, and testicular is one of the other cancers that is killing a lot of
the Persian Gulf vets... There's about 57, 50- -- I think there's 57 to 60
symptoms that they -- there used to be just 50 symptoms which like in '93 I
matched 47 of 50 symptoms, but now they've raised it up more because there's so
much abnormality going on with us -- it's like a Persian Gulf veteran can wake
up one day and feel good enough, like me.
I was in a wheelchair for years and -- for a couple of years anyway -- I
still use a cane for long -- long distance walking or like in the mall or
stores or something. I have to use my cane, I'm a high fall risk and with bad
feet I walk with a wide gait. Around the house here from -- you know I can use
walls or doorways to get through, I don't have a problem with that, but I know
like Colonel Smith, for instance, a good friend of mine, I have his permission
to talk about him any time I want -- he has days he'll call me, he's chipper,
he's up, he's fed the dogs and you know he's ready to start the day, but
because we feel good some days we overdo it so the next day --
Like tomorrow I probably won't do anything. I'll probably just sit, relax,
watch TV or something like that because I'm doing this today and I've got some
things I have to do yet -- later tonight, but when we feel good and you're up
and everything, you overdo it because you want to be that old human being that
you were again. Every time I go to Washington, like the five days I spent out
there a couple of weeks ago, that just killed me. For like a week, I just laid
around, my feet were swollen, I was hurting.
Q: So why do you think that a lot of Gulf War veterans with Gulf War
Syndrome -- some are worse than others? Why do some have different symptoms
than others?
A: Well, medically speaking I don't know. I mean I'm not a scientist or
a doctor. My opinion of what I've learned and what I've talked to doctors
about and stuff is everybody's immune systems are different, everybody's amount
of exposures were different. Some people took pills, some didn't. Some got
shots, some didn't. Some was at Khamasiyah and many weren't. You know I think
it depends on your personal structure...
Q: What is your response to the Presidential Advisory Committee's
conclusion that the unexplained symptoms of Gulf War veterans are most likely
due to stress?
A: What I respond to the Presidential Advisory Committee's conclusion,
both in the interim report and the final addition, of most of symptoms being
caused by stress basically, phooey on them. You don't have five members of
your own committee come out behind the chairman's back and say they don't agree
with that that they believe that there's more to it than just stress. I'm much
more enlightened by the final conclusion than the interim report since they are
suggesting that the investigation be taken away from the Pentagon and put into
somebody else's hands. That's quite exciting. I'd like to see the Pentagon
stripped of all doings with this issue.
If the Presidential Advisory Committee wants to blame some of this on stress,
I think they have to right to because they've seen a lot of stress. In two
years, they have seen nothing but stressful veterans getting up there and
testifying, but I come back to the Presidential Advisory Committee -- Ed
Berris testified about his son dying, Carolyn Berris testified about her
husband dying. Not one person on that committee asked questions. If I could
have got up there, I would told 'em shame on all of you. You know, you don't
have a man come up here in tears testifying that his son has just died in
December of cancer and you don't have one question for him? You don't have a
young beautiful woman, this -- I mean she was gorgeous -- get up there and
testify about her young husband dying in December and not ask a question. You
know, if they want to say it's stress, we can say that they're part of that
stress.
We're tired of misrepresentation of the truth and the PAC, the members of the
PAC that -- like Dr. Lashoff -- I asked Dr. Lashoff in Detroit, or in Chicago
when I testified in July of last year -- I said "you're a doctor, why don't you
examine a few of us?" She says "well, I can't do that." "Why not?" Don't
even give a conclusion if you don't know all the answers.
Don't tell us that it's stress, if you can't tell us that it's something else.
There's no doubt in my mind that stress can cause some problems. I'm dealing
with it right now. When I was in my marriage I think that stress made some of
my symptoms worse, like maybe my diarrhea, my vomiting, my hives and my rashes
and stuff. I think stress caused that worse. I don't think it's what gave it
to me, but I think it made it worse because now that I'm away from her and I
have less stress the rashes aren't re-occurring as much, my vomiting and
diarrhea has subsided quite a bit. So I can believe and I will give 'em that
some stress can make things worse, but it's not the cause of our illnesses.
How does stress cause brain damage with scarring? How does it cause chemical
sensitivity? I believe, if I'm right, one of the most stressful jobs in this
country is air traffic controllers. How come air traffic controllers don't
have the same illnesses we do? How come policemen who face battle every day
throughout this whole country, why aren't they complaining that they have
chronic fatigue syndrome, brain damage, colon damage, stomach damage, chemical
sensitivity, cancer, fungus on their feet, rashes? You don't hear that.
That's stress. Those are stressful jobs. ....
Q: Tell me what you did to get other people to understand that something
in the Gulf was making you and others sick.
A: Well, basically just by the phone, by television and the internet. I
created a web page and tried to put as much information on there as I possibly
could. I have tried to network with many other veterans, I've tried to -- you
know through national media exposure, that was one of the best. How we got it
to England was I've done two documentaries -- two or three documentaries over
there and I've done quite a few up in Canada and that's what we were actually
reaching out for and I've got a message on my answering machine now from some
Japanese guy. He wants to do an interview for Japan television -- but that's
basically because we've offered our help to Japan. We said if you give us the
information of why only 13 died and 5,000 were sick, we'll let you know what we
know about saran and everything, but just networking, phone calls, hours and
hours and hours of on the phone and interviews.
Q: How much time do you spend everyday, or per week?
A: Well, it used to be hours. I mean just from the time I woke up until
the time I'd go to bed at night I was on the computer, but going through what
I'm going through now which was held against me -- they said I was too much
hours on the computer and not enough with the children -- I've broke it down to
where about Monday, Wednesday and Friday I work on the issue all day. Days
that I don't have the kids, I'm on it all day, all night. I'm on my web page
and I'm a co-commander of a chat room from about midnight to 4:30 in the
morning I'm on that and then during the days when I do everything else. I've
been doing a lot of public appearances lately here locally, like an Honorary
Grand Marshall of a parade on July 4th, and a I was a guest speaker at an air
show in Alcart, and I've been trying to do a lot of things like that 'cause
I've spread myself out so far nationally that I've kind of neglected some of
the local things that I was supposed to be doing around here.
Q: Tell me, how did you get the congressmen to listen to you?
Congressmen and senators.
A: Well, the first phone call I made to Fred Upton -- it wasn't a
problem. I mean he said you're my constituent, he actually did what a
congressman is supposed to do. We put him in office to help us, I had a
concern, and boom, he helped and he still is helping today. Same thing with
Senator Reigle. Once I had their attention, I think their friends that sit on
you know in chairs and committees and in congress, I think they probably said
well, if they believe, then we must believe him too. One thing that helped me
was '93 testifying in both the House and the Senate that day. Like Joe
Kennedy, when I went to meet him a couple of weeks ago, I mean he walked in,
he's like "Brian" you know, "how ya doin'." Liza Mianus, the woman that I'm
working with over there, has like her investigator -- she's kinda like my
liaison, I'm a liaison for the vets for him. She went over to Lane Evans just
to see -- 'cause she gets a lot of paranoid theory in there -- so she went over
to Lane Evans on the committee and says "hey, I got this guy named Brian Martin
I just met with" and they're like "oh, yeah" you know "he's testified to us
before" and Lane Evans goes "how's he doing" because I meet with a lot of Lane
Evans's staffers around here since he's from Chicago.
Q: Congress members and the senators -- do they rely on you a lot for
information?
A: They rely on all of us. I mean if there's something that I don't
know, I'll find it out. You know. Somebody out there that I work with or
network with.
Q: Do you feel a bit used?
A: No, not at all. I believe this is the way the American system
should work. Constituents have a concern, they call their congressman, their
congressman helps them, and if it's a long going concern, then the congressman
sticks with 'em. Like Congressman Shays one time -- it was right after they
admitted to Khamasiyah, I was on the Today Show, and I had just flown in from
New York and the phone was ringing. And it was Congressman Shays. He says
"Brian can you be here in four hours to testify?", and I told him "I'd love to
sir, but you know there's just absolutely no way. I just got in from New York,
I'm tired, there's no way I could make it to DC and testify for what you want
to put me through", and he says "well, hold on, I'm gonna call you in a half an
hour---
And I got a call back and on the speaker phone, he goes "the committee is in
here right now Brian", he goes "everybody say hi to Brian" and they're like
"hi, hi" and all that and I'm trying to remember okay, "hi, Congressman Tolins,
hi Congressman Sanders." I'm trying to remember who's on the committee, who's
on the committee -- and what they did is they asked me about 45 minutes of
questions over the phone and I answered them because Steven Joseph was
testifying to them and I guess -- now I didn't see it on C-SPAN 'cause I went
to bed immediately after they interviewed me over the phone, but Dr. Murphy
called me the next day and said that -- she said that when Joseph was talking
that if Shays didn't mention my name one time, he mentioned it 200 times. He
kept saying "well, I just hung up with Brian Martin", and this and this and
this, and that makes me feel good because I've worked very hard for that
respect.
I've made it a personal standard of mine never to say anything to the press or
to Congress or to anybody that I don't have a document to prove. I've seen too
many Gulf War groups and Gulf War advocates get thrown to the wayside because
they've exaggerated numbers or they've -- you know they just didn't have the
files to prove what they were saying and I won't do that and I think that's why
my reputation is so good in Washington is because they know when they call on
me I'll work hard for 'em, I'll put together the proof and the evidence that
they need for what I'm saying, and I'm always willing to speak in front of
them.
Q: Tell me what media spots you've done-- any radio or media spots,
newspapers?
A: Yeah, mainstream. Phil Donahue, Montel Williams, 60 Minutes twice,
Tom Snyder twice, Fox's Front Page, Fox's In the Morning, or whatever, the
Today Show, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, America This Morning or
whatever that's called, oh boy. I'm trying to remember them all. 34 national
television appearances I've done. This show right here will be 35, 'cause PBS
is national, right? Yeah, this will be 35 for me. Radio, you name it, I've
done it. I mean a lot here in Michigan. A lot out of California. I do a lot
out of California. Some out of Texas. Oh, geez, I've got a media list.
I've been on C-SPAN a couple of dozen times I think, I don't know. C-SPAN I --
when I did the Today Show, I met Steve Scully who is -- at that time, he was a
spokesman for SIDS, him and his wife had lost two kids by SIDS, and I was
giving him my card and he goes "let me give you mine", and he's the political
editor for C-SPAN. So now whenever there's a hearing I go "Steve", he goes "All
right, I'll have a crew there."
So I truly believe that I have a really big mouth and I have a lot of
cahonies to kick in doors and I think God figured out how to use both of them.
I'm not a highly religious person, but I see things unfold in front of me that
only God could be responsible for. Like me doing the Today Show and sitting in
the Green Room meeting the political editor of C-SPAN. You know, that's a
perfect resource for me. I mean, God, now we've got C-SPAN at every hearing
that we have. You know I think these things happen for a reason
Q: What is like being the Khamasiyah kid?
A: The Khamisiyah kid is actually a name that was given to me by the
media. The only part of my life that has actually changed is I have been
totally vindicated. The people that have talked about me and said you're a
fake, or you're a liar, or you know you weren't exposed to anything, or how
could you be this sick if -- you know six months over there or whatever. Now
they know. Just a quick side bar, my own grandmother has disowned me. My
mother's mom has disowned me. She has seen me at my worst, she has seen me
crawl across the floor, she has seen blood come out of my ears and my nose and
she has been there when I was at my sickest. My mom's sister, my aunt, my
mom's uncle which is also my uncle, and my mom's mom which is my grandmother
have all disowned me in this family and made it a personal goal to tell
everybody in the family that I'm still faking and that I'm sick and there's no
way that I have these problems and there's no way all these Persian Gulf
veterans are sick because he was a World War II veteran and, you know, of
course there's a jealousy issue with that.
But when they admitted to that tape and they admitted to Khamisiyah and they
admitted to my unit being exposed and then they admitted to 98,900 and some
other people being exposed, it was probably a joyous day. It wasn't a victory
day because we're still sick and it's sad to know that parts of the different
entities of my government would lie to me and so many other people that did
what was asked of us to do, but it's changed me because I have more confidence
about when I speak to congress or when I speak to the media I think that they
look at me a lot different and say, you know, this guy was right and it makes
me feel good because I've -- I'm not a college graduate, I'm not a genius, I'm
not -- I haven't invented something that's changing the world or anything like
that, all I had was a stupid little video camera at the right time at the wrong
place and a stupid little video tape that happened to show something bad and
you know I don't want it to change me. I mean I don't want to -- I don't want
to go down as history as the Khamisiyah kid, I'd rather go down in history as
being a loving father and a good friend to everybody that I've met, but it's
definitely given me a new respect out there, I mean between the vets and
congress and media, they definitely found a new respect for what I've done.
Q: You must know that there are critics out there. Regarding stress, for
example, it's well established that post war neuroses are common and that
complaints such as rashes, headaches, fatigue, blurry vision happen to a
majority of returning soldiers throughout history. What do you say to this?
A: I would look at it as what their stresses were. If the VA diagnoses
somebody with PTSD, it's on them to tell the vet and their service officer what
the stressor was that caused the PTSD. Too many times PTSD is being diagnosed
and there is no stressors as given as the cause. I believe that like in my
situation where the most stressful thing that happened to me -- I mean I lost
my best friend over there, but anybody that knew that they were going to war
knew that you're probably gonna die of lose a friend or somebody. You know, I
was mentally prepared for that, but it still hurt. It hurt like hell to lose
my best friend, but I think that me not getting mail or most of the members of
my unit not getting mail in a timely fashion didn't cause brain damage. I
think if some of these guys were -- that were in like the APCs, the armor
personnel carriers that were hit with friendly fire, I think some of the M1s
that were hit with friendly fire, I think their stress levels are very high and
I think some of their problems could be caused by that anxiety and that stress
of knowing you know they were that close to death, they probably did lose
somebody in their crew that they trained with, that they probably drank with,
hung with on weekends, played cards with, whatever. Yeah, that can cause a lot
of stress, but when you talk about like the stress causing symptoms, what about
the illnesses?
Can stress cause inflammatory bowel disease? Or heart attacks? Can it cause
a crystallizing of the valves, can it cause high platelets around the blood
cells around the heart? Can stress cause brain damage? Can stress cause
testicular cancer? I mean when they say stress, specifically talk about what
stress can cause and weed it out from the illnesses and the real symptoms.
Migraine headaches, yes, can be caused by stress. My headaches are caused from
a scar on my temporal lobe. So, yeah, you know you're gonna have both either
way, and I agree there's stress. I said this earlier. But you have to look
at the individual, you can't just listen to two years like the PAC did --
listen to two years of testimony and then clump us all together. They didn't
hear from 700,000 people. They need to individually try to find out what
stressors were.
Q: Here's a tough question for you. Some people are skeptical of your
health-- good-looking appearance, alert manner, and the fact that you're out
there as a spokesman for lots of vets. You're traveling, you're spreading the
word, and doing all this while you're suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. You've
got 100% disability. How can you do all of this and still be disabled?
A: Well, because I'm disabled, I have to be bed bound? I mean I have to
be in a wheelchair? I have to be in the hospital? How do MS patients get
around? How do AIDS people get around? I mean they're dying, you know,
they're dying at a rapid pace, they know they're dying, but they get around.
Ryan White. Don't you think he was a strong little boy?
Like I said earlier, I have been very fortunate. I've made the contacts, I've
opened the doors and until either they resolve the issue -- not the veterans,
the government--resolves the issue and makes everybody fess up and they do
what's right, I'll be in this issue for everybody. I have now the money. I
mean the compensation that they're paying me gives me the money to do this. It
would be very easy for me to turn my back on this issue and say "well, I've got
my money, now I'm just gonna sit and live a non-stressful life." I don't have
to be on the phone paying $2,800 phone bills a month. I don't have to be on
the internet. This is my third computer in three years. I don't have to do
any of this. I do it for them. I do it for the vets. I do it for their
wives' and for their children.
I'm in a lot of pain when I'm done with it. I take my time, I work this
issue when I'm able to work it. When I'm walking, if I know I've had enough, I
sit down. You know, I'm not stupid, I don't push myself to where it's gonna
kill me. The TV shows that I do. I'm taken care of. When I get to a hotel I
like -- I make sure there is fresh fruit there, I make sure there is plenty of
fluids for me to drink, I make sure that I'm on a chemical free floor.
You know, I have people ask me about smoking. How do you smoke? Dr. Claudia
Miller has asked me "how do you smoke?" Dr. Murphy suggested I don't -- or
that I don't quit smoking because, like if you had perfume on and I smelled it,
I light up a cigarette, I can't smell it no more. So it doesn't effect me.
Cigarettes are effecting me I think, I mean they told me last October I have a
lung disease, but they said it's not due -- I've got a minor -- in the minor
and major parts of my lungs, but it's not due to smoking. They don't know what
it's due to, but I have a lung disease. Cigarettes aren't helping it, but it
keeps me -- if we're driving down the road and a bus is in front of me and the
exhaust is real bad, I roll up the windows and light up a cigarette. I can't
smell it no more. Now I'm not throwing up, I'm not gagging, I'm not heaving,
I'm not running my car into a telephone pole because I get dizzy all of a
sudden. I'm very aware of what's around me, I'm very careful, I'm very
cautious, flight arrangements, stewardesses and -- I mean I make sure all of
that is taken care of. I do get around very well for the disability that they
have me at, but, like I said, squeaky wheel syndrome. How much of that do you
think was added on, you know? I know I have Reiter's syndrome because I've had
civilian doctors tell me.
Q: Are you concerned -- because of your illness, are you concerned about
giving blood?
A: Yeah. I will never give blood. I mean I don't care if there is a
national crisis for blood, there's no way. I don't know what little funny
animals are swimming around in my blood and I don't think the VA knows and I
don't think the Pentagon knows and if they do know, they're not admitting it so
why would I want to go and give blood and possibly make somebody sick? I
called my local Red Cross here and I asked 'em, I said "do you have a screening
process, a questionnaire, do you ask 'are you a Persian Gulf veteran' or 'have
you been exposed to anything'", she said "no, all we do is an AIDS test on the
blood." I don't agree with that. You know, there's more illnesses out there,
there's leukemia, there's -- I mean there's all kinds of illnesses that blood
carries and why they're just worried about AIDS I don't understand. We've
written letters to Elizabeth Dole that went unanswered. We have gone as far as
to even call meat markets and slaughter houses and say -- you know, it's kinda
morbid, but there are people that believe in bestiality and what if somebody
with Gulf War Syndrome or AIDS or something like that had sex with a cow or a
goat . You know, we've actually asked the questions to cover all grounds
kinda, if someone had a sex with a cow that had Gulf War syndrome could it get
in the meat? We couldn't get answers from that. So, you know, we're not
getting answers from the Red Cross, we're not getting answers about a lot of
our concerns and these seem like silly little concerns, but there our
concerns....we really care about the American people not being afflicted with
this.
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