Curious and bewildering health afflict many of our veterans. Sometimes years after military service ends. Why?
The battlefield. A place where the more time spent in it, the greater your chances of permanently damaging your health. Why? Because the battlefield exposes the Solider, Sailor, Airmen and Marine to more unnatural, man-made chemical concoctions than anywhere else on earth.
Wars are ultimately won by explosions. Almost everything used to kill the enemy is created with a controlled explosion. And these explosions are created with various permutations and combinations of chemicals.
Bullets, rockets, shells and missiles, in general, are all propelled by chemical explosions. Bombs, grenades, and mines all detonated by chemical explosions. The residue of these chemicals linger and build up to levels not seen in a non-battlefield environment. They linger in the air, in the land and in the water. In a way, the result is not much different than the health damaging effects on living near a pollution emitting smokestack. It’s just worse.
And many times after the explosion, there comes fire. Again, the battlefield contains a chemical concoction of physical items that when burned, emit poison into the air, water and ground. Poisons you won’t even see in the typical home fire. But service personnel don’t wear protective breathing apparatus like your hometown firefighters do. There are even cases when the veteran never served on a battlefield yet can have the same health issues because military bases and ships come in second only to the battlefield in environments that are chemical quagmires.
Yet the government fakes bewilderment when strange ailments appear in groups of service men and women retuning from the battlefield. If you are exposed to a single dangerous chemical near your home because of an accidental spill, health warnings are declared, FEMA responds, and the medical community responds in force. Mass media covers, and sensationalizes, the story for weeks!
So why, when one or more returning veterans exhibit medical problems, sometimes years later, does the government balk at acknowledging a possible connection to military service? Why is it so difficult to be acknowledged by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, as having a service connected medical problem?
Governments are ever searching for better, bigger, more compact, more powerful chemical explosion. They are needed for the advanced weaponry they wish to deploy. The problem is that the service person never knows how saturated the ground they walk, kneel and lay on, or the air they breath, is with chemicals. They inhale it deeply, it gets all over their skin, and ultimately it is ingested in tiny but additive amounts, all without their knowledge.
It isn’t in the governments interest to announce the chemicals their service personnel are exposed to. To do so would give the enemy insight into the weapons of today and tomorrow. It might prove embarrassing to reveal the dangers our own country exposes it’s military to. And that is probably the biggest reason they ignore, dispel any claim of proof and otherwise obfuscate the truth. But government doesn’t fix the problem of veterans experiencing strange debilitating symptoms that forever change their lives.
That the very country that exalts the freedom it claims, is so silent on the care of those who sacrifice to insure that freedom, is very disheartening. One can only wonder, do we deserve the freedom that so many sacrifices gave us?
Where is the Loyalty?
Where is the Honor?