This Day in Naval History - Jan. 24

From the Navy News Service

1942 - During the World War II Battle of Makassar Strait, U.S. destroyers attack a Japanese convoy in the first naval surface action in the Pacific.

1986 - The Coral Sea (CV 43) and Saratoga (CV 60) carrier battle groups conduct freedom of navigation exercises in and near the Gulf of Sidra, demonstrating the long-standing United States' refusal to recognize Colonel Khadafi's attampt to include the gulf in Libyan territorial waters,

1991 - Helicopters from USS Leftwich (DD 984) and USS Nicholas (FFG 47) recapture the first Kuwaiti territory from Iraqi forces.

This Day in Naval History - Oct. 01

From the Navy News Service

1800 - U.S. schooner Experiment captures French schooner Diana.

1844 - The Naval Observatory, headed by Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury, occupies its first permanent quarters.

1874 - Supply Corps purser Lt. J.Q. Barton is given leave to enter service of new Japanese Navy to organize a pay department and instruct Japanese about accounts. He served until Oct. 1, 1877, when he again became a purser in the U.S. Navy.

1880 - John Phillip Sousa becomes leader of Marine Corps Band.

1928 - The first class at school for enlisted Navy and Marine Corps radio intercept operators (The "On the Roof Gang") is held.

1937 - Patrol aviation is transferred to Aircraft Scouting Force, a re-established type command. With the change, five patrol wings were established as a separate administrative command over their squadrons.

1946 - Truculent Turtle lands at Columbus, Ohio, breaking the world's record for distance without refueling during flight of 11,235 miles.

1949 - Military Sea Transportation Service is activated.

1955 - USS Forrestal (CVA 59), the first of post-war super carriers, is commissioned.

1979 - President Jimmy Carter awards the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Neil Armstrong, retired Navy Capt. Charles Conrad Jr., retired Marine Col. John Glenn and retired Rear Adm. Alan Shepard Jr.

1980 - USS Cochrane (DDG 21) rescues 104 Vietnamese refugees 620 miles east of Saigon.

1990 - USS Independence (CV 62) enters Persian Gulf (first carrier in Persian Gulf since 1974).

VA Extends Coverage for Gulf War Veterans

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2010 – Veterans of the first Gulf War as well as current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan now have a smoother path toward receiving health-care benefits and disability compensation for nine diseases associated with their military service, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced today.

A final regulation published in today’s Federal Register relieves veterans of the burden of proving these diseases are service-related: Brucellosis, Campylobacter jejuni, Coxiella Burnetii (Q fever), Malaria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Nontyphoid Salmonella, Shigella, Visceral leishmaniasis and West Nile virus.

Shinseki added the new presumptions after reviewing a 2006 National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine report on the long-term health effects of certain diseases suffered among Gulf War veterans.

He also extended the presumptions to veterans of Afghanistan, based on NAS findings that the nine diseases are prevalent there as well.

The new presumptions apply to veterans who served in Southwest Asia beginning on or after the start of Operation Desert Shield on Aug. 2, 1990, through Operation Desert Storm to the present, including the current conflict in Iraq. Veterans who served in Afghanistan on or after Sept. 19, 2001, also qualify.

For Shinseki, who pledged to honor the 20th anniversary of the Gulf War by improving health-care access and benefits for its 697,000 veterans, the new presumptions represent a long-overdue step in addressing the medical challenges many face.

“This is part of historic changes in how VA considers Gulf War veterans’ illnesses,” he said. “By setting up scientifically based presumptions of service connection, we give these deserving veterans a simple way to obtain the benefits they earned in service to our country.”

The new presumptions initially are expected to affect just under 2,000 veterans who have been diagnosed with the nine specified diseases, John Gingrich, VA’s chief of staff, told American Forces Press Service. He acknowledged that the numbers are likely to climb as more cases are identified.

With the final rule, a veteran needs only to show service in Southwest Asia or Afghanistan during the specified time periods to receive disability compensation, subject to certain time limits based on incubation periods for seven of the diseases.

“It gives them easier access to quality health care and compensation benefits,” Gingrich said. “The message behind that is that the VA is striving to make access to health care easier for our veterans who have served in our combat zones.”

He expressed hope that by providing quick, easy access, VA will help veterans get the care they need early on, without having to fight the bureaucracy.

“When we find these presumptions and we reach out and get the veterans into our system, we can help them and give them the proper medical care they need, and maybe keep their disease from getting worse or getting it to go away altogether,” he said.

It also will help eliminate the piles of paperwork and long claims adjudication process veterans had to go through to prove their cases to receive care and benefits. “This will help break the back of the backlog in the long run, while sending a reassuring message to veterans that the VA is there for them,” Gingrich said.

He called the new presumptions part of Shinseki’s effort to “create a culture of advocacy” within VA that builds trust as it reaches out to veterans.

For Gingrich, a Gulf War veteran himself, the effort is very personal. He remembers being deployed as a 1st Infantry Division field artillery battalion commander during Operation Desert Storm, when one of his officers became very sick with an illness nobody could diagnose.

“The medics couldn’t diagnose it. We called in the doctors and they couldn’t diagnose it. And eventually, he had to be medevaced back,” he recalled. “And now here we are, 20 years later, and I saw him in Dallas in August, and he is still sick. You can’t identify all the reasons and symptoms, but he is sick.”

Veterans deserve better, Gingrich insisted. “I believe that our veterans that served in uniform for our country deserve the absolute best care and benefits that we can provide,” he said.

VA provides compensation and pension benefits to more than 3.8 million veterans and beneficiaries, and received more than 1 million claims last year alone, VA officials reported. Veterans without dependents receive a basic monthly compensation ranging from $123 to $2,673.

DoD Joins With VA to Resolve Gulf War Veterans' Health Issues

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

Nov. 26, 2008 - The Defense Department continues to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs to resolve veterans' health issues, including maladies associated with the Gulf War, a senior DoD official said here today. "We work very closely with the VA for those who've separated" from military service, Dr. Michael E. Kilpatrick, deputy director of health affairs for force health protection and readiness, told American Forces Press Service and Pentagon Channel reporters.

"We find that the No. 1 disability that veterans have is problems with muscles, bones and joints, ankles, knees and lower back," Kilpatrick said. These types of ailments, he said, also surface as the top health issues cited by active-duty troops at sick call.

"So, there's a relationship between service and those kinds of wear-and-tear joint problems," Kilpatrick said.

Of the nearly 700,000 U.S. military members involved in the 1990-1991 Gulf War, Kilpatrick said, about 120,000 servicemembers returning from deployment in the Middle East reported a multitude of symptoms, including depression, tiredness, muscle and joint aches and pains, memory loss, headaches, and rashes. Servicemembers suffering from one or a combination of these maladies would later be said to have "Gulf War Illness."

While 80 percent of those 120,000 veterans received a medical assessment and treatment for their ailments, about 24,000 veterans with Gulf War Illness-related symptoms remain undiagnosed, said Kilpatrick, a former Navy physician who commanded an Army/Navy infectious disease research unit during the Gulf War.

A congressionally-mandated report titled "Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans" was released Nov. 17 and presented to Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. James Peake. The 400-plus-page report says Gulf War Illness is a genuine medical condition. The report also notes that pyridostigmine bromide pills taken by some servicemembers in theater as a prophylactic against nerve agents and the use of pesticides to ward off desert insects are possible causes of Gulf War Illness.

Kilpatrick said he disagrees with the report's findings regarding causes of Gulf War Illness, especially the alleged role played by anti-nerve agent pills and pesticides. Previous tests had determined that the pills were safe for consumption by servicemembers, he said, and there's no medical evidence that pesticide use was responsible for Gulf War Illness-related maladies.

Other reports conducted on Gulf War Illness over the years, he noted, failed to substantiate its existence or couldn't provide medical evidence of possible causes.

Unlike today, the U.S. military did not conduct pre-deployment medical screenings of servicemembers during the Gulf War, Kilpatrick said. He suggested that some individuals reporting Gulf War Illness-related symptoms may have had pre-existing medical conditions before they deployed to the Gulf.

"I think if you take a look at chronic fatigue syndrome, where people are extremely tired even after a good night's sleep; they're lethargic, they may have some short-term memory loss, some muscle pain in joints," Kilpatrick said. "That's part of that syndrome."

Gulf War Illness isn't a mystery, Kilpatrick said, but it is "something we don't understand, and we need to do more work."

Registry Tracks Effects of Embedded Metal Fragments

By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

Sept. 30, 2008 - A Defense Department registry is helping officials gather data to be sure the long-accepted practice of leaving embedded metal fragments in wounded warriors' bodies as long as vital organs aren't threatened is valid. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology created the Embedded Metal Fragments Registry in December.

"In general, we've [always] felt that metal fragments in a body, if they're smaller than a certain size ... and they're not in a vital area of the body, it's OK to leave them in," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, DoD's deputy director for force health protection and readiness. "That's been that way for, actually, centuries, [but] we want to be able to validate that with actual data."

To date, the registry deals only with wounded servicemembers from Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom.

The military's interest in the effects of embedded metal fragments began in the early 1990s after Gulf War veterans reported health concerns, Kilpatrick said. During the Gulf War, servicemembers used munitions made with depleted uranium. The military had studied the effects of firing munitions made from depleted uranium, but not the effects of being hit with them.

Several servicemembers were hit with these munitions in combat accidents, and looked to the depleted uranium as a possible cause of illnesses Gulf War veterans were reporting. But research that began in the mid-1990s hasn't revealed any cause for concern that depleted uranium fragments were causing harm to those harboring them.

"We've had some 70 people followed at the Baltimore [Veterans Affairs Medical Center] that were hit with depleted uranium," Kilpatrick said. "We've not seen any health effects in them yet."

The new registry's aim is to look at the effects of embedded metal fragments over the long term. To date, the registry has looked at 400 to 500 fragments to determine their makeup.

Those who have had fragments removed and sent to the registry but still live with unrecoverable fragments will become part of a database, Kilpatrick said. Administrators will use medical records created when servicemembers were injured in blasts and subsequent medical records to add to that database, Kilpatrick said.

This information will be shared with the Veterans Affairs health care system, because the intention of the registry is to follow the veterans for the rest of their lives, he said.

"We're really on the very ground floor of building this registry," Kilpatrick said. "As we're working with the services we're saying, 'Let's make sure that we're covering the people who are in the electronic records that are really pretty valid from about 2005 forward.'"

Earlier records, including those from the very start of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, aren't in electronic format and therefore are more difficult to use for the registry, he said.

The registry holds promise on many fronts, Kilpatrick said. It has the potential to help the military spot trends and track down potential causes of illnesses, and it could lead to new tests that would determine the type of metal and its concentration in an individual.

It also will help the military keep tabs on the enemy.

"We never know what the enemy may be shooting at us," Kilpatrick said. "We don't really know what the enemy's going to be putting in some of these roadside devices. The question is always 'What's on the world market?'"

So far, Kilpatrick said, the catalogued metal fragments don't show anything unusual.

"The good news is that we've not seen anything in those fragments that is a dangerous-type metal," he said. "These are all the usual types of metals -- iron being the most prevalent one, followed by aluminum or copper or brass. Things you'd expect to see."

The whole aim of the program, he said, is to be able to care for servicemembers properly and give them some peace of mind that the fragments they carry shouldn't cause any problems.