Comments From Gw Vets

[Testvet]

Col.

Member # 6

Member Rated:

posted March 20, 2006 08:01 AM

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President Gerald R Ford

PO Box 927

Rancho Mirage California 92270

Dear Mr. President 20 March 2006

I find it odd for the necessity to contact you for help, after more than 30 years . I watched President Nixon leave Washington DC in disgrace, and you a Congressman from Michigan sworn into office to take his place, I know you had been chosen to replace Agnew, who can forget, those of us who are old enough to remember?

I was sad to see Nixon leave, I thought he was a good President, compared to the one we have now, he was a saint. I went to DC that day, to watch him leave and you take his place. Why? I was 18 years old, a PV2 in the Army on Temporary Duty at Edgewood Arsenal. I was from Lansing Michigan, I had the day off, see as a human experimentation volunteer in the Army’s classified chemical weapons and drug research program, we had a lot of days off. That is how they enticed us to volunteer.

I will not debate or question the ethics, I am a man and I volunteered, but then again I was told as a service member that if I was injured or hurt while on active duty my family and I would be taken care of by a grateful government. Many commissions and even Justice Sandra Day Oconner have stated that the experiments that were performed on the 7120 men of Edgewood Arsenal between 1955 thru 1975 were as reprehensible as anything the Nazi’s did in WW2. It was a dissent opinion from the Stanley case, which SGT Stanley lost 5-4. He was later compensated by Congress.

The reason I am writing you now, is that I am totally disabled at age 50, I have been disabled for 5 years, I started having serious health problems at age 36, within months from returning home after duty during GW1. I was in blissful ignorance until October 2002, when I started looking at what had caused me to have the health of a 75 year old man at 45, was it Desert Storm, Fort Irwin, multiple vaccines for GW1. Then I remembered Edgewood, what I was to learn was frightening to me, I had never known about the Nazi doctors employed there before, I never knew they used 254 different substances on the 7120 men,

In March 2003 the IOM’s Dr William Page, released a report that glossed over the current health problems of the Edgewood test vets, he maintained a narrow focus on his health study, neurological problems only, he ignored cardiac, pulmonary and gastrointestinal systems.

What the report does state if you can read the fine print, that using Social Security records, IRS and VA records they could not locate 2098 of the men 40%, these were men between the ages of 45 and 80 in FY 2000. One can only presume they are dead, of the 4022 men they did find, 2200 men 54% reported being disabled, for a total of 74.43% death and disability rate. What is more remarkable is the fact 25% of the men were classified as level D test subjects and not exposed to any chemicals weapons nor drugs, to me that seems to round out to accountability of 100% of the men.

It is now 31 years since you ordered the human testing stopped at Edgewood and everywhere else in the US realm, and for that you will always have my gratitude, to many Presidents before you allowed it to continue, to me that is one of the greatest achievements of your Presidency, you saved thousands of lives by your orders.

I don’t know the reason why, if Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld is holding DOD from releasing the names of these honorable veterans to the Veterans Affairs so they can receive the benefits they and their families have so long been denied. I don’t know if it is they are afraid of the connection between the chemical weapons injuries of the Cold War tests being linked to the mess at Kamisayah, opening the government to large compensation claims from GW1 veterans.

The other option is that it would be embarrassing to the present administration that the US had thousands of injured US service men from tests of WMD;s that they chose to go to war over with Saddam.

The names that go from your administration to the present situation are, Dick Cheney, your chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense now and then, George H. W. Bush was head of the CIA.

DOD has stated that it will be FY 2009 before they can release the names of these men to the Veterans Administration, why after 31 years will it take 5 years, this statement was made to the Senate in a March 2004 hearing.

Mr President, you have 7120 honorable men who served their country and got involved in a very dangerous and wrong program that ran amok until you stopped it, and we are dying and have died, broke, without medical care and security for our wives and children.

Is there any way that you can find a way to get these men and their families the benefits they deserve, I am proud of you for stopping it, I am however now ashamed of how my government is treating these men and their families, and whatever the reason it is wrong and we all know it.

Your help would be greatly appreciated, I have been fighting with the VA since 2002 and going nowhere fast.

If the Institute of Medicine could find the names and addresses of the 7120 men in 1985 and again in 2000 for the two health studies, why can't the DOD which paid for the studies get the addresses from them?

how much money would it cost for 500,000 veterans to be compensated at the 100% rate or higher for 20-40 years? chemical wepaons injuries proved by Edgewood vets to the same problems GW1 vets are having.

SS and Medicare have the largest budget, where would the money have to come from? only budget left is DOD's

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Edited March 20, 2006 by Testvet

[Bound4heaven]

Col.

Member # 6

Member Rated:

posted March 20, 2006 08:01 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Gerald R Ford

PO Box 927

Rancho Mirage California 92270

Dear Mr. President 20 March 2006

I find it odd for the necessity to contact you for help, after more than 30 years . I watched President Nixon leave Washington DC in disgrace, and you a Congressman from Michigan sworn into office to take his place, I know you had been chosen to replace Agnew, who can forget, those of us who are old enough to remember?

I was sad to see Nixon leave, I thought he was a good President, compared to the one we have now, he was a saint. I went to DC that day, to watch him leave and you take his place. Why? I was 18 years old, a PV2 in the Army on Temporary Duty at Edgewood Arsenal. I was from Lansing Michigan, I had the day off, see as a human experimentation volunteer in the Army’s classified chemical weapons and drug research program, we had a lot of days off. That is how they enticed us to volunteer.

I will not debate or question the ethics, I am a man and I volunteered, but then again I was told as a service member that if I was injured or hurt while on active duty my family and I would be taken care of by a grateful government. Many commissions and even Justice Sandra Day Oconner have stated that the experiments that were performed on the 7120 men of Edgewood Arsenal between 1955 thru 1975 were as reprehensible as anything the Nazi’s did in WW2. It was a dissent opinion from the Stanley case, which SGT Stanley lost 5-4. He was later compensated by Congress.

The reason I am writing you now, is that I am totally disabled at age 50, I have been disabled for 5 years, I started having serious health problems at age 36, within months from returning home after duty during GW1. I was in blissful ignorance until October 2002, when I started looking at what had caused me to have the health of a 75 year old man at 45, was it Desert Storm, Fort Irwin, multiple vaccines for GW1. Then I remembered Edgewood, what I was to learn was frightening to me, I had never known about the Nazi doctors employed there before, I never knew they used 254 different substances on the 7120 men,

In March 2003 the IOM’s Dr William Page, released a report that glossed over the current health problems of the Edgewood test vets, he maintained a narrow focus on his health study, neurological problems only, he ignored cardiac, pulmonary and gastrointestinal systems.

What the report does state if you can read the fine print, that using Social Security records, IRS and VA records they could not locate 2098 of the men 40%, these were men between the ages of 45 and 80 in FY 2000. One can only presume they are dead, of the 4022 men they did find, 2200 men 54% reported being disabled, for a total of 74.43% death and disability rate. What is more remarkable is the fact 25% of the men were classified as level D test subjects and not exposed to any chemicals weapons nor drugs, to me that seems to round out to accountability of 100% of the men.

It is now 31 years since you ordered the human testing stopped at Edgewood and everywhere else in the US realm, and for that you will always have my gratitude, to many Presidents before you allowed it to continue, to me that is one of the greatest achievements of your Presidency, you saved thousands of lives by your orders.

I don’t know the reason why, if Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld is holding DOD from releasing the names of these honorable veterans to the Veterans Affairs so they can receive the benefits they and their families have so long been denied. I don’t know if it is they are afraid of the connection between the chemical weapons injuries of the Cold War tests being linked to the mess at Kamisayah, opening the government to large compensation claims from GW1 veterans.

The other option is that it would be embarrassing to the present administration that the US had thousands of injured US service men from tests of WMD;s that they chose to go to war over with Saddam.

The names that go from your administration to the present situation are, Dick Cheney, your chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense now and then, George H. W. Bush was head of the CIA.

DOD has stated that it will be FY 2009 before they can release the names of these men to the Veterans Administration, why after 31 years will it take 5 years, this statement was made to the Senate in a March 2004 hearing.

Mr President, you have 7120 honorable men who served their country and got involved in a very dangerous and wrong program that ran amok until you stopped it, and we are dying and have died, broke, without medical care and security for our wives and children.

Is there any way that you can find a way to get these men and their families the benefits they deserve, I am proud of you for stopping it, I am however now ashamed of how my government is treating these men and their families, and whatever the reason it is wrong and we all know it.

Your help would be greatly appreciated, I have been fighting with the VA since 2002 and going nowhere fast.

If the Institute of Medicine could find the names and addresses of the 7120 men in 1985 and again in 2000 for the two health studies, why can't the DOD which paid for the studies get the addresses from them?

how much money would it cost for 500,000 veterans to be compensated at the 100% rate or higher for 20-40 years? chemical wepaons injuries proved by Edgewood vets to the same problems GW1 vets are having.

SS and Medicare have the largest budget, where would the money have to come from? only budget left is DOD's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings,

Great letter!! God bless you.

[Testvet]

Thank you, I have been beating my head against the VA for four years, as most on the board know, I have never been able to figure out the why? Why deny us the benfits we so obviously deserve, and look at either theory and they both make sense, money and politics. What else is there, will they really release the names in FY 2009 as they promised the senate? The VA did not keep it's promise in March 1993 to a congressional panel to find us and get us medical care and compensation if we deserved it, Dr Susan Mathers HQs VA D.C., why should they be believed about 2009? I hope a nes organization starts digging into this, but like I have said before this was approved by Truman and Marshall in 1951, it was first funded under them, and continued until 1975, so it is democrats and Perublicans that have hands in this mess, anyone could have fixed this in the past 31 years, no one has, and right now I think it would be a political problem to admit they have this many evterans being denied benfits due to exposure to WMD's at the nad of the Army and CIA, that our government has abandoned. This past week end someone asked me some questions and the puzzle finally came together. Mike

[Testvet]

relevant quotes from the Stanley decision read Justice Brennan's and Sandra Day Oconners comments.

Previously, the CIA and the Army had actively and successfully sought to withhold incriminating information, even as they secretly provided compensation to the families. One subject of Army drug experimentation, James Stanley, an Army sergeant, brought an important, albeit unsuccessful, suit. The government argued that Stanley was barred from suing under a legal doctrine—known as the Feres doctrine, after a 1950 Supreme Court case, Feres v. United States—that prohibits members of the Armed Forces from suing the government for any harms that were inflicted "incident to service."

In 1987, the Supreme Court affirmed this defense in a 5–4 decision that dismissed Stanley's case. The majority argued that "a test for liability that depends on the extent to which particular suits would call into question military discipline and decision making would itself require judicial inquiry into, and hence intrusion upon, military matters." In dissent, Justice William Brennan argued that the need to preserve military discipline should not protect the government from liability and punishment for serious violations of constitutional rights:

The medical trials at Nuremberg in 1947 deeply impressed upon the world that experimentation with unknowing human subjects is morally and legally unacceptable. The United States Military Tribunal established the Nuremberg Code as a standard against which to judge German scientists who experimented with human subjects. . . . n defiance of this principle, military intelligence officials . . . began surreptitiously testing chemical and biological materials, including LSD.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing a separate dissent, stated:

No judicially crafted rule should insulate from liability the involuntary and unknowing human experimentation alleged to have occurred in this case. Indeed, as Justice Brennan observes, the United States played an instrumental role in the criminal prosecution of Nazi officials who experimented with human subjects during the Second World War, and the standards that the Nuremberg Military Tribunals developed to judge the behavior of the defendants stated that the 'voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential . . . to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal concepts.' If this principle is violated, the very least that society can do is to see that the victims are compensated, as best they can be, by the perpetrators.

This is the only Supreme Court case to address the application of the Nuremberg Code to experimentation sponsored by the U.S. government. And while the suit was unsuccessful, dissenting opinions put the Army—and by association the entire government—on notice that use of individuals without their consent is unacceptable. The limited application of the Nuremberg Code in U.S. courts does not detract from the power of the principles it espouses, especially in light of stories of failure to follow these principles that appeared in the media and professional literature during the 1960s and 1970s and the policies eventually adopted in the mid-1970s.

In 2004, Chief U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled that Wayne Ritchie could proceed to trial with a case that he was used as a test subject for LSD by the CIA in 1957. She dismissed the case in 2005.