W = Glenda Simpson Q: What unit were you in when you were in the Gulf, and what were your responsibilities there? A: My unit was a supply company. It was a reserve unit out of LaFayette, Indiana. What I was primarily involved with was dealing with the track vehicles. We went in along with some civilians who were out in the desert, issuing out the new M1A1 tanks to the track units there and they had to turn in their older M1s and M1IPs and once that was accomplished then we had to transport all the old tanks down to the port where we set up a new mission. One was to revamp tanks. It was called a control cannibalization, using them for parts, because parts were a great shortage. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the war was very short. By the time we got that mission rolling we had to end it and put them all back together again. The next mission was bringing in all the equipment and getting it loaded on ships....
				Q: And what were the conditions like in the Gulf? A: A daily basis. Things change, over a period of time of course. The first area we went to we set up a log base which was going to be a supply point...this was a very flat area, didn't quite have the sand like you would see in a lot of the desert area. It was kind of stony. The flies were quite heavy, unfortunately they set us up fairly close to the village dump. A lot of animal carcasses, things like that. So the flies were so thick that, even if you dropped a few drops of water on the ground, it would just -- flies would just swarm there. They eat your MREs. A lot of times we had to crawl underneath mosquito netting to be able to do that without a whole lot of disruption. But with the air war started, of course the unit that we were stationed with out there, they moved forward and they left a small rear detachment behind. So our only responsibilities at that point was security of the gear. You have hundreds of tanks there out in the desert, not knowing if they're going to be a target, whatever, and we had to provide perimeter security. We also we sent most of the people who were with us back with our main company. Q: Were you ill in the Gulf Jim? Did you start symptoms at that point? A: Not not very often. I had -- had the usual -- ' course anyone whose done any travelling around in the world you know you go into another country you do have reactions to the food and the water initially and yo have those problems. There were a few days where I had trouble getting in to work because I had such severe cramps. They just folded me right in two. I would get some minor headaches. But a lot of these at the time I attributed to the water, even though we did try to drink bottled water. They had showers available to us. It was on their on their water system which we were -- we did not drink, but if you're taking a shower you can't help but getting it on your face and on your lips, and so on. They also set up a -- I'm surprised I didn't get court marshalled over this one -- but they set up a paint mission upwind from us. The army uses car paint; it's a lead-based paint, very toxic. I've seen people even wearing protective garments while painting, come out, take their hood off, and they were bleeding out the nose. There were days where I would have to shut down my mission because paint fumes were coming down and the guys were getting headaches. That's when I noticed my headaches. I'd shut the mission down and sent the guys out, because safety was the number one. I want to know my boy's coming back in one piece, and that was -- In fact, I was so tight on safety that there were certain horsing around, fun games, things like that, that I came down real hard on the guys about, because there was too much of a risk of an individual getting hurt. Q: So were those your only symptoms? A: I was fatigued a lot while I was over there. But we're talking about when I was at work. I was the first one in. We developed -- things changed with the missions and what was going on. At one point we had like say, we were still going 24 hours, so I took the 12 hour day shift and a good friend of mine took the -- he was the NCOIC for the shift. We -- but we had to overlap and of course when I'd come off my shift and I'd get back to the barracks area, then I had all these soldiers who were not dealing well with the war, things that were going on, problems at home. So I practiced a lot of psychiatry without a license while I was over there and, in the evenings, just trying to keep the guys together. Q: So, when you got back from the Gulf, when did you start to feel ill, and what were your symptoms? A. When I returned from the Gulf I went back to my civilian job. I worked as a crew chief for a land surveying and engineering firm....I started having problems with concentration, havin' a little problem focusing the instruments once in a while. By -- a lot of it I thought was just well I'd been away from it for 10 months now and, kind of pick it up. And, things got slow. I got laid off for a few weeks and I was doing side jobs, and that's when I noticed the fatigue really setting in. I noticed my ears were ringing constantly. At times it was very hard to focus. I felt nauseous. I didn't really want to eat, and it was about some time in November I believe, I ran across, I was going out for a weekend drill. I ran into a soldier from the battalion who said I looked terrible. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that you know. And she started asked me a lot of questions. Have you been having problems with headaches, blurry vision, have you had some rashes, extreme fatigue. She said "I can tell from looking at you you've lost a lot of muscle mass." And I said, Yes, I have. A lot of times I thought I had the flu and she informed me that there was a lot of other people were having this same problem. I had just never associated it to having anything to do with the Gulf....This was the connection. When she -- when she told me that believe it or not there are a lot of other soldiers having these same problems. And she was very tactful about it because she was careful to ask certain questions. Are you having this; are you having that. What other problems you've been developing? W: I had noticed that he was getting sick, and I had noticed changes in him, but they were nothing that you could actually put your finger on. His health was deteriorating, but he couldn't explain why. And, when she had came to him and asked him about this, he came back and talked to me, and she even called me and we talked. And they were all open-ended questions. Things that, you know, were generic, that she would ask me. Are you seeing this, or what have you noticed? Did you notice this? And we started putting two and two together, because he was in denial that he was sick, that there was anything wrong. I kept saying, There's something wrong. This isn't right. What's going on. Anything that I could say to him that would trigger a response, some kind of explanation. We even went as far as to send him to our family doctor and have tests run, to see what was wrong with him. Q: How would you notice them, and what was happening around the house ? W:: He was just exhausted constantly. He could never get enough rest. His motivation was deteriorating. He couldn't concentrate. He couldn't remember things. There would constantly be arguments and fights in the house with me and the kids and him because we would say, Well, we told you, and he wouldn't remember. And, we're all standing here looking at each other and saying, We know we told him. Q: This must have been pretty frightening. A: Well I knew that, anything you come back from war; you've been away from the family, there's going to be changes and we did a lot of counseling on, Look, you're not going to be able to walk back home and jump right in and I'm head of the household again, I'm here, and I'm going to start taking care of this, that and whatever. No, hey, your family has gotten used to living without you so you've got to kind of ease back in to being part of the family again, let alone anything else. And so I was well aware of things like that and, you know, but, things had changed a lot too while I was gone now. The kids screw up, my folks both retired from their jobs and Linda finished going through Beauty School while I was over there. W: My grandmother got ill -- A: Yeah. W: -- right after he got back, and died. And that was five weeks of stress that was thrown in. Through all of this I was needing to depend on him to take over running the household while I was going to school and taking care of my grandmother who was dying. And it was terrible. He had a hard time with it.

 
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