Silent Suffering Over For Gis -- Pentagon: OK To Talk About Mustard Gas

The Pentagon yesterday said it is OK now for U.S. soldiers to finally talk about how they were used as human guinea pigs to test chemical weapons during World War II. The announcement comes two months after a report found 60,000 soldiers had been exposed to mustard-gas experiments. Below, a look at some of their experiences.

His voice a raspy hack, William Major gulps down a quick breath and launches into the story of the morning in 1942 at the Army camp near Dutch Harbor, Alaska, that he first learned about mustard gas.

"They told us we had to know what the stuff was like in case the Japanese dropped it on us. They took us into a hut and turned the stuff on. We were all gasping and gagging. It was putrid. It would go up your nose and grab your throat like it was being eaten by bugs. We were spitting and gasping and coughing."

Today, Major, who lives in Santa Ana, Calif., has bronchitis and infection of his bronchial tubes. For decades he has told Veterans Administration doctors that his condition started after he was exposed to mustard gas, which can burn away internal membranes and scar lung tissue.

"They said it was just the dampness of Alaska. They wouldn't listen to any other ideas," he said.

After 50 years of silence, the government is only now disclosing the story of World War II mustard-gas experiments involving 60,000 service members.

Until last year, the government did not even admit the mustard-gas program had existed.

A landmark report last January by the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that at least 4,000 of the soldiers were exposed to concentrations so high they may have led to respiratory illnesses, skin cancer, chronic conjunctivitis, and psychological and sexual disorders.

VA officials accepted the report and promised to upgrade services for veterans exposed to the gas.

Yesterday, at the first congressional hearing on the matter since the report, Lt. Gen. Robert Alexander, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told a House panel that the Defense Department is lifting a ban on military personnel involved in the tests from discussing them.

He said the Pentagon also will begin declassifying information on the locations, dates and individuals exposed to chemical weapons in all test programs conducted before 1968 and that the individuals involved should be identified by the end of July.

"We share your concerns that many of the individuals exposed may not even know they were exposed," Alexander told the veterans affairs subcommittee.

But with thousands of World War II veterans already dead, their claims rejected for decades, researchers say the change in Washington comes very late.

"What we found was evidence of betrayal and sad legacy," said Dr. David Rall in releasing the report. "There is no excuse that test subjects, particularly those who suffered severe burns and inhalation injuries, were neglected for so long after the war."

VA officials defend their record, saying the Pentagon gave them few documents to back up veterans' claims.

Part of the problem has been veterans who suffered in silence, keeping promises not to divulge their roles.

The secrecy was necessary at the time, the soldiers were told, because it was believed that the Germans and Japanese would use mustard gas against U.S. troops. After the war, the Pentagon argued the tests had to be kept secret from the Soviet Union.

Thousands were ordered to breathe diluted forms of the gas or to take part in experiments to test new uniforms' or equipment's ability to withstand the chemical. Some experiences:

Fort Lewis, Washington: William Woolsey of Anaheim, Calif., was one of those who took part in the gas-mask experiments while at Fort Lewis in the early 1940s:

"They pumped gas into a room and had us stick three fingers under our mask and pull it away. It was diluted so it wasn't strong enough to kill you. But it got your attention. It hit me hard. My eyes burned and it made me sick. For the next three days I was vomiting pretty heavy. But they didn't send us to the infirmary. They said it was the flu and we'd get over it."

After the war, the VA rejected his claims that he had been injured by mustard gas.

"They refused to accept that it was gas, even though I had fibrosis on my lungs that couldn't have been caused by my smoking. I really believe I'm dying from what happened back then."

Camp Sibert, Alabama: Lee Goodman of Huntington Beach, Calif., was a mustard-gas training instructor at Camp Sibert, Ala:

"We'd bring the guys in and tell them they would be exposed to mustard gas and phosgene. It was really diluted. They would come in and sit down with their gas masks on, pump the gas in and then have them take the mask off for a minute. Ninety percent of them would panic and forget to clear their masks before putting them back on. They'd all vomit."

Goodman said the Army wasn't always careful with disposal of the gas. Some was dumped into a pit near a creek.

"Some of the guys went swimming and the mustard gas at the bottom of the creek got stirred up and they all came out red and with bad blisters in their mouth and ears and on their skin. Some of them had to spend a long time in the hospital."

Banning, California: Franklin Robel of Riverside, Calif., serving with the 369th Special Service Engineer Regiment, recalled when a mustard-gas canister stored at his base near Banning, Calif., broke open:

"There was about 50 or 60 of us around it and somebody yelled `Run!'. . . . I got hit with a dose and it burned my eyes bad. But some of the guys downwind never got out alive. They trucked all the hurt ones to Marysville (Calif.). They were all wrapped up with blisters on their face and hands. The worst got it in the lungs. I finally got a letter back from the VA last year saying they admitted that it was mustard gas that made my eyes bad."

Edgewood, Maryland: Giles Efurd remembers being ordered into a U.S. Army gas chamber filled with mustard and arsenic-laden Lewisite gas in 1944, at the Army Chemical Training Center at Edgewood, Md.:

"We could hear the gas coming in. There was a pipe with a hissing sound. They kept doing it until we couldn't stand it any longer. . . ."

Yesterday, in testimony to Congress, Efurd claimed that "the only reason that we did (the tests) was due to the fact that we were told that we would be punished with court-martial if we refused."

Efurd said he suffers from chronic bronchitis and has had bouts of skin cancer. Doctors cannot confirm these are the result of his gas-chamber experiences.

Woolsey said it's time for veterans to come forward with their stories. "You used to go to the VA and anybody else and say that your problems were caused by gas warfare and they would just say, `No, no, no, no, no.' Maybe now somebody will listen."

-- Material from Associated Press and Scripps Howard News Service is included in this report. --------------------------------------------------------------- `Poor man's atom bomb'

Despite worldwide agreements on limiting chemical weapons, they have remained a popular "poor man's atom bomb" for developing countries at war. Iraq used mustard-gas weapons to kill more than 4,000 Kurds and Iranians in the late 1980s.

Today, independent estimates say the Russians have about 40,000 metric tons of chemicals and little money available to deal with their demolition.

The U.S. stockpile is believed to be 25,000 metric tons. The Pentagon plans to spend $7.9 billion to dispose of chemical weapons.

"We should be done by 2004," said Louise Dyson, a spokeswoman with the Chemical Demilitarization Program.

Orange County Register --------------------------------------------------------------- Other experiments

Mustard gas is not the only dangerous substance the U.S. military has exposed soldiers to in the name of national defense.

Radiation. After the United States exploded the atomic bomb in 1945, military researchers began experimenting with its use as a battlefield weapon. Sailors were exposed to blasts in the South Pacific and Army troops were used in experiments in the Arizona desert. Up to 300,000 service members were exposed, with 50,000 suffering cancers attributable to radiation exposure, according to veterans groups.

LSD. During the 1950s, the Army carried out studies on lysergic acid diethylamide, known as LSD. The Army hoped the powerful hallucinogen could be used to disorient enemy troops or as a truth serum for captured prisoners. The Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that U.S. soldiers who were given the drug without their knowledge could not sue the government. Justice William Brennan, in his dissent, likened the Army to Nazi doctors during World War II.

Agent Orange. Used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War to flush out enemy troops from jungle areas, researchers have found the powerful herbicide attacked the nervous system of some U.S. troops, leading to cancer, severe disabilities and, some veterans say, death.