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Dallas Conference for Gulf War Veterans Does NOT Include Discredited Douglas Rokke
Depleted Uranium
- Setting the record straight. Internet hoax says discredited ‘expert’ who presented before White Supremacists/Neo-Nazi’s is slated to speak at the NGWRC National Conference for Gulf War Veterans: He’s NOT -
National Gulf War Resource Center’s Health Fair & 20-Year Reunion
August 5-8, 2010; Dallas, Texas
By Anthony Hardie,
Gulf War Veteran
(91outcomes.com) – A small controversy has erupted involving the National Gulf War Resource Center’s conference and reunion in Dallas this August related to a previously discredited, self-proclaimed “expert” and whether or not he is slated to speak.
Stories circulating on the Internet, including in an article this week at the web-based “American Free Press, (Mark Anderson)” state that former Army officer Douglas Lind Rokke,a so-called Depleted Uranium (DU) ‘expert’ is scheduled to speak. For Gulf War veterans who know Rokke and his storied past, the rumors stirred up anger and emotion.
However, NGWRC President Jim Bunker, quoted in Anderson’s article, disputes these reports. In an email sent July 16, Bunker said unequivocally about Rokke attending the NGWRC conference, “He is not on the Agenda.”
About Doug Rokke: “He is not on the Agenda.”
-Jim Bunker, President, in a July 16, 2010 emailThe NGWRC’s conference agenda, available onlineon the NGWRC website also shows that Rokke is not slated to speak.
Failing to fact check, Mark Anderson at American Free Press’s falsely claims, in an article falsely entitled, “Thousands [emphasis added] of Vets to Meet in Dallas,”:
AMERICAN FREE PRESS has also learned that Doug Rokke (U.S. Army, retired) will speak on the Saturday portion of the event. He’s a well-known critic of the use of depleted uranium by the U.S. military. This radioactive metal, a byproduct of uranium processing, is used as both a munitions component for penetrating hardened targets and as armor against enemy fire. But when it’s fragmented or aerosolized during conflict, it gets into food, water and wounds and respiratory systems of soldiers and civilians. It causes cancer, birth defects and other serious health problems.
Rokke also is a critic of America’s interventionist foreign policy, arguing that a string of unjustified wars has produced massive casualties that U.S. authorities barely acknowledge, let alone seek to remedy. This outspoken Vietnam and Desert Storm vet has accused those whose duty it is to help veterans of a constant “delay and deny” stance. The result is a war of attrition against vets who fight to get financial benefits and healthcare, but end up dying or deteriorating beyond help.
Citing Gulf War Veterans Information Systems data, Rokke also points out that war-death statistics commonly reported to the American people are dramatically lower than the real, complete figures. This is because deaths that more or less immediately take place (killed in action) comprise most of the fatalities reported, whereas those soldiers who die later from injuries, illnesses and suicides stemming from their military service are not included in those fatality reports. This, he says, enables the government to hide the real “blood cost” of the current wars.
The Gulf War veterans community generally discredited former Illinois National Guardsman and U.S. Army Reservist Doug Rokke years ago when Rokke’s sharply exaggerated claims and outright falsehoods published about his military service, expertise, and credentials were exposed.
ABOVE: Doug Rokke, self-purported DU “expert,” speaking at a 2008 conference of neo-Nazi’s. Dave Von Kleist, then husband of Joyce Riley, was the Master of Ceremonies and introduced both Rokke and keynote speaker and neo-Nazi “Nordwave”” leader Alec Hassinger at the conference. The American Free Press co-hosted the conference, later publishing Mark Anderson’s false article about Rokke’s participation cited above.
BELOW: Doug Rokke was preceded in his speech at the 2008 conference of neo-Nazi’s by Alec Hassinger, chairman of the neo-Nazi, “racialist”, anti-Semitic, white Supremacist organization “Nordwave,” who is pictured below. The flag of Nazi Germany — a sworn enemy of the United States, was defeated during WWII by the U.S. and the Allies at a cost of millions of lives — hangs in the background at left.
======================
Meanwhile, Depleted Uranium has very real health effects, though they bear little resemblance to the wild and terrifying claims made by Rokke over the years. See 91outcomes.com’s “Health Effects of Depleted Uranium (DU): A review of recent research” for a review of recent scientific studies showing the very real health outcomes associated with DU, particularly ingested or inhaled DU.
In 2008, a consensus scientific report of the VA Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RACGWVI) has this to say about Gulf War causation and depleted uranium, based on available studies and consistent with the likelihood that only some Gulf War veterans were exposed to DU but not even a majority of the 250,000 (according to the Institute of Medicine) who remain ill with chronic multisymptom illness, popularly known as Gulf War Illness:
Evidence strongly and consistently indicates that two Gulf War neurotoxic exposures are causally associated with Gulf War illness: 1) use of pyridostigmine bromide (PB) pills, given to protect troops from effects of nerve agents, and 2) pesticide use during deployment. Evidence includes the consistent association of Gulf War illness with PB and pesticides across studies of Gulf War veterans, identified dose-response effects, and research findings in other populations and in animal models.
For several Gulf War exposures, an association with Gulf War illness cannot be ruled out. These include low-level exposure to nerve agents, close proximity to oil well fires, receipt of multiple vaccines, and effects of combinations of Gulf War exposures. There is some evidence supporting a possible association between these exposures and Gulf War illness, but that evidence is inconsistent or limited in important ways.
Other wartime exposures are not likely to have caused Gulf War illness for the majority of ill veterans. For remaining exposures, there is little evidence supporting an association with Gulf War illness or a major role is unlikely based on what is known about exposure patterns during the Gulf War and more recent deployments. These include depleted uranium, anthrax vaccine, fuels, solvents, sand and particulates, infectious diseases, and chemical agent resistant coating (CARC).
Even still, the RAC’s scientists and Gulf War veteran members note that few studies have been conducted on inhaled or ingested DU particulate matter, though one was funded in recent years by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program’s Gulf War Illness Research Program.
In the 1990’s, other opportunists also took advantage of Gulf War veterans. Former military nurse Joyce Riley, whose own Gulf War military service has come under question, called Gulf War Syndrome government genocide and linked to items as farfetched as black helicopters and a conspiratorial international governments and the New World Order somehow using Gulf War troops as guinea pigs for evil plans for citizenry of the entire world.
Riley found her way onto numerous television and radio talk shows, and even founded an organization called “American Gulf War Veterans Association”.
Still in existence, AGWVA’s current eventsrevolve not around helping Gulf War veterans, but predictably around publicizing Riley’s public talks – which can be attended, for a price, of course. In fact, Riley’s current events (donations unfailingly encouraged) can go as high as $40 per event to attend, according to her webpage as of the writing of this article, including to view Riley and Rokke’s co-produced, conspiratorial, sensationalist film.
Riley and Rokke have generally avoided legitimate participating in the many dozens of public meetings held by federal government agencies and panels, which in recent years have finally been solidly focused on finding solutions to improve Gulf War veterans’ health and lives. In Riley’s case, however, she has translated her fear-mongering into a lucrative radio talk show, replete with a mall selling DVD’s and other items for profit.
Any reasonable person who opposes Riley or Rokke or asks meaningful questions about their credibility has frequently become part of the conspiracy, and subject to coordinated attacks by Riley, Rokke, and like-minded cohorts.
One of the items hawked by Riley and Rokke are their co-produced DVD, “Beyond Treason,” which purports to discuss the truth about Gulf War Syndrome.
However, the falsehoods, distortions, and breathless, fear-instilling hype begin even in the DVD’s write-up. “The VA has determined that 250,000 troops are now permanently disabled, 15,000 troops are dead and over 425,000 are ill,” proclaims Riley’s and Rokke’s film summary of this 2005 film on Riley’s webpage.
In actuality, only just this year did the Institute of Medicine – not the VA – determine that 250,000 veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from chronic multi-symptom illness. The claim that 250,000 troops are now (in 2005) “permanently disabled” was not factual in 2005, and the claims that of the 696,842 service members who deployed to the Gulf in 1991 that, “over 425,000 are ill,” is another fabrication.
Indeed, the April 2010 Institute of Medicine reportwas the largest number of ill Gulf War veterans yet cited by science: “There are sufficient numbers of veterans to conduct meaningful comparisons given that nearly 700,000 U.S. personnel were deployed to the region and more than 250,000 of them suffer from persistant, unexplained symptoms.”
Since 2008, the VA’s Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses — a panel composed of pro-veteran scientists and ill Gulf War veterans – had stated that between 175,000 and 210,000 veterans were ill.
Indeed, demagogues like Riley and Rokke did much in the earlier years of Gulf War Illness to damage the credibility of genuinely ill Gulf War veterans, and soon many policymakers and politicians stopped believing there was a real problem and instead succumbing to the Pentagon’s equally misguided assertions that nothing was wrong with Gulf War veterans, or if there was it was only “stress”, the “same as after every war.”
This year, instead of playing host to self-serving charlatans like Riley and Rokke, the National Gulf War Resource Center (www.ngwrc.org) instead has a meaningful, thought-provoking agenda filled with speakers who have impeccable credibility as leaders in their fields and advocacy for Gulf War veterans, and clearly have the interests of ill Gulf War veterans at heart.
While attendance is highly unlikely to be in the “thousands” as Anderson inflates, or probably even in the many hundreds, it will surely be of great value to all those Gulf War veterans, families, and advocates who do choose to attend.
Speakers include:
Dr. Lea Steele, past Scientific Director of the advocacy oriented, Congressionally chartered Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, past Chair of the integration panel of the Gulf War Illness Research Program, part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program conducted at the direction of Congress and housed in the Department of Defense with ill Gulf War veteran consumer advocates and top-notch scientists.
Dr. Robert Haley, director of a formerly Congressionally funded research project on Gulf War illnesses.
VA Chief of Staff John Gingrich, who is personally leading efforts inside VA to “Change the Culture” to improve Gulf War veterans’ health and lives.
And more. See the full list and their bio’s here: http://www.ngwrc.org/2010/2010%20reunion.htm
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
- 30 Dead or 0 Dead: Military Spokesman Contradicts Fatalities Claim by Doug Rokke
- Australian Member of Parliament Exposes False Information from Doug Rokke
- RAC 2008 Report, Chapter on DU:
Summary. The health of Gulf War veterans in relation to depleted uranium. The 1990-1991 Gulf War was the first conflict in which munitions containing DU were widely used, and the possible role of DU in causing or contributing to Gulf War-related multisymptom illness has long been the subject of debate and controversy. About 320 tons of DU were used during the Gulf War and a substantial number of Gulf War personnel were potentially exposed to DU at lower levels, particularly troops who came into contact with vehicles damaged by DU munitions. The Department of Defense has indicated that at least 900 U.S. personnel were involved in incidents or activities associated with higher-level DU exposures. Health risk assessments indicate that DU exposures at levels encountered by the majority of Gulf War veterans are not likely to result in increased rates of kidney disease or lung cancer, but have not provided insights directly related to questions concerning persistent symptomatic illness.
Recent animal studies indicate that DU exposure, particularly longer term exposure to soluble forms of DU, can have adverse effects on the brain and behavior. Research in animal models has also demonstrated mutagenic and tumorigenic effects of DU that raise concerns, particularly in connection with sustained DU exposures. Studies of Gulf War veterans have provided limited information concerning associations between DU and multisymptom illness and other health outcomes of interest. The extensive use of DU in current Middle East conflicts, in the absence of a widespread “Gulf War illness”-type problem in returning veterans, suggests that DU is not likely a primary cause of Gulf War illness for most Gulf War veterans. Questions remain, however, concerning long-term effects of DU in relation to other health outcomes, particularly among individuals with higher level DU exposures. These questions indicate the need for epidemiologic research to more comprehensively assess effects of DU exposure in Gulf War veterans.
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Editor’s note: Bunker should be praised for holding out against those unlearned few inside his own organization who still, after years of experience, try to push to have discredited, self-serving demagogues like Riley and Rokke be given a platform from which to spin and spew more inflammatory, exaggeration and lie-filled, fear mongering garbage.
Preying on fears and suspicion hurts the veterans and their loved ones, and lines the pocketbooks of charlatans like these.
Meanwhile, the real work seeking publicly funded, science-based answers to help improve the health and lives of the 250,000 veterans left ill from the 1991 Gulf War remains in great need of clear-minded, rational advocates to help their fellow Gulf War veterans. If you’re science-minded and want to help be part of real solutions, post your comments here, or email at admin@91outcomes.com.
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
- A.H.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=42475
Posted by Yanira Farray on Jul 30 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Veterans Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Although DR Rokke is not on the agenda for the conference in August, he is planning on being there and giving a presentation on his own so more gulf war veterans can be better informed of the dangers of depleted uranium. The NGWRC,however, is not endorsing him.
Depleted Uranium should not be used in any weapons. It has been widely associated with such terrible birth defects in Iraq by experts from those countries. Depleted uranium is a misnomer. This substance is not depleted of radioactive properties. It is depleted only in the sense that it doesn’t provide the particles required by nuclear power plants. While using depleted uranium in weapons solves the problems of waste disposal for nuclear power plants, it has create tremendous contamination problems around the world (it is carried both by the winds and by soldiers who have inhaled it.)
The issue of Rokke’s experience and qualifications should not detract from an open and honest discussion of the problems being created by using tanks whose plating contains depleted uranium and shells that contain depleted uranium in their rounds. Let’s not lose sight of the issue because one of the messengers was not optimal.
MK
Well who else is the NGWRC supporting to speak on the subject of DU exposure? Or has the NGWRC not support GW vets who live with illnesses from DU fragments?
Venus, it is not the NGWRC as a whole that do not support the fact that DU causes damage. There are many of is in the organization that believe DU causes major damage, myself included, more so than those that don’t believe it does.
I do not know all the details as to why the NGWRC does not want to endorse Dr Rokke, and probably never will, but do know that his credentials speak for themselves and he does know what he is talking about.
There will be another speaker speaking on the subject of DU as well as other exposures that are a factor in our illnesses.
I know this subject very well, My mos is 45B,45k,45g,45lima and 41c weapons repair, now just 45b. for ten years I’ve dealt with and been around these munitions. I was put out pd, while having problems with PTSD and GWI. These munitions have ruined My life,as well as the efforts of THE MILITARY
Who is Douglas Lind Rokke? Does he really know that much about depleted uranium? Let’s start with the article that he does not want any of you disciples like Tanya Boozer to read; Captain Rokke co-authored this Chemical Corps Journal “Chemical Review” article “Depleted Uranium, What is it? Is it dangerous?” that is now posted to the Internet Archive at this link http://www.archive.org/details/DepletedUraniumWhatIsItIsItDangerous
The following biography of Rokke used to be posted as a review to the latest incarnation of what I call the Rokke Horror Picture show, don’t invite that show to Dallas, not unless you really want to be lied to by an exceptionally skillful con artist who thrives on your adulation.
Army Reserve First Lieutenant Douglas Lind Rokke went to war in 1990 and he has been misrepresenting what he did since about 1999 in his travelling “Rokke Horror Picture Show”. Rokke is an amazing showman, but it is a show, not fact and not cause for alarm unless you are easily scared by the unknown. Rokke prides himself on doing that and has been very successful in doing so.
Douglas Lind Rokke was born in 1949, graduated from Libertyville, Illinois High School in 1967 and enlisted in the Air Force. He served in Vietnam according to his records, but the exact nature of that service is not clear. In some of his appearances and videos, he claims to have treated combat casualties in Vietnam. That is categorically false. Rokke did study to be an EMT after discharge from the Air Force in 1971 and did serve as a medic for an Illinois Army National Guard unit that he joined in 1980. Rokke was even commended for life saving first aid that he rendered when he stopped at an accident site on the way home from his annual active duty training.
Rokke briefly worked as a Criminalist at the Joliet, Illinois Police department after graduating from Western Illinois University in 1975. He is not, as he has claimed on some websites, a “forensic scientist”. His six months probationary service clearly did not meet that standard.
In 1986, Rokke was direct commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Reserve after obtaining his Masters in Vocational Education with the thesis of “The necessity and educational acquisition of selected vocational skills by Food Science graduates” while working in the Physical Science Assistant series at the University of Illinois Department of Food Science.
A couple of months before First Lieutenant Rokke was ordered to active duty with the 12th Medical Detachment, Beloit, Wisconsin, he transferred from Food Science to the Physics Department as a Physical Science Technical Assistant. Rokke has often implied that he was a physicist or research scientist with some sort of depleted uranium expertise who was specially ordered to Saudi Arabia to clean up the Army’s DU mess. That simply is not true. He had no particular expertise in depleted uranium before the Gulf War and he was not singled out and ordered from his physics lab. That is just part of the persona that Rokke has effected since he has learned that it pays well to be flown around the world and wined and dined as the former Director of the Army DU Program (a title he never actually held) beginning about in 1999.
Rokke arrived in Saudi Arabia in December 1990 and in March 1991 was made a “theatre health physicist” by the Army so that he could take care of the remaining health physics issues after the actual experts and two other more senior active Army Captain health physicists had gone home. Lieutenant Rokke then oversaw the work by Chem Nuclear, Inc. to crate up some Bradley Fighting Vehicles that had been hit by DU in friendly fire incidents to be taken back to South Carolina for decontamination. The surviving crew members of these incidents have been monitored by the VA Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland since the end of the Gulf War and none of them ever became ill due to DU. Rokke has falsely claimed that 29 members of his team have not only become sick due to DU, but that they have died. I spoke to one of them at his retirement home. Newspaper reporters and the Vanity Fair editor David Rose who wrote about Rokke could have done the same thing, but they never bothered to search anyone out or talk to them. I intend to identify every single person who participated in the depleted uranium assessment and decontamination in Southwest Asia and interview each to determine if they have become ill. I have some clues and given time will locate each and talk with them.
Rokke also treated some injured soldiers, including a Colonel Brigade Commander, who had cut himself and possibly contaminated the cut with DU. This happened in Iraq, but not during the war, but in April of 1991 when a tank was being towed home and caught fire igniting the on board DU munitions which then exploded. This incident, documented in the footnotes of the Department of Defense Gulf Link website does not mention Rokke by name, but does indicate that a First Lieutenant with first aid skills treated the injured by cleaning and decontaminating the wounds and closing up the cuts with Band-Aids and SteriStrips. Rokke appears to now call this treating the front line wounded during the war. The war had ended over two months before.
Rokke returned to the United States in late June 1991 and was released from active duty at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin on July 1, 1991. This date is significant because Rokke now claims to be expert on the 6,700 pounds of sand from Kuwait that was shipped to Idaho for disposal. That sand was contaminated with DU and other more toxic substances in the fire at Camp Doha which occurred ten days after Rokke had become a civilian again. Rokke never returned to Southwest Asia and never had anything to do with the Camp Doha fire or the decontamination of that area afterwards.
Rokke returned to the University of Illinois and completed his doctoral thesis “Perceived physics concepts needed to teach secondary technology education as general education” in Vocational Education. The title and subject matter are significant because they have absolutely nothing to do with depleted uranium despite the claims by Rokke that he was sickened by being improperly exposed to DU in Southwest Asia the year before.
In 1994, Rokke volunteered for a one-year (later lengthened by three months) active duty tour at Fort McClellan, Alabama’s Army Chemical Corps School. Rokke was the liaison with a contractor that was preparing DU awareness training materials. Captain Rokke was not the Director of the Army’s DU Program, but that is what Rokke now claims this 15 month assignment to have been. After this, Rokke briefly worked as a civilian at the Chemical Corps School Bradley Radiological Laboratory but he was let go during the probationary period. I have no actual records of this occurrence, but have eyewitness accounts from more than one person who was there.
Rokke then became a Visiting Assistant Professor at nearby Jacksonville State University in Alabama where he taught undergraduate science classes for two academic years. During this period, Rokke began to become a leader of the anti-depleted uranium crusade and fashioning his false persona. He claimed to have knowledge of DU use at Vieques Puerto Rico in a complaint from his Jacksonville faculty e-mail address that is on file with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and he later demanded that the Army be stripped of its licenses to store and handle depleted uranium. His demands were investigated at considerable time and cost to the taxpayer, found to be groundless and were denied. However, as a result of this inquiry, Rokke was provided a medical report from the Department of Energy which erroneously indicated that Rokke had been seriously contaminated while observing a test in Nevada. Rokke now uses this report to claim that he was seriously contaminated in Southwest Asia and even that he is dying as a result of the numerous conditions that he claims have resulted. Rokke does not tell the audience that he received a corrected report that showed where the error had been made and that he was not contaminated at all. He continues to push the false report to all who will listen.
Since leaving Jacksonville State University, Rokke has been a substitute science teacher in the Urbana, Illinois public schools and was promoted to Major in the Army Reserve in 2000 or early 2001. The Army Reserve, though, forced Rokke into the retired reserve in 2003 for non-participation and even Rokke’s substitute teaching at Urbana seems to have dried up. His main source of income almost seems to be ranting against depleted uranium and this video is a great boost to that cottage industry. Don’t support it.
Every statement made in this unauthorized biography of Rokke is true and supported by documents that I have obtained from FOIA requests to the Army, University of Illinois, Urbana Public Schools and the Joliet Police Department as well as similar inquiry to Jacksonville State University under the Public Records act of Alabama plus extensive on-line research of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ADAMS document retrieval system and the Department of Defense Special Assistant for Deployment Health Gulf Link website’s End Notes which contain Gulf War documents and investigative interviews with key Gulf War participants in depleted uranium issues. Rokke is mentioned by name in some documents and by rank and job function in others. Other individuals are also mentioned by name and I have made an effort to contact them.
Rokke’s military service history from 1967 thru 1998 is posted at http://www.archive.org/details/DougRokkesMilitaryCareer1967-1998
Rokke’s DD-214 Release from Active Duty after Desert Shield/Desert Storm is posted at
http://www.archive.org/details/DougRokke-ServiceDuringDesertShielddesertStorm
Rokke’s University of Illinois career as a Physical Science Technical Assistant is posted at (note what the educational requirements were and what types of tasks he performed – this is not a research scientist position)
http://www.archive.org/details/TheRealDougRokke-PhysicalScienceTechnicalAssistant
Additional documents are available in the Files Section of the Yahoo Group DUStory which was created in order to post these files that I obtained by FOIA and other links to factual scientific materials about depleted uranium. You may access them using the instructions at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/message/87
Message/88 has links to over 50 different scientific reports related to radiation, uranium, etc. This message will be updated soon and include the other links that have been posted since Message/88 was posted in late 2008. This research into Rokke and other key members of the anti-DU crusade was a part-time, late night, weekend hobby until I retired in January and since that time, I have put a little more time into it. I have never paid been paid a single dime for this – there are false slurs all over the net, including this site that state otherwise, but unlike my research of Douglas Lind Rokke, no one has ever really researched me and I have always been pretty much an open book since I began being a whistleblower while working as a civilian employee of the Department of the Navy.
Rather than listening to Douglas Lind Rokke, go to the DU Forum that was held by the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs that you can see here
Suggest that you start with the question by Gulf War Vet Greg Campbell about 5 1/2 minutes in to the Q&A segment – I think that the sincerity and clear knowledge expressed in the replies will convince you to watch the rest of the hour plus forum
http://www.mdva.state.mn.us/du/video/DUQandA.htm
http://www.mdva.state.mn.us/du/video/DUKeyResearchFindings.htm
If anyone wants to write to me, please, do so at DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com
Phillip Pollack,
I would be most interested in seeing the responses that you have made to the VA DU Questionnaire or the results of any testing that resulted from that. Have you had any testing at the Baltimore VA Center? If not, have you asked for testing? Rokke certainly is not going to help you get well if you are sick. He even lies about the numbers of people who have died.
An internet archive posting, one of Rokke’s many Snowshoe Films epics (he loves being on camera – what community theater amateur actor does not?) says that “Doug Rokke explains U.S. military policy toward its own troops. Over 66,257 soldiers who served in the first war on Iraq (1991) are dead. “You hear on the news of the people killed in action, direct engagement, not the people that get sick, wounded, ill and come back to die.” A 40-year army veteran, Rokke says that war is not about Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet but about resource and territorial control: “the military in all their grandeur over all of these years has thoroughly and willfull…”
This probably is a deliberate misrepresentation of the 2006 Gulf War Veterans Information System report. The 2007 report contains a number for Total Veteran Population Dead of 73,846. The corresponding number of actual Gulf War veterans described as “Conflict” that died from any cause, including traffic accidents and old age, from August 1990 through early 2007, was 13,517 out of 696,842 Gulf War veterans.
Remember, figures don’t lie, but liars can figure. The Summary page of the 2007 GWVIS report is posted here http://www.archive.org/details/SummaryVeteranDeathsFromGwvisMay2007
In the Snowshoe Films blurb, Rokke claims to be a 40 year veteran. ” A 40-year army veteran, Rokke” Anyone who reads Rokkke’s record of military service that is posted at http://www.archive.org/details/DougRokkesMilitaryCareer1967-1998 will clearly wonder how Rokke fit 40 years in the Army between 1967 and 2003 when Rokke was nudged into the Retired Reserve. They might also note the eight year break between Rokke’s discharge from the Air Force in 1971 and his enlistment in the Illinois Army National Guard in 1980. Finally, they might note that Rokke was not in the Army, not even the Army National Guard or Army Reserve until he enlisted in the Guard in 1980. In reality, Rokke served less than two years on active duty as an Army Reserve officer.
Is this Roger Helbig? You have been attacking Dr Rokke and anyone who speaks out about the dangers of DU, including myself, for several years now. It has been PROVEN that you and few others work for the government to help cover up how bad DU is.
I would recommend that everyone read all the evidence that is readily available on the internet about Dr Rokke and about Roger Helbig and make your own minds up on this issue.
Some of us veterans have had specialized private testing done that PROVED how DU has damaged our systems; one such test showed that we had more cellular damage than cancer patients in the advanced stages of cancer! This test showed every one of my chromosomes were damaged. And we wonder why gulf war vets are dropping like flies. I am really surprised I am still alive as a matter of fact, but I think God is keeping me alive to get the REAL truth out about DU and fight people like Mr Helbig and the government, just like the Vietnam vets have had to do with Agent Orange and other dioxins used in theater.
Please read the facts for yourself before believing people like Roger Helbig!
Thank you.
Tanya,
You boldly state ” It has been PROVEN that you and few others work for the government to help cover up how bad DU is.”
I would really like to know how you can “prove” anything about me. Rokke smeared me in 2004 and I began researching him – anyone who clicks on the internet archive links that I provided in the initial biographical sketch can easily look at the same documents that I got under my Freedom of Information Act requests. I do not work for anyone nor do I work with anyone. I have many friendly correspondents who feed me information that I then independently verify. You, on the other hand, have probably just Googled my name and feel that you can claim that you can prove something. There is only one major problem, most of what you will read about me is either written by Doug Rokke, Leuren Moret, Bob Nichols or was influenced by one or more of these three such as the article by Felicity Arbuthnot who was fed information by either Moret or Nichols. Every single one of those articles has major falsehoods. The only thing that some of them get right is that I am a retired Air Force Reserve officer; Douglas Lind Rokke is a retired Army Reserve officer. He likes to pretend that he is career Army, a real warfighter. He neglects to tell the audience that he was pushed into the retired reserve due to lack of participation in September 2003. He neglects to tell the audience that he stopped being an active reserve participant before 9/11 in 2001. I don’t know what your connection is beyond being a Rokke disciple. You are being led by a false prophet.
Roger
DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com
Mr. Helbig:
Where might we find your DD214?
Are you willing to post that and a couple of your past U.S. Fed. income tax returns to show income sources?