“Think that’ll make the evening news?” I asked.
“No, but it’s a good start. You guys keep pushing, and it will get there eventually.”
“What about you? Are you going to speak? Or is this going to cause you trouble?”
He shrugged. “No, this is up to you guys. Eight freshmen Republicans, outraged by the behavior of the Democratic party — that plays better than bringing me in on it. As for the trouble, I just don’t know. I probably have a few overdrafts, but the bank is so screwed up, we might not know.”
“That’s going to be one of my focuses. It’s a lousy way to run a business.”
He nodded. “You asked to see me about some legislation.”
“Yes. I’ve been getting some complaints from some constituents. Some of the troops who have been coming back from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have some medical problems and the VA hospitals are just pooh-poohing them. They can’t figure it out, so it must not exist, that sort of thing.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Fatigue, pain, rashes, digestive problems… I mean, stuff that’s all across the board, but that only started after the Gulf War. What if we are seeing the first signs of something like the Agent Orange problem from Viet Nam? Remember how the VA kept downplaying that, it wasn’t a problem, they’re making it up, etc.? What if this is the same type of thing. Agent Orange turned out to be a real problem.”
“And you want to do what?”
“Force the VA and the Army medical people to start taking it seriously. Start investigating. I’m not looking for big money, but at least something to make them act like it’s real. Let’s find out, at least,” I explained.
“How much money?”
“For initial research and testing? No idea, but I would imagine $10 to $20 million would be fine. More if they figure it out. The actual treatment would be under the regular VA and Army budgets.” Newt gave a non-committal grunt. He was hard to read at times. “I don’t think this is that outrageous, but I wanted your input on doing this.”
“You’re going to need a Senator to introduce this on that side. Any ideas?”
“I was thinking either Bob Kerrey or John Kerry. They’re both Viet Nam vets, and I want to tie this into the Agent Orange analogy. I haven’t talked to them yet.”
When I mentioned Kerrey and Kerry, Newt grimaced. They were both Democrats. “Why not John McCain? He was over there, too.”
I nodded. “I thought about that, and I can see him as a co-sponsor, but I want something bi-partisan. I know you don’t like that, but I’m a Republican in a Democratic district. I have to work with the Democrats, or I’m a one term wonder. They are both highly respected. If I can snag one of them, and tie in some of the other Viet Nam veterans in Congress, we can make it happen. I bet I can get Wayne Gilchrest and Randy Cunningham to co-sponsor in the House.”
“Have you talked to Sonny yet?”
Gillespie ‘Sonny’ Montgomery was the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. He was a Democrat from Mississippi, and a veteran from World War II and Korea. “Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”
Newt grunted. “Well, start writing something. By that I mean get your staff to figure out which of the think tanks would be best on this. Even something simple will be more than what your staff can write. I don’t see why you can’t get McCain to do this with you.”
“Newt, when I was in business, we had to negotiate deals where everybody ended up happy. It had to be win-win for everyone, or it wasn’t going to work. I have made a whole bunch of money working with people and not against them. It works for me. This banking mess is not going to slam the Senate. They don’t have a bank, just us in the House. This lets me throw them an olive branch. We don’t need to piss everybody off.”
He grunted again. “Well, start writing. Just don’t call anybody on this yet. Let me think about it until next week.”
“Fair enough.” I stood and shook his hand and let myself out. Gingrich was a brilliant tactical thinker, but he was too partisan and didn’t focus on strategy enough. He was the type to burn down the house to kill the rats, and then proclaim loudly and proudly he got rid of the rats, while arguing with everyone who was sifting through the smoldering ashes.
I talked to Sherry and Marty about it the next day and I left it to them to sort out the details. As I told Gingrich, I couldn’t imagine how the price tag on this could get all that big, but I was prepared to be unpleasantly surprised. Was Sonny Montgomery going to be in favor or not? Was I wrong in thinking that the Viet Nam vets in Congress would remember Agent Orange and think this was a good idea, or would they think of the current vets as whiny brats? Would Gingrich go along? I was really clueless on this one. Nothing from my future knowledge was helping me.
Newt called me the end of the week. He would let me ask Kerrey or Kerry, but that was it. If neither wanted to be involved, and I wanted to push it, I was talk to John McCain, and good luck getting it through after that. I had Mindy ask for a lunch with Bob Kerrey; I would try him first. I just hoped I didn’t trip over my own tongue if I met the man. He earned the Medal of Honor in Viet Nam. My inherent tendency would be to stand at attention and call him ‘Sir!’
The medical issue, of course, was what was about to be labeled as ‘Gulf War Syndrome.’ I knew enough about it from the future to know it was going to be a major problem for a lot of the vets from the Gulf War. The symptoms were similar to those you get from a sub-lethal dose of some nerve gases, which the Iraqis had, and which we ended up bombing the bunkers of. Low levels got loose and wafted all over the place. At the time, though, nobody really knew about the Sarin gas, and there was enough other nastiness around to make everybody scratch their heads. Was it the first use of depleted uranium shells in tank cannons? There was a rumor that when they impacted enemy armor, they compressed enough to cause gamma ray bursts. What about toxic fumes from all the burning oil wells? What about the guys who used their nerve gas pens on themselves? Did that stuff cause problems? Did it interact with all the stuff they got injected with on the shot line?
It reminded me in a lot of what happened with Agent Orange back in the Seventies. Agent Orange was a chemical defoliant that was sprayed from modified C-130s over the jungle. Spray it on the jungle; a few weeks later, the jungle is dead and dying. You’re left with nothing but bare trees and the bad guys have nowhere to hide. The official word at the time was that this stuff was harmless to humans, which I always thought was a stretch (it kills everything but us?), and the official instructions were to wear the equivalent of HazMat suits when handling it. Still, it was a steamy, hot, and humid jungle, and the grunts using it and being sprayed with it were running around shirtless and damn near bathing with it.
After the war these guys were coming home with all sorts of dreadful diseases, including cancer, genetic mutations, and neurological problems. The VA and the medical establishment blew all this off as a bunch of shirkers from an unpopular war. It turned out that the manufacturing process made a little understood byproduct called dioxin which, by the way, was astonishingly lethal and dangerous to be anywhere near. Major league ooops moment! There were a lot of similarities to this new Gulf War Syndrome.
I got a meeting the middle of the following week with Senator Kerrey, and he was quite gracious. There is a huge amount of mythology about the treatment of Medal of Honor winners. Most active duty military members come to attention and salute in their presence, and they rank higher for receiving salutes than even four star generals and admirals — in other words, a general would salute a private with the Medal of Honor, not the other way around. I remember talking to a Marine once who said he knew a sergeant with the medal from Viet Nam. During inspections he would just lay the medal on his bunk, and the officers would pass him by. Then again, the average winner is dead, so maybe it’s not a bad idea to be really nice to them.