A recent study has found no evidence of Gulf War Syndrome, but soldiers and specifically veterans of the first Gulf War still suffer from numerous debilitating medical problems. If there is no Gulf War Syndrome, what is it that these soldiers are suffering from?

A recent study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine researchers, based on a study of 40,000 former soldiers, finds no evidence for the existence of Gulf War Syndrome. As the BBC reports, the myriad problems that afflict the former soldiers — including “mood swings, memory loss, lack of concentration, night sweats, general fatigue and sexual problems,” — are particularly common for veterans of the first Gulf War, but inexplicably so. The study concludes that

“Gulf War veterans report significantly more symptoms of disease than non-Gulf War veterans in almost all ill-health categories examined, yet there is still no consistent explanation for this discrepancy.”

Even if we table the question of whether Gulf War Syndrome exists, this research does highlight a troubling but often neglected aspect of war: The psychological and physical damage that war inflicts on a solider. In the most recent issue of The New Yorker, Dan Baum focuses on the psychological damage that killing inflicts on a solider, and he reports that the U.S. Army is shamefully unprepared to alleviate the suffering of soldiers traumatized by the killing they have done. According to Baum, the Army’s “Field Manual 22-51: Leaders’ Manual for Combat Stress Control” is completely mute on the issue of the stress created by killing an enemy solider. The individual soldier’s conscience, it seems, is his own domain, and it is the soldier’s lonely duty to resolve the deep trauma that results from killing.  

This is not to suggest that what veterans — or more specifically, veterans of the first Gulf War — are suffering from is related to killing. Rather, Baum’s article and the recent study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine highlight the fact that those who are shipped off to battle and manage to return may be affected by devastating trauma. Some of the soldiers who return safely from their tour of duty bring their war home with them; the shame is that their suffering — and more importantly, the specific reasons for their suffering — are so seldom addressed honestly, directly, or productively.  

Mimi Hanaoka