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« THE PENTAGON'S TOXIC em Fair Article @ Page 1 of 10 vay = = Sa RR “StSCS 2 See WR Ee Oe | caer cE a oe THE PENTAGON'S TOXIC SECRET ALL INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN I3 UNCLASSIFIED BY GARY MATSUMOTO DATE 12-15-2008 BY 60324 uc baw/dk/ecls Thousands of American veterans suffer from debilitating Gulf War-related ilinesses. But the origins have remained a mystery. A crusading molecular biologist and internal military documents now suggest a shocking scenario: the Pentagon's possible use on its own soldiers of an illicit and secret anthrax vaccine. Veterinarian Dr. Herbert Smith negotiates the nine paces across his porch to the driveway of his house as though he were on a high wire, adjusting each deliberate step, shifting his weight from a walking cane in his left hand to another in his right. Smith lives in Ijamsville, Maryland. a subdivision no-man's-land of two- acre lots and empty vistas where the surbs of Washington, D.C., comingle with those of Baltimore. He wears black leather wrist pads Velcro'd from palm to forearm and a pair of ragged government issue elbow pads to protect himself from the falls he frequently experiences. "I'm subject to what's called neurapraxia damage to the nerves," explains Smith. “Like with diabetics, who then wind up with amputations. I'm trying to avoid that." On reaching the driveway, he straightens up to shake my hand. You can still see the outlines of the elite athlete he once was. Dr. Smith, 59 years old, is also Colonel Smith, Green Beret. His subordinates nicknamed him "Super Trooper." in deference to his gung-ho attitude and his once Olympian physique. When he entered airborne school at Fort Benning in April 1966 he set out to be No. 1 in a class of 687 by baiting his drill instructors to drive him harder than the others. “So, they targeted me. I must've done a thousand push-ups a day. But I knew it was all a game. I never got mad, never lost my cool. There were a couple of navy SEALs there. They were pretty tough guys. But they weren't as tough as me." Until 1991, Smith ran PT (physical training) programs; the ones back in. the 80s were notoriously grueling, earning him a nickname: "Dr. Death." He smiles at this but is unapologetic. "I wore em into the ground. In a fun way, not in a brutal way." Today, a thick purple welt juts from Smith's forehead an angry bulge from hairline to brow. Even on perfectly flat ground, he falls a lot. The symptoms first appeared in January 1991, the same month, Smith says, that he got his first shot of something that does not appear on his immunization card or in his records—a mysterious vaccine, described to him only as "Vac A." He was then in Saudi Arabia training Kuwaiti medical personnel in disaster relief. Sometimes the pain was so bad in his right hand he couldn't hold a fork at meals. The next time it would be his left hand, never both hands at the same time. By May his joints ached and his lymph nodes were swollen, and he had a fever and a red rash on his chest and legs. He was constantly fatigued. It hurt to walk. It hurt to brush his teeth. After the invasion he wanted to stay on to help the Kuwaitis rebuild, but the symptoms were getting worse, and he had no idea what was wrong. He knew he needed treatment back in the States. Just before he got on a transport heading home, one of his medical officers, who had seen similar symptoms in other soldiers, came up to him and said, "When you get home, check out the vaccines. I think you've got a problem with them." Smith had received vaccinations for hepatitis and tetanus, and a second shot of Vac A, which was entered into his records on February 14, 1991. . Back at Fort Meade, Smith was given a desk job while the military doctors investigated his condition without success. In October 1991 he left active duty, but continued to see physicians at the Waiter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He didn't regard the problem as serious until the seizures started. Not grand mal, fall-on-the-floor, foam-at-the-mouth seizures, but complex partial ones, in which he appeared to be functioning normally but was actually on autopilot, without awareness of what he was doing. http://www.idir.net/~krogers/vanty fair.html 11/8/2005