For this season of Veterans' Voices, WYSO is partnering with the local chapter of Blue Star Families, a national nonprofit supporting military families. The theme of this season is the unique challenges faced by family members of those who serve.
Some Gulf War veterans came home with an unexplained chronic illness that has been termed Gulf War Syndrome. Veterans with the illness face more than just physical health problems.
The emotional toll of not knowing exactly what’s going on with their bodies can make everything hard. It doesn’t just affect them, but impacts their families, too.
Today on Veterans’ Voices, we meet Navy veterans Steve and Valerie Mullikin of Piqua, who are married and still trying to get the answers they need after Steve was diagnosed with Gulf War Syndrome.
The following transcript is lightly edited for length and clarity.
Steve Mullikin: Was there a moment that you knew that something was not right with me?
Valerie Mullikin: That's a fun question. That's loaded.
So when you first got sick, your face went numb, your slurred speech, and you had lost your balance, and at that time, nobody was really talking about exposures in the Middle East during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. There was a little bit of chatter here and there about these multi-symptom issues, the demyelination in the brain in the spine, the peripheral neuropathy, the gastrointestinal issues, the excessive sweating, vision issues, speech issues, and sleep disturbances. And, you know, the military kept saying, 'It's just PTSD. We don't know what it is. We are not sure what's going on.' All of those things just kind of started a snowball effect of catching people's eyes and ears. And then, by the end of the 90s, they were talking about these multisystem failures in the bodies of our Gulf War veterans. 'You have to be one of the most complex patients.' We hear this all the time, right?
Steve: Everyone wants to be known for something...I don't recommend that to be known for.
Valerie: We are...20 years or, excuse me, 30, almost 30... Gosh, next year, It will be 30 years out of the service. And to this day, we don't have an understanding of what's wrong with you. We just know that you went to Bahrain in 1991 and got sick. And we have no answers.
It stole [voice breaks]...it stole the last ten years of your career, and there are a lot of Military families and veteran families who have lost that same dream, that same accomplishment. And people don't comprehend it. They don't understand what Gulf War Illness is.
They can't rule out the anti-malaria drug that was experimental that you were given. They can't rule out the anthrax vaccine. They can't rule out the diet sodas that you drank, the gases you were exposed to, the burn pits you were exposed to. They can't rule any of this out. It's crazy to see the things that are happening. We have babies that are being born to our Gulf War veterans who have Gulf War Illness and significant disabilities that are unexplained.
Next year, It will be 30 years out of the service. And to this day, we don't have an understanding of what's wrong with you.Valerie Mullikin
Steve: The biggest thing is to get enrolled in the VA system because it may not help you initially, but it will help increase funding. When you do need them, the bridge has already been paved because you got enrolled when you did. And it just keeps the numbers up.
Valerie: And hopefully, someday somebody is going to be able to have that magic button and say this is what caused it, and now we can go to work to fix it.
Valerie Mullikin is the Director of Operation Veteran and Caregiver Support in Piqua.
Veterans' Voices is supported by Wright-Patt Credit Union.
