Firstly, it was reported that British troops in the first Gulf War in 1991 were given anthrax vaccinations without official safety guidelines being followed. This coincided with the declaration by an independent investigator that most of the bullet wounds suffered by four soldiers who were killed at Deepcut Barracks in Surrey between 1995 and 2002 were “highly unlikely” to be self-inflicted, thus throwing doubt on the Army’s claim that they committed suicide.
Evidence suggests that if the Gulf War veterans or the relatives of those killed at Deepcut are to achieve any form of justice they will have to bring about a historical precedence as there is a long and dishonourable tradition of the MOD and Government’s showing a distinct lack of care and attention to the needs of those who serve or have served in the armed forces.
The announcement from the MOD confirmed that Gulf War soldiers were given multiple jabs with other vaccines despite the product licence stating “the vaccine should be used alone”. The use of multiple vaccinations has long been condemned by veterans from the conflict. Both Tory and Labour Government’s have refused to recognise the claims of many that they are suffering from ‘Gulf War syndrome’, caused by their involvement at the time.
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Cammock, from South Shields says that of the “ten Gulf War veterans who met Bruce George [chair of the Defence Select Committee] since 1995 only 3 are still alive.” Paul Carr was 32 when died, of unusual brain tumours, and the eldest was only 52 years when he died. Cammock who earlier this year himself suffered a heart attack is determined to “see justice for those who are still alive.” These include children born to gulf war veterans with no eyes, arms and ears. Others have had to undergo heart transplants, have suffered from kidney damage and many suffer from autism.
Hooper and Cammock have been angered at Labour’s unwillingness to fulfil their promises to them before they were elected in 1997. Labour had promised they would aid the Gulf War veterans in their fight to have recognised that they had specific illnesses resulting from having fought in the Gulf.
Hooper’s anger at the authorities was such that just before the latest conflict he said British troops should “not go and fight in the Gulf war because they are not going to be looked after when they get home” whilst Cammock said “it is a bit stupid to send troops there again as they haven’t solved the cause of the original illnesses from 13 years ago”.
This latest announcement simply adds to the bitterness with Malcolm Hooper saying “the anthrax vaccine was not given appropriately, however none of the vaccines administered in the rush to the first Gulf War were administered with compliance to the established protocols so that this led to a massive, acute and chronic adverse health response in many Gulf War veterans.
The same has happened in Gulf War 2, where multiple vaccines have been given in defiance of established protocols. We know that some had 6 vaccines in one day. There are 11 people suing the MOD and 83 people have contacted the Vets associations about their health concerns.
There is also anger at the news that Frank Swann, an independent investigator, who was hired by the families to examine the forensic evidence in the deaths of Sean Benton, Cheryl James, Geoff Gray and James Collinson, has cast doubt on the official explanations of their deaths at the Deepcut barracks.
In Sean Benton’s case he agreed with the Surrey Police’s claim that it was possible that two bullet wounds were self-inflicted but “highly unlikely” that three on the torso were. In Collinson’s case Swann accepted that it was possible that bullet wounds to his chin and head were the result of an accident but he thought it “unlikely”. In the cases of James and Gray, aged 18 and 17 years respectively at the times of their deaths, he concluded it was “highly unlikely” that the bullet wounds to their heads were self-inflicted. Surrey Police have been forced to postpone the release of their findings whilst they study Swann’s submission.
It would appear that without a full public inquiry suspicion will remain that something much more sinister has taken place.
It would, however, still be sad indictment of the MOD if it transpires that the four young soldiers, and others at Catterick in North Yorkshire and Bulford in Wiltshire, did take their own lives as it would indicate that the armed forces are unable to recognise when young men and women in their care are unable to cope with the pressure and vulnerable to taking their own lives.
If the MOD acts carelessly towards those working for them, it is totally unconcerned about those who have left. A survey undertaken by the homeless charity Shelter in 1997 revealed that 25% of those sleeping rough used to be in the forces. Clearly, unable to cope after they leave, such individuals should be able to expect a much greater after care service.
Many
who fought in the South Atlantic in 1982 have suffered a great
deal more since the event than during it. Those Falkland veterans injured during the war were
denied full, disability pensions because of a government decision to call
it an “armed conflict” and not a war. By the beginning of 2003 the number
of
There can, of course, be no greater pressure than being involved in military conflict and in the First World War the intensity could not have been greater. Some of those involved were simply unable to cope. However instead of sympathy and support for those suffering what we now know to be post-traumatic stress disorder there was only contempt and brutality from those in charge. Between 1914 and 1918 nearly 350 British and Empire Troops were executed for desertion, the vast majority being rank and file soldiers.
At dawn on January 18th 1917 Sergeant Joseph Stones from Crook, County Durham, Lance Corporal Peter Goggins from Stanley and Lance Corporal John McDonald from Sunderland were executed together.
Historian Julian Putkowski, who has written extensively on those who were executed, has claimed that the reason they were executed was “to cover up a cock-up by officers… They [the officers] didn’t plan the raid on which some of the men were sent and didn’t keep an eye on what the enemy was up to…. It was a cover-up. Bureaucratic murder is what I am alleging by officers of the 35th Division” to which the three men had enlisted.
Putkowski has revealed a major contrast between the treatment of officers and soldiers showing that whilst 4,700 officers were court-martialled only 3 were shot.
He has concluded that there was a far harsher “application of military law to the men ….to the officers. It was class justice in the sense of the levels of punishment and the way in which they were treated. Officers were defended in court and given a completely different system of trial to the men. The men were rarely defended.”
Putkowski and relatives of those who were ‘shot at dawn’ are campaigning for a pardon for all those executed, some of whose names are only now being recorded on the many War Memorials around the country. The Government, however, is refusing to cede to their requests despite the fact that none of them would be executed today as the military death penalty was outlawed in the 1930s.
Meanwhile 21,000 British Troops were later used as ‘guinea pigs’ in tests on Christmas Island in the Pacific and at Maralinga in the Australian desert in the 1950s when they were put ‘as close as possible’ to nuclear explosions. Over forty years later the Ministry of Defence was forced to admit that tonnes of depleted uranium, [DU] the toxic radioactive metal blamed for causing cancers in the Gulf War, were blasted into the air by the tests.
Sheila Gray, the secretary of the British Nuclear Veterans Association, expressed astonishment at this “it beggars belief, they gave us the impression that depleted uranium had never been used before the Gulf War and it now turns out it was used in the 1950s.’ Many of those still alive suspect that DU may be responsible for the deaths of many of their comrades, as well as their own illnesses. The BNVA have called for the government to re-open its inquiry into the health of those who took parts in the tests.
So whilst members of the Armed Forces are often praised by politicians and members of the press and Television they should not anticipate this will be translated into a lasting legacy of concern and care for their well-being. Jim, an ex-soldier who served in the Falklands told me “they only care about soldiers when we are fighting and nothing else” and “once we stop doing that we are quickly forgotten.”
By calling a public inquiry into the deaths of those who have died at Deepcut barracks, the MOD would be going a long way to allaying fears that any mistakes made in the past are not going to be repeated in the future.
Hooper is fearful “that unless there is a lot of pressure to bear, and by this I mean by Members of Parliament, then little will happen” as the MOD “have developed some very clever blocking tactics to make it extremely difficult to get an inquiry. Those that have been launched such as with Chinook helicopter tragedy in 1994 had to be launched outside of the MOD.”
Of course for anyone concerned about the fate of those in the armed forces it should be noted that calling on troops to do anything about their conditions by going on strike, deserting or disobeying orders is illegal under the Mutiny Act.