| BY DAN HURLEY
A full seven years after the last shot was fired in Operation Desert
Storm, as many as 100,000 American service men and women-up to one in seven
of those who served-are listed as suffering from a puzzling array of symptoms
more difficult to pinpoint than the location of Iraqi weapons plants, and
harder to comprehend than the reasoning of Saddam Hussein. Some soldiers
suffer fatigue, headaches and nausea, and some have suffered heart attacks.
Some have muscle and joint pain, while others have had cancer. Some developed
memory loss, while others developed shortness of breath, insomnia, bleeding
gums and diarrhea. But missing in action, so to speak, are answers to the
most fundamental of medical questions: Is there a distinct illness these
soldiers suffer from? If so, what caused it? And how can they best be treated?
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