Fighting Gulf War Syndrome

One of the enduring mysteries of the last Gulf War has driven 48-year-old Navy veteran Bill Finnegan to the far eastern tip of Long Island, mostly keeping company with his horses and dogs.

"I live out here in the boonies and I pretty much stay to myself all the time," says Finnegan. "It's my choice, because I just don't feel right."

It's easier, he says, than trying to explain the ravages of Gulf War Syndrome to his friends. Correspondent Susan Spencer reports.

"Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel like I'm 80 years old," he says. "I can hardly get out of bed. I'm hurting so bad."

Illness is not something he worried about in 1972 when he enlisted, as a gung ho 17-year-old.

Nearly twenty years later, by the first Gulf War, he'd risen to senior chief petty officer on the U.S.S. Okinawa.

Finnegan says he went through hell -- several times. He breathed the smoky air from burning oil fields. He navigated mine-infested waters to help downed pilots.

He brought home more than a few medals. He brought home unexplained health problems as well.

Over the last eight years, he's spent a small fortune on prescriptions for insomnia, sinus and stomach ailments, joint pain, muscle aches and depression.

And then there's his memory.

"I feel lost, I feel stupid, it's ridiculous," says Finnegan, who had to make out a list of complaints to make sure he'd remember what to say.

Like Finnegan, some 20,000 veterans struggle today with Gulf War Syndrome, which the government acknowledged to be a real illness back in 1994. A higher percentage of soldiers got sick after the first Gulf War than after any war in U.S. history. But, remarkably, even after some 200 studies, no one knows exactly why.

With thousands of U.S. troops again in the Gulf, this has become an urgent question: What causes this illness? For years, the best guess was simply combat stress.

But veterans' groups don't buy that idea -- since all wars have stress -- and Finnegan doesn't buy it either.

"Stress probably is a factor but not the whole factor," he says. "There's no way that just stress does this."

Veterans point to a host of other possibilities -- from polluted air to burning oil fires, insect bites, exposure to small amounts of toxic agents, even medications given to the troops.

"We haven't been able to find an answer to the Persian Gulf Syndrome," says Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi, who believes the mistake won't be repeated.

"The proof is in the pudding when they come home. Will we have the data about their health, will we know where they were stationed, what their unit deployments were? I will need that information."

Every soldier this time around has had blood drawn to be compared to samples taken after the war. The defense department is testing air, water and soil, and monitoring each soldier’s location. Medics in Iraq are also recording all vaccinations, medications and illnesses.

Finnegan knows none of this will undo the effects of the last war. But he hopes it will solve the mystery for soldiers serving in this war. He's concerned about one soldier in particular -- his 24-year-old son, Eddie, who's in the Marines and for the last three weeks, somewhere in Iraq.

"I don't want to see him be like that," says Finnegan. "I hope he gets through there and nothing happens."