This was followed by a ground assault by coalition forces on 24 February. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased its advance and declared a ceasefire 100 hours after the ground campaign started.

For any student of history, Desert Storm’s accounting is well known. The U.S. and its allies flew more than 116,000 combat air sorties and dropped 88,500 tons of bombs over a six-week period that preceded the ground campaign. The air bombardment was so successful that the ground campaign was over in 100 hours.

America’s intervention in the Gulf War was not a complete success. The United States failed to construct a durable regional security order after the war. What appeared to be an exceptionally daunting undertaking to simply defeat Iraqi forces in the theater of operations led to an overcautious approach to warfighting.

On January 16, 1991, President George H. W. Bush announced the start of what would be called Operation Desert Storm—a military operation to expel occupying Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which Iraq had invaded and annexed months earlier.

Operation Desert Storm began Jan. 17, 1991, after Iraqi forces who had invaded neighboring Kuwait refused to withdraw. The conflict is now commonly known as the Gulf War.

While there is no specific treatment for Gulf War syndrome, research suggests that an approach called cognitive-behavioral therapy may help patients with nonspecific symptoms lead more productive lives by actively managing their symptoms.

If you are a Gulf War veteran and later experienced any of the above symptoms, you may be eligible to receive veterans (VA) disability compensation for a medically unexplained chronic multi-symptom illness (MUCMI) or an undiagnosed illness, both of which are included under the umbrella term “Gulf War Syndrome.”

Started during active duty or before December 31, 2021, and. Caused you to be ill for at least six months, and. Qualified you for a disability rating of 10% or more, and. Was caused by service in the Southwest Asia theater of operations.

Undiagnosed illnesses with symptoms that may include but are not limited to: abnormal weight loss, fatigue, cardiovascular disease, muscle and joint pain, headache, menstrual disorders, neurological and psychological problems, skin conditions, respiratory disorders, and sleep disturbances.

To qualify for this program, you must be able to prove that their illness appeared either during active duty in the Southwest Asia theatre of military operations, or after active duty service by December 31, 2021, and that their condition is more than ten percent disabling.

148 dead

VA continues to rely on a “Gulf War Illness General Medical DBQ” that is not singular in nature for claims of MUCMI, but instead rely on the subjective, non-medically trained construal of a claims assistant to interpret a veteran’s claimed conditions and schedule the appropriate VA examinations.

The symptoms can include fatigue, headaches, joint pain, indigestion, bowel discomfort, insomnia, dizziness, respiratory disorders, skin problems and memory impairment. VA clinicians and researchers often call this condition “Gulf War illness” in medical literature.

Desert Storm Veterans Now May Donate Blood; Others Call for Discussion of Donor Tests. PERSIAN GULF veterans are no longer banned from donating blood, as of this month.

“Gulf War veterans are showing accelerated aging patterns resulting in more and earlier chronic medical conditions than the general population of civilians,” says study senior author Kimberly Sullivan, research assistant professor of environmental health.

The Red Cross’ original blood ban for gulf war veterans began in November 1991 to prevent risk of the transmission of leishmaniasis, a parasitic infection caused by Persian Gulf sandfly bites. It lifted that ban in January 1993. Perez said military donations amount to 2 percent of the Red Cross’ blood collections.

1.68 million Veterans

There are about 500,000 Korean War veterans still living, but about 600 die every day, said James R. Fisher, executive director of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation.

More than half of Gulf War veterans are aged 45 and older (16% are between 55 and 85 years; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2011) and 8% of people deployed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were born before 1960 (Dursa, Reinhard, Barth, & Schneiderman, 2014).