Letter to Olean (NY) Times-Herald Editor

[BobCherry@AOL.COM]

Below is a letter I E-mailed to the Olean (NY) Times-Herald Editor.


The editorial to which I refer is at:


http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=386&dept_id=444925&newsid=6907854&PAG=461&rfi=9


I am sick of seeing apparently responsible journalists falling for Rokke's baloney.

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Mr. Jim Eckstrom

Editor of The Times Herald

    

Dear Editor:


Your Sunday editorial said that your "early reaction was to look for holes in his story, to somehow discern a way to discount the claims of Dr. Doug Rokke as an anti-war quack enlisted by the mobilizing peace movement in the country." I think that you should have looked harder.


"Dr. Rokke, a nuclear physicist and major in the Army Reserves, was a hand-picked Army expert on cleanup of radioactive debris..." Actually, Dr. Rokke's doctorate is not in physics, much less nuclear physics. He was not hand-picked. In my opinion, he was not then and he is not now an expert on cleanup of radioactive debris. He came to active duty for the Gulf War along with thousands of other Army Reservists. He happened to be on the scene when Army civilians from Rock Island Arsenal came to the battlefield to recover damaged US armored vehicles.


"Looking more like a rumpled professor (actually, that’s exactly what he is)...."    He was for a couple of years an assistant professor of environmental science at Jacksonville State University, Alabama, but never gained tenure.   Using my definition of "is," he is not a professor. However, most times I have seen him, including when he was in military uniform, he was rumpled.


"He said DU caused many of the more than 206,000 cases of Gulf War Syndrome reported by veterans of the Gulf War...." He has no proof of this statement because no proof exists. This is despite the efforts of many experienced, dedicated, highly qualified researchers, both inside and outside the Department of Defense, who continue to look for such proof, not only for depleted uranium, but also for many other substances.


"Dr. Rokke said it’s a travesty that, despite the increased use of depleted-uranium ordnance expected in the almost-imminent conflict, U.S. military gas masks and protective clothing are useless in keeping out DU particles." Actually, it is a travesty that you printed this blatantly false statement as if it were true.


"The Pentagon denounces Dr. Rokke as a liar and insists soldiers are safe from DU exposure." No one at the Pentagon, myself included, ever publicly labeled Dr. Rokke as a liar, to the best of my knowledge. However, I do assert that our soldiers are "safe from DU exposure." Some soldiers struck by friendly fire still have DU particles in their bodies with no observable effect on their health. Physicians determined that leaving these DU particles in these soldiers was preferable to the surgery required to remove them. The Army and Veterans Administration continue to monitor their health.


"The professor, Army officer and veteran of two wars (Vietnam being the other) [has] rapidly developed cataracts and kidney problems..." DU is incapable of causing cataracts. Uranium is capable of causing kidney problems, but this effect has a threshold and is a chemical, not radiation, effect. I suggest that the amount, if any, of DU in Dr. Rokke's body is nowhere near this threshold and challenge him to prove otherwise. Your implication that DU caused these alleged ailments are easily refuted if you check the medical literature.


"Why hasn’t the effects of DU and it alleged connection to Gulf War Syndrome been more widely reported?" Try a Yahoo search and you will find that it has been widely reported here and around the world.


"With the Pentagon unwilling to discuss the matter there are few credible sources, so the story dries up." My experience is that the Pentagon is always willing to discuss this issue; call the Army's Public Affairs Officer. Responsible reporters do their homework and most discover that DU is not a significant health risk. Maybe that is why "the story dries up." Many credible sources exist. Just for starters, look at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regulations on allowable uranium exposure. You are not trying very hard.


"One wonders how U.S. troops feel about the potential exposure to DU." Ask them. Ask Gulf War veterans whose use of DU against the enemy defeated that enemy. Ask these same veterans how they felt when their DU armor deflected enemy munitions and kept them alive. Ask the current soldiers and Marines how they would feel if they didn't have DU munitions and had to watch enemy armor deflect their munitions. DU munitions and DU armor win our battles, often when nothing else would be effective, and saves American and American allies lives. DU is not a significant health hazard on the battlefield unless, of course, you are the enemy.


"The military isn’t doing itself any favors if it’s beginning to see troops as expendable parts that are secondary to newer and better ways to kill the enemy." This remark is uncalled for and is an insult to the thousands of people who devote their professional lives to protecting the health of the soldiers of the best Army in the world. It is an insult to our combat commanders who do everything possible to fight and win our battles with a minimum of American casualties.


For your information, I have a doctorate in nuclear physics, am a board-certified health physicist, am a veteran of combat in Vietnam, and, for the last seven years of my military career, was the Army Radiation Safety Officer.


With the slightest of effort is this Internet age, you could have easily poked "holes" in Dr. Rokke's "story." I know enough about journalism to think that you didn't make much of an effort. Perhaps you had already made up your mind before you started writing and only pretended that you gave it some thought.


Sincerely,


Robert Cherry, Ph.D., CHP

Colonel, U.S. Army (retired)

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