Troops' health woes run gamut from 'Saddam's revenge' to severe stress

[lebkuchen]

http://estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=18353

“I am very worried about the long-term health effects of this environment,” Sgt. Brian Rau of the 372nd Military Police Co., in Hillah, wrote on a Stars and Stripes survey form. Stripes reporters surveyed nearly 2,000 troops throughout the country in August.

“The food is bad and not reliable, so we eat on the local market every day,” Rau wrote. “There is standing sewage outside our building. And the cans we use for toilets are prefilled with diesel fuel so we sit on top of those fumes daily.”

Cpl. Joshua Enos, a UH-60 Black Hawk crew chief who lived at an old Iraqi fighter base west of Qayaira, worried about the effects of a massive fire that broke out in a nearby sulfur plant shortly after the 101st Airborne Division took over the base in April. The fire spewed noxious black smoke into the air for days.

“Just walking out the Humvee, I thought I was going to hyperventilate and die,” Enos said. “It got so bad we were putting on our protective masks for awhile. I don’t even want to know what the long-term health effects of that are going to be.”