Vets Used In Military Experiments Sue Government
January 8th, 2009Via: KCBS:
Veterans filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing the Defense Department, US Army, CIA, and other government agencies of failing to protect thousands of veterans who unwittingly volunteered as test subjects in secret military experiments.
The veterans filed suit in US District Court in San Francisco and are demanding acknowledgement for their service and medical treatment.
Frank Rochelle, 61, thought he was volunteering to test gas masks when he was in the military more than thirty years ago. Instead, he spent two months at the Edgewood Arsenal being injected and gassed with chemicals to test their effectiveness on humans as biological weapons.
“I was hallucinating, people were calling my name, I saw animals coming out of the wall, freckles appeared to be bugs under my skin,” said Rochelle.
Attorney Gordon Erspamer said the vets have suffered long term injuries.
“This program is a national embarassment, it really is. At a time when we were putting war criminals on trial from both Japan, Nazi Germany and Italy, we were doing this to our own,” said Erspamer.
The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages, but instead asks the governt to take responsibility for conducting life threatening experiments on unwitting volunteers, for failing to provide health care victims and for destroying documents to cover up the experiments on members of the military.
