Former Air Force Capt. Turned Activist Says Pentagon's Actions
Towards Depleted Uranium Use 'Beyond Treason'
Popular activist-broadcaster, Joyce Riley, hits government 'right between the
eyes' with powerful new documentary exposing cover-up of depleted uranium
illnesses, leaving Gulf War troops sick and dying.
August 24, 2005
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/32194.htm
By Greg Szymanski
There was a time in former Air Force Capt. Joyce Riley’s life when everything
was coming up roses. There was a time when the country girl from Kansas probably
felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, traveling down the Yellow Brick Road.
And like an old song says, she had the “world on a string sitting on a rainbow”
during the late 1980s, as Capt. Riley fit perfectly into the military scheme of
things like a poster-child officer with her boots and epilates shined to the tee
every day.
Back in the good old days, Capt. Riley thought she had it all figured out. She
thought her life, the military and the world had a nice, neat little yellow
ribbon tied around it with smiles, happiness and a taste of the good ole’ Irish
whiskey to go around for everybody.
It was a simple, structured, follow orders kind of world Capt. Riley created for
herself. It was the kind of world where everything was taken at face value
without questioning much else but what was for dinner or who was going to take
the dog out for a walk.
Simply put, Capt. Riley was the type of person people like Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and others in the Pentagon enjoy having around. She was the type
that put duty, honor and country first, always trusting and never thinking her
superiors could stray from the straight and narrow.
And back in the good old days, Capt. Riley probably would have jumped head first
into the Grand Canyon if given an order. She probably would have jumped,
thinking all the way down better to die then to disobey an order.
But something strange happened to her on that long fall down into the great
abyss. Something happened while floating in thin air over the Grand Canyon that
lifted her up, gave her wings and gave her the courage to fly away from military
life and, more importantly, fly away from the “yes sir, no sir” in your face
type military thinking.
It’s the great Hindu thinkers who say that to truly understand life one must
travel full circle, disbelieving what once was believed and, in essence,
becoming one’s polar opposite. And, without knowing it or putting any religious
labels on her life’s journey, that’s exactly what happened to Captain Riley.
Although her transformation from a military order taker and combat nurse to
“military pain in the ass” and activist didn’t happen over night, it happened
perhaps like a Kansas tornado strikes. It happened like a sudden burst of wind
quickly clearing the excess debris from her soul, leaving in its aftermath a
belief system torn to pieces but, at the same time, leaving a body and soul left
to be rebuilt brick by brick, one truthful step at a time.
And like most life transformations involving more than one significant event,
Capt. Riley’s is no different since her physical problems caused by her stint in
the military are every bit as important as the problems with her changing belief
system. In fact, both are so intertwined that her physical illness after taking
10 unknown vaccines at one time in 1991, mandated by the military prior to Gulf
War I, actually led to her present-day role as anti-government broadcaster,
producer of documentaries and activist fighting to save military lives affected
by illness and diseases from both Gulf Wars that are not even being recognized
by the Pentagon.
“At one time in my life the military was the most noble cause I could ever think
of. I remember even writing in my journal back in 1991 how I had 10 vaccine
shots in one day and how I would have taken 100 in order to serve my country.”
said Riley who now has replaced the captain in her name with truth-seeker, as
she talked openly from her home in the Midwest about her “about face” from
toeing the military line.
“George H. Bush was my hero back then and I remember getting into my flight suit
at Kelly Air Force Base, feeling extremely proud before being deployed into Gulf
War I while Bush was on TV saying: ‘This is the beginning of the New World
Order.’
“Looking back, it was so ironic. I was so enamored with Bush when he actually
sold destructive chemicals and weapons to Iraq in 1985 to 1989. Without me
knowing, he was responsible for poisoning us over there while, at the same time,
I was eating right out of his hand.”
Although Riley was never deployed to the Middle East, she remained stateside
working as a surgical nurse on one of the military’s C-130 flying hospitals
until becoming too ill to continue in December 1991.
“I had to quite flying because I was too sick and went into the reserves,”
recalls Riley, saying she was diagnosed with a debilitating type disease with MS
symptoms, causing extreme pain due to excessive nerve damage. “When I received
essentially no help from the military during the next few years, I began
searching out alternative cures and medicines since I needed to continue working
as a nurse to support myself.”
And it wasn’t until 1995 that Riley’s life drastically changed, becoming her
polar opposite on the other side of the military fence, after being shunned by
the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Veteran’s Administration (VA), both
organizations refusing to recognize that her illness was even remotely caused by
the vaccines taken in 1991.
“I was furious after I called the DOD and the VA and they wouldn’t lift a
finger,” said Riley, adding that it was difficult to get answers because the
military never labeled or even told troops what vaccines were being
administered. “And I found out to my surprise that if you were in the Reserves
or the National Guard, you couldn’t even use the VA hospitals. That was a huge
shock. I felt deceived.”
With virtually nobody addressing the vaccine problem in the military, Riley set
out to find a reason and a causal relationship between her illness and the
vaccines. By a quirk of fate and a stroke of Irish luck, she met Dr. Garth
Nicholson affiliated with a Houston cancer treatment center, who had been
researching Riley’s vaccine-related problems.
“Since a large number of Gulf War I vets were returning with the same symptoms I
had, he asked if I would submit to a test he developed,” said Riley. “Sure
enough, I tested positive like more than 50 percent of returning Gulf War
troops, which showed proof positive the vaccines were most likely causing the
illness since I never went to the Middle East.”
Armed with medical evidence, Riley decided to take her campaign to the public
air waves in Houston, buying air time on a popular Houston AM station in an
attempt to reach out and locate other Gulf War veterans with the same symptoms.
As finances permitted, Riley continued purchasing Saturday air-time, calling her
show ‘Nurse Talk Radio,” as she tried to aggressively expose Gulf War I
illnesses while also turning against the military she once loved and revered by
exposing its failure to care for the ailing troops.
But like a gust of wind from a Kansas tornado, she said after researching and
reading a declassified Senate Report numbered 103.97 from the Veterans affairs
Committee, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, forcing her to mount an
even more aggressive public attack against the military, an attack that is still
going on today.
“It changed my life,” said Riley, referring to the Senate report. “I had to go
public and I have never stopped since the report was beyond belief and
appalling. It said, now get this, that during the past 50 years, hundreds of
thousands of military personnel have been medically and scientifically
experimented upon without their fundamental knowledge or consent. Can you
believe that! It’s simply disgusting and unacceptable.
“And when I finally realized the higher-ups in the military could care less if
the troops lived or died, my loyalty to the military and all it stood for was
completely over. I was now on a campaign and mission to get at the truth and
help as many people end their suffering caused by a lack of caring, concern and
cooperation by the Pentagon. I realized there was a cover-up and I was the only
person in 1996 to come forward.”
Riley not only came forward on Houston radio, compiling documentation from many
others suffering from the same vaccine-related illness, but she also testified
in 1996 before the Presidential Advisory Commission on Gulf War Illnesses.
Although amounting to mostly political rhetoric, Riley used the public notoriety
to form a private grass roots group called the American Gulf War Veterans
Association, a group seeking to unite afflicted veterans in order to get redress
both medically and financially from the government.
Slowly becoming a driving force behind the Gulf War medical care truth movement,
Riley began appearing on numerous radio and television stations as she tried to
drive her message home. And it was in the media frenzy of 1996 that another
quirk of fate led to another life change, this time a personal change leading
her to the altar as she married Dave Von Kleist, an enterprising Connecticut
musician, disk jockey and anti-establishment radio talk show host.
“I remember Dave called and wanted me on his show, but he was pretty tough,”
recalls Riley, as the pair now how have joined interests and skills, combining
since 2001 on a daily morning talk radio show on Genesis Radio called “The Power
Hour.”
“So, Dave tells me if what I said was true, to come to Connecticut and prove it.
I remember arriving with my documentation and besides appearing on the radio
show, being asked to speak before a group of 300 people, including VA people and
Congressmen. My information was well-received, but you have to remember back
then nobody really knew anything about Gulf War illnesses so it was quite a
shock.
And the union between Riley and Von Kleist then moved from the altar to
producing their first anti-military video called “Gulf War Illness: Fact or
Fiction,” a highly successful documentary still in distribution today and
originally sent free to all military personnel geared at getting needed medical
help for afflicted veterans.
Riley recalls a cool reception and butting heads with Pentagon officials
immediately after the controversial video came out, as she received an arm
twisting phone call from Capt. Chalker Brown of the Pentagon.
“He called and asked me to stop sending the video to the military bases, saying
that I was really one of them,” said Riley. “I remember telling him if being one
of you means allowing troops to die, then I no longer wanted to be a part of the
military.
“I also later was banned from speaking at local American Legion Halls by the
National American Legion Commander. Back then we used to travel around in our
RV, trying to get the message out and particularly trying to help the many vets
who were threatening to commit suicide as a result of being ignored by the
military.”
As Riley continued to defy Pentagon brass and especially trying to help suicidal
veterans, she said not long after the intimidating telephone conversation from
Capt. Chalker, she noticed when buying a used RV her credit report and rating
was illegally tampered with and her identity stolen.
“I found out my identity had been stolen, $100,000 was charged against my name,
14 credit cards had been maxed-out using my name and even a federal bankruptcy
had been charged against me,” recalls Riley, saying she spent one year of her
life, as well as spending thousands of dollars in legal expenses trying to clear
her name, but never ever being able to absolutely prove the government was
behind the illegal activity.
“I of course have my suspicions, but I have never been able to prove the
Pentagon was behind it. When I went to the local federal courthouse where the
bankruptcy was filed, they even went to the trouble of constructing a large
file, all of it bogus but verifying the bankruptcy. My credit report also had
five aliases attached so, as you can see, it was the work of somebody wanting to
completely destroy my identity, good name and character.”
Furious over possible government retaliation and stonewalling, Riley became even
more determined to make the military accountable as her talk radio show,
structured to empower people with knowledge, continued to bring numerous people
out of the woodwork with Gulf War related illnesses.
With her activism spilling over to the recent Iraqi invasion, she recently has
taken up the cause of stopping the illegal use of depleted uranium in the battle
field and pointing out its debilitating effects on troops and civilians exposed
to high levels of radiation.
Again upset by the Pentagon’s failure to recognize the problem or treat the
afflicted troops exposed to radiation, Riley set out to make another video, this
time alerting Americans about what amounts to a nuclear war going on Iraq since
the invasion as well as the Pentagon’s failure to clean-up the nuclear waste or
admit responsibility in taking care of the troops and civilians poisoned by
radiation.
“I met with William Lewis and I said If I had one thing to do in my life, it
would be this video project,” said Riley about what turned out to be the video
released last month called “Beyond Treason,” a documentary that thoroughly
analyzes the depleted uranium problem and the government’s lack of concern about
hundreds of thousands of sick and dying troops and civilians.
“I thought to myself if I had one shot to tell the world something, this
depleted uranium story was it. We wanted to let the world know what was really
going on and how the Pentagon really doesn’t care if the troops live or die.
“These kids are coming back from Iraq sick and dying and the military won’t
accept responsibility. I wanted everybody to know since the Pentagon has not
acknowledged the illness, the VA hospitals cannot treat any of the soldiers for
what amounts to something they say doesn’t exist.
“I remember telling Dave that after the new video was released that the suicide
calls would start coming in to the show just like after the first video. Sure
enough they did and it just breaks my heart as I recently talked to a
23-year-old girl who returned from Iraq who is sick with symptoms of radiation.
She also said that out of the 105 who returned in her unit, 93 have reported
similar radiation symptoms.
Riley said another major reason behind the video is to alert every family who
may have children considering entering the military, saying she wanted them to
make an informed decision before sending them.
Riley again is giving away free copies of the video to all vets and enlisted
men, having sent out 10,000 so far, adding she intends to distribute millions as
she tries to reach every school and church in the country that will listen.
“The invasion of Iraq amounts to nothing less than a nuclear war and hundreds of
thousands of people are either going to get sick or die while the government and
the Pentagon sits idly by doing nothing,” said Riley.
Riley and Lewis, who wrote and produced the video, were assisted by numerous
military and scientific experts, who provided detailed research and proof behind
the enormity of the depleted uranium problem.
People like radiation experts Leuren Moret, Marion Fulk and Maj. Doug Rokke,
along with Dennis Kyne, Bob Jones and Mark Zeller, have all provided
documentation for the explosive video, which directly points the finger at the
Pentagon’s nuclear killing fields.
“It has been determined that the equivalent of more than 400,000 Nagasaki bombs
has been released in the Middle East since 1991,” said Moret, citing a report
and subsequent speech at a 2000 depleted uranium conference given by Professor
Yagasaki, a physicist and well-respected nuclear radiation expert.
And in the 89 minute video, exploring a massive government cover up, Riley and
Lewis point out the unexplained illnesses in civilians and military personal may
be the cause of depleted uranium or perhaps a combination of overlapping causes,
including chemical and biological exposure and the use of experimental vaccines.
The writers of Beyond Treason, added:
“The ailing Gulf War heroes from all 27 coalition countries slowly die from of
“unknown causes,” they wait for answers from their respective governments, but
no satisfying or even credible answers have come forth from the military
establishment. Records that span over a decade point to negligence and even
culpability on the part of the U.S. Department of Defense and their ‘disposable
army” mentality.
“The VA has determined that 250,000 troops are now permanently disabled, 15,000
troops are dead and over 425,000 are ill and slowly dying from what the
Department of Defense still calls a mystery disease. How many more will have to
die before action is taken?”
For more informative articles, go to
www.arcticbeacon.com .
Greg Szymanski