Our Survivor's Story Chapter 4: "Last Known Location."

For more than a year following my discharge, I made several attempts through my command, the VA, and US ARMY Human Resources Command (HRC) to obtain my records and discharge paperwork. Every Veteran Service Officer I approached met the same result. Every effort was in vain.

By September 2004,  increasingly impacted by my injuries and toxic exposure—with few other options left—I made one final call to US Army FORSCOM.

FORSCOM made quick work of my request right then and there and gave me the exact location of my records. They also confirmed that these contain my DD-214 with my service characterized as Honorable.  

My records, according to the soldier at the FORSCOM office—were at the NPRC in Saint Louis, 9700 Page Boulevard, MO, pallet D 171 Box 9 and in PERMS 16 Box 36.  She even commented on this as being peculiar. That it should not have happened for decades but since that’s the only custodian of my record, and that’s where they’d end up anyway—that’s who I would have to get them from.

You see, by law, my records should have been sent to both the VA Janesville Records Center and U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC).

Instead, my records were not “mistakenly” but plausibly—unlawfully redirected to the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), and only to the NPRC.

Although I now knew exactly where my records were located, every biannual attempt to retrieve them over the next twenty years, failed.

No law authorizes such a transfer to the NPRC.  That is, outside of war powers and matters of national security. According to governing law and regulations (DoDI 1336.01, VA M21-1, and NARA regulation 36 CFR § 1235.20), military records are not to be transferred to the NPRC until a set time has passed—typically 62 years after discharge.

That safeguard exists to protect the rights, benefits, and medical access of veterans.

But my records? They were already there without explanation and without anyone providing them when legally requested.  Depriving me of the ability to prove my service, receive my earned VA benefits.

This wasn't just a bureaucratic error. It was a deliberate and potentially illegal act—a systemic suppression of identity, rights, and access to care, to education, vo-tech training, home loans and business loans. 

Worst of all, it prevented me from obtaining medical intervention that would likely have prevented the damning and growing cascade of disease the Army and the Armed Forces Pest Management Board (AFPMB) had inflicted on me, on the eleven others, and then on all of us.

Our injuries and resulting illnesses are not theater-specific; they are toxin-specific and climate-reactive.

The hotter the environment, and the longer we are exposed to the uniforms in the heat—especially in expeditionary settings—and the longer these uniforms are worn over consecutive days, the worse the outcome.

Failure to accurately calculate risk, combined with persistent failure to ensure consistent permethrin dosing during fabric application, has compounded the problem—leading to confounding, differential, and systemic bioaccumulated toxic burdens, as experienced by our service members.

The actions of our Command kept me from claiming my status as a veteran and from connecting my experiences in service—and my injuries, particularly the toxic exposures I sustained—to the growing list of ailments that my care teams were trying to treat.

As a result, every connected medical encounter was instead seen as isolated and psychosomatic, when in truth, these injuries were connected and systemic.

I often wonder—what if they had not withheld my records? What if they had not barred me from accessing the VBA and VHA? What if anyone had listened to me? What if they took the time to read the same peer reviewed studies I had?

Would my testimony have helped the mission? Would it have helped save lives?

And my heart aches—knowing it would have.

For more than two decades, I was left to navigate a deteriorating and complex health condition without the critical institutional support I had earned.

How many more service members like me are still out there—forgotten, denied, unseen? How many more are joining this legion even now?

I can only hope that our work here at BioSymphony Research and Advocacy Group helps each one of them—that our work informs their care in ways I could have only dreamed of.

Thank G-d for my private care team. Despite all the obstacles thrown in their way, it is because of their skill and interventions—and the unwavering support of friends and family—that I am still here.

What a terrible burden this journey has placed on them.

It is for them—and for you—that I will not relent.

When U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC) let it slip in 2022 that my records had been sealed, I finally had confirmation of what I had long suspected. I went to my Senators for help.

My records had been sealed?

That action—sealing a military service record—has no procedural precedent unless the service member:

·       Was part of a classified program,

·       Was involved in an active national security interest, or

·       Required concealment of operations for mission success or safety.

I had been none of those. Right? (Even though, despite their hope I would not realize it, I knew I was used as a test subject the moment it began).

After initial protest, and several requests to finish these orders in the uniforms I reported with, protest and requests that were refused; coerced and intimidated, I fell silent and pushed through.

I was a Soldier, following orders. And I, along with eleven others, was used—as a human subject in a prototype uniform trial that would be green-lit for military-wide deployment mere days after my unceremonious and dubiously legal discharge via email with pdf letter of memorandum attached.

My record wasn’t sealed by mistake. It was sealed to protect someone else’s future, someone else’s career. It was sealed to ensure short-term security gains at the expense of long-term public health and readiness of the Armed Forces.

Without my DD-214, I was denied:

·       VA healthcare

·       Disability compensation

·       Vocational rehab or education support

·       Legal acknowledgment of honorable service

·       Reproductive and toxicological care

·       Civilian protections for veterans in the workplace

My service was not forgotten.  Record of it had not been lost. It was sealed in a box—on a pallet—in a warehouse. And with it, they hoped, my voice and their secrets.

Even so, the moment I learned where my record had been placed, I began my long return.

I became a witness, a scientist, a strategist. I built my case one data point at a time. Shielded by the very anonymity they had wielded against me.

In 2023—twenty years and four days after discharge—I finally won recognition of my honorable service.

But the fight for truth and justice, for restorative care and compensation—potentially for millions of Americans—had only just begun.

Now came the real work: using my evidence, clinical data, and scientific training—from graduate courses at Harvard, Cambridge, and Stanford—to advocate for change from within the system, appealing to U.S. Senators, Defense Fellows, Liaisons and Senate Oversight Committees to come to the aid and defense of others, and to help us overcome the lasting impact of these toxins and our treated uniforms began.

The hardest part of this work is waiting for bureaucracy to act—and even harder, doing all of this in a way that preserves, honors, and protects the institutions from which this historic failure arose—all at the hands of only a few individuals.

Perhaps the reason authorities are slow to act—hesitant to even begin—is the sheer scope of the problem.

The moral burden of shouldering this silence for them, waiting for them to speak out while others grow sick—and more die—from this exposure, has simply become too much to bear.

The effects of Permethrin treated fabric alone, or combination with co-contaminant use DEET spray are well known.

These effects are measurable, heritable, and preventable.

We have the knowledge, the skill, and the technology to overcome this. Why wait?

These conclusion are supported by technical and regulatory documents, including those from the Armed Forces Pest Management Board and the United States Environmental Protection Agency:

Sources and References

• Technical Guide 36 (TG 36): Personal Protective Measures Against Insects and Other Arthropods of Military Significance – Armed Forces Pest Management Board (AFPMB), 2015.

• EPA Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) for Permethrin: United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 2006.

• EPA Revised Permethrin Risk Assessments and Docket Materials: EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0301, 2009–2011.

• EPA Final Work Plan and Registration Review for Permethrin: EPA-HQ-OPP-2011-0039, 2017.

What was hidden? Is now public domain. It's a google search.

Keywords:

1. Insect Shield Company Background

2. Permethrin + Transgenerational Epimutations

3. Permethrin + DEET + Heat

4. Permethrin + DEET + Epigenomic Tissue Remodeling

5. Transgenerational Disease + Chronic + Sub-Acute + Dermal + Exposure + Permethrin