As of May 2013, there were more than 23 million total living veterans of military service in the US. Of those, almost 17 million served in wars. That includes more than 1.7 million veterans of WWII, 2.2 million veterans of the Korean War, 7.4 million veterans of the Vietnam War, 2.3 million veterans from the Gulf War (1990-1991), and more than 1.3 million who served in Afghanistan or Iraq or both.
Veterans of military service have a disproportionately high rate of certain debilitating medical conditions as compared to the general population. Some of those conditions may result from injury or exposures to toxins, but not all. The correlation between military service and higher rates of the conditions discussed in this booklet are clear and well-documented, but the cause is not known for many.
That has created some barriers to treatment, as the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has at times resisted classifying conditions affecting veterans as being the result of their military service. Soldiers exposed to radiation during their participation in weapons trials in the 1950’s and 1960’s, for instance, were sworn to secrecy. Those exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam had to wait decades for the VHA to acknowledge the cancers and other conditions they suffered were the result of their service. It was more than 20 years before scientists identified the changes in the brains of many of those who returned from the Gulf War with a collection of neurological symptoms.