WHEN WAR MAKES SOLDIERS SICK

0 Comments | Philadelphia Daily News, September, 2006 | by JUAN GONZALEZ

EIGHT IRAQ War veterans sat in a federal courtroom in Manhattan last week and demanded answers from the Pentagon and the White House about why and how they became sick. The men, most of them Hispanic, include former Army sergeants Ray Ramos, Agustín Matos and Jerry Ojeda and specialist Gerard Matthew, who is the lead plaintiff in a pioneering lawsuit that has exposed to the public how American soldiers have been endangered by one of the Pentagon's little-known favorite weapons - depleted uranium artillery.

As you might expect, the plaintiffs in this case are not easily intimidated. Several are street-hardened ex-New York city cops and correction officers. They all served in two National Guard units stationed into Iraq during the first months of the war. I first met them in...