WASHINGTON, DC- April 1, 1997 (Gulflink)- The Pentagon's GulfLINK has become interactive, which means veterans who have questions or concerns about the investigations into Gulf War illnesses can now talk directly to the Department of Defense (DoD) through e-mail.
Pentagon officials hope that this will may it easier for Gulf War veteran to communicate with the Defense Department. In a recent DoD news conference, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said, "For the first time now, people who log on to GulfLINK to get information about Gulf War illness, our programs for treating it, researching it causes, and making information available to the public, can send e-mail back to get answers. They may not always get the answers they want or they think they deserve, but they get responses quickly and as fully as we can give the responses."
GulfLINK will help DoD in two ways. First, it will help to obtain get more information from veterans who served in the Gulf; and two, it will help DoD send information out to people. DoD is still trying to assemble as much information as it can about certain Gulf War incidents. Currently, there are 16 operators, these operators will phone back, either calls coming into the hotline, or they will call back people on e-mails that come in.
The e-mail feature can be accessed through the GulfLINK site at brostker@gwillness.osd.mil