I'm 34. I went over with a reserve truck company, hauled fuel and ammo north, came home healthy in May of '91, and got married. Starting in 1993 I got sick and nobody can tell me with what. My joints ache like I'm seventy. I get tired in a way sleep doesn't fix. I get rashes on my arms and neck that come and go. And I lose words, and appointments, and sometimes the reason I walked into a room. My wife Crystal says I should write it down. So this is me writing it down. Newest at the top. Jump to August.

SUNDAY 9/26/99

Crystal's first full day off in three weeks. She slept till eleven. Kayla and I tiptoed around the house like burglars and made pancakes, and Kayla put a note on the bedroom door in crayon that said QUIET MOM IS SLEEPING, and then knocked on the door every ten minutes to ask if she was still asleep.

When Crystal got up she sat at the table in her robe with her coffee and just looked out the window for a long time. I asked what she was thinking about. She said, "Nothing. I'm just sitting. It's nice." That about broke my heart. Thirty-one years old and sitting still is a treat.

Guys from the list wrote back about my letter to the Congressman. One said send a copy to both Senators too. One said don't hold your breath. Both are right.

SATURDAY 9/25/99

A GOOD DAY. I want to put it down in capital letters so I can find it later when there's a bad one.

Woke up and my hands didn't hurt. Knees neither. I stood in the kitchen and waited for it to show up and it didn't. So I said, Kayla, get your shoes.

We rode bikes to the end of the county road and back, her on the pink one with the streamers and me on my old ten-speed with the flat I finally fixed. We raced the last stretch and I let her win and then she said, "Daddy, you let me win," so the next time I didn't, and she laughed so hard she had to stop pedaling. We played her Pokemon cards on the porch. She tried to explain the rules. I didn't get them, but I learned that Pikachu is not for trade, not ever, not even for a whole pack.

Tonight there was a big orange moon and we laid on the hood of the truck and looked at it. She said, "Are you sick today?" I said no, baby, not today. She said, "Good. I like today."

Me too, Kayla. Me too.

THURSDAY 9/23/99

Wrote my Congressman. Took me three nights, because of the word thing. I'd get halfway through a sentence and lose where it was going. Crystal read it over when she got home at 10:30 and fixed two spots. Here's part of it:

Mailed it certified this morning, with the green return-receipt card, so I know somebody signed for it. Crystal said that's a lot of fuss for a maybe. I said everything's a maybe.

TUESDAY 9/21/99

VA yesterday. Here's how it went.

Appointment was 9:15. The VA hospital is an hour and ten minutes each way, so I left at 7:30 with my folder: every paper since '93, in order, with tabs, because Crystal says if you don't bring it they act like it doesn't exist. Checked in at 9:05. Sat. Sat some more. Read a Field & Stream from 1997. A Korea vet next to me in a Post cap told me he's been coming here since the Johnson administration and it's never once been on time. We laughed about that. You have to.

Got called back at 12:40. It was a new doctor, again. Nice enough. Young. She had not seen my folder. She had the computer. She asked me the same questions everybody asks. When did it start. Where does it hurt. Are you sleeping. Are you under stress.

Yes ma'am, I'm under stress. My wife works two jobs because I can't keep one. That's the stress. The stress didn't come first.

Eleven minutes. I looked at my watch. She said my bloodwork looks "unremarkable," which is the same word they've used on me for six years. She said she'd put in a referral to rheumatology, which is a four-month wait. She said maybe I should talk to someone in mental health. She wrote me for 800 milligram Motrin.

In the Army we called Motrin "Vitamin M." They gave it to you for everything. Broken foot, Motrin. Headache, Motrin. Nine years later, and I drove two hours and twenty minutes round trip to get Vitamin M.

I'm not mad at her. She's got fifteen minutes a guy and a waiting room full of us. I'm mad at the whole thing. I sat in the truck in the parking lot a long time before I could drive home.

Kayla had drawn me a picture while I was gone. It's me and her and a big yellow sun. I'm smiling in it. Guess that's how she sees me. I'll try to live up to it.

SUNDAY 9/12/99

Crystal's schedule, since I've had people on the list ask how we get by:

Monday to Friday, 6 to 2, she's a nurse's aide at the nursing home. Lifting people, turning people, feeding people, all day. Then three nights a week and every other weekend she runs a register at the grocery store in town, 5 to 10. She comes home and soaks her feet in a dishpan and falls asleep sitting up.

I used to be a diesel mechanic for the county. Nineteen years old I could pull a transmission by myself. I lost the job in '97. Not because I didn't work hard. Because I forgot things. Torque specs. Which bolts I'd done. One day I forgot I'd drained the oil on a grader, and that was about it.

Now I do what I can. I fix lawnmowers in the garage when my hands let me. I get Kayla to school and back. I cook supper; I'm not bad. I pay the bills, and I write every one down twice, because of the memory.

Crystal married a soldier who came home fine. That's who she said yes to. I think about that more than she knows. She says, "Travis, I married you. Quit it." I'm trying.

FRIDAY 9/3/99

Bad week. Hands are bad. Typing this with two fingers. More when I can.

SATURDAY 8/21/99

For six years I thought it was just me. Then last month a guy at the VFW gave me the address for an e-mail list for Gulf vets, and I've been reading it every night after Kayla goes to bed.

There are guys on there from Alabama and Pennsylvania and Washington state. Some Marines, some Air Force, a woman who was a medic. There's even a wife writing for her husband, because he can't sit at the computer long enough anymore. And it's the same list over and over. Joints. Tired. Rashes. Headaches. Forgetting. Somebody writes "I lost my keys three times today" and fifteen people write back "me too."

We talk about the PB pills a lot. The pills gave a lot of us the runs and the shakes back then and we just took the next one when the eight hours were up. We talk about Khamisiyah. We talk about the letters we got. Some guys think it's one thing, some think it's all of it together. I don't know. I'm a mechanic. When a truck won't run you check everything it ever had in the tank.

Mostly it helps to know I'm not crazy. Or if I am, I've got company.

SUNDAY 8/8/99

Took Kayla to the new cartoon movie yesterday afternoon, The Iron Giant. About a boy in the 1950s who finds a giant metal robot from outer space that eats scrap metal. I thought it'd be a kid thing and I'd sleep through it.

I didn't sleep. The Army shows up, and it turns out the giant was built to be a weapon, and he doesn't want to be one. The boy tells him, "You are who you choose to be." And the giant chooses.

I had to wipe my face in the dark with a Coke napkin. Kayla didn't see. Or she did and was nice about it. She held my hand on the way out to the truck and didn't say anything, which is not like her.

That's the first entry. I'll try to keep it up.

If you're a Gulf vet or family and want a heads-up when I post, e-mail me and I'll add you. I don't give out addresses to anybody. Not even the government. Especially not the government. If you're a reader who isn't a vet and just wanted to know what it's like: thanks for reading this far. That's more than some people who get paid to.