Ruth McIntosh

I was stationed at George AFB in 1986.  I was only there five months before being flown out Airevac to Wilford Hall hospital at Lackland AFB, Texas.

I don’t know where to begin. I was a nurse in the Labor and Delivery and Postpartum unit. The behavior of the people I worked with was insane and I believe there’s evidence that my Chief Nurse wanted me dead. The situation got so intense and extreme that I felt like a POW in my own country, bargaining for my life every day.

I am wondering if the toxic waste was influencing the behavior of people I worked with. I have heard that lots of other people experienced extreme adverse treatment while at George AFB and that it was common knowledge that “you would lose a stripe” while there.

A brief summary of my story: I had recovered from a benign brain tumor before coming to George. The Hospital Commander insisted that there was nothing wrong with me and claimed that I just couldn’t handle stress. In contrast, HQAFMPC at Randolph AFB ordered a medical re-evaluation, but the Hospital Commander defied the orders for two months.

When I was finally sent for the Medical Evaluation Board, my labs and a CT scan immediately confirmed that the tumor was back. I had surgery, but they failed to find the tumor and injured my pituitary severely while searching for the autonomous cells.

The commander from the hospital at George suddenly showed up at my bedside in Texas, in civilian clothes, on a Saturday morning, just two days after my unsuccessful surgery. I was very sick and I had tubes everywhere, but he was standing there threatening to prejudice nursing assignments about what to do with me if I ever made it back to duty. I was too terrified to speak.

He falsely claimed that there was “no tumor” and he came back in uniform a few days later to talk to all the doctors and nurses on my case to prejudice my care. The treatment I received after that is a long horror story after horror story and of unbelievable cruelty that almost cost me my life. He set in motion twelve years of terror at the hands of the people who believed his lies.

I have endured complications ever since and just last year was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis on top of everything else. I don’t know if there’s any way to link it to the chemicals at George after so many years or if it even makes a difference since I am already rated 100% disabled by the VA.

As for people I worked with, our NCOIC developed a tumor behind her eye that was too risky to operate on and another nurse developed seizures for which no cause was determined.