Veterans for Common Sense

Veterans advocacy nonprofit · Founded 2002, Washington, DC; Gulf War illness advocates including Anthony Hardie and Paul Sullivan

A 501(c)(3) veterans organization founded in 2002 that has spent two decades on the fights VA most wanted to outlast: Gulf War illness recognition, toxic exposure, and disability-rating cuts. Still active in 2026 — its homepage carries an August 31, 2026 rulemaking letter to CMS, an August 2026 push for a Gulf War illness rating schedule now that CDC has recognized the condition, and coalition work against rating cuts for sleep apnea and tinnitus. Small, technical, and persistent.

Why we carry them. The long-memory advocates: when VA says a condition is new or unproven, this group usually holds twenty years of the paper trail.

Start here — their essential work

• VCS Provides Written Comments on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses Task Force Draft Written Report — Its FOIA-and-record case, laid out for VA’s own task force: the documented toxic exposures of the 1991 war and the benefits law Congress built on them.
• 17 Years Later, Gulf War Veterans Illnesses Linger (2008-12-15) — On the independent scientific report finding roughly one in four Gulf War veterans ill — and VA and Pentagon officials still publicly denying a specific condition existed.
• One in Four Vets Suffers Gulf War Illness (2008-12-03) — The evidence summary: pesticide exposure and the nerve-agent-protection drug troops were ordered to take, and why the illness is not a stress syndrome.
• Gulf War Illness (2008-11-21) — A veteran’s own account of chemical alarms, illness in theater, and symptoms that kept worsening after homecoming — the human version of the research record.
• Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia Vows Fight on Gulf War Illness (2009-01-05) — The Senate Veterans’ Committee chairman calls a decade of official denial shameful and vows to act on the scientific report — an early marker of how long this recognition fight has run.

Summaries are ours. The work is theirs — we link to it, we don’t lift it. Visit Veterans for Common Sense →