In early 1992, U.S. troops returning from the Gulf War began reporting a variety 
of nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, skin rash, headache, muscle and joint 
pain, and loss of memory. These reports marked the beginning of what was to be 
identified as the Gulf War Syndrome (GWS). In the years since the war, as many 
as 100,000 troops have claimed they suffer from this mysterious disease. In our 
culture, the existence of disease as a specific entity is fundamental to 
ensuring the validity of that disease. The legitimacy of GWS has been repeatedly 
called into question because no specific physiological etiology has been 
confirmed, and it is becoming more and more likely that the origin of GWS will 
never be clearly delineated. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the 
complicated process of defining GWS as a legitimate illness in the absence of 
etiological evidence and to suggest a method of treatment for individuals who 
still suffer from its sequelae.