DALLAS — Retired Navy Adm. William McRaven, the U.S. Special Operations commander for the SEAL Team Six raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, has donated $1 million to UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas for veteran health efforts, the hospital announced Monday.
The donation is specifically aimed at the hospital's research program for Gulf War Illness and mental health support and programs for veterans, according to the announcement.
Gulf War Illness is a spate of chronic illnesses such as persistent headaches, memory loss and fatigue that have been identified in veterans of the Persian Gulf War. Dr. Robert Haley, a professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, has been investigating Gulf War Illness, finding that a nerve gas called sarin was responsible for the condition, according to the hospital.
“We had to understand biochemistry and the physiology of a disease nobody had ever seen before,” Dr. Haley said. “Gene expression studies recently gave us what we need to develop a treatment, to test it rationally and scientifically, and that’s where this timely funding will go. This funding is going to carry us across the finish line much sooner.”
McRaven was previously the chancellor of the University of Texas system from 2015-2018.
“UT Southwestern has always been at the forefront of helping our veterans and active-duty service members,” said Adm. McRaven, a 1977 graduate of the University of Texas who served as UT System Chancellor from 2015 to 2018. “Our hope through this gift is that a new dawn will rise for the 175,000 service members diagnosed with GWI who have been struggling for want of effective treatments.”
