Christopher Shays — American Politician born on October 18, 1945,

Christopher Hunter "Chris" Shays is an American politician. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives and represented the 4th District of Connecticut. He is a member of the Republican Party... (wikipedia)

What we know from World War I is that some of our troops had acute symptoms of exposure to chemicals, had bad health and died because of chemical exposure in World War I.
But Gulf War Syndrome is not one cause, not one illness. It is many causes, many illnesses.
I believe that stress is a factor in any bad health.
It's hard for me to imagine that some people in the CIA who had firsthand knowledge would be unable to recognize that this would be helpful information for a soldier's death.
Yes, there is a story about Agent Orange, and we knew that it harmed our troops and we knew how long it was to get the medical community to accept that, the military to accept it, the VA to accept it.