SIGAR: Millions spent on incinerators in Afghanistan that were never used
Stars and Stripes
Alex Pena
December 16, 2013
Troops and personnel at Forward Operating Base Sharana in Afghanistan resorted to hazardous open-air burn pits to dispose of waste after the U.S. Army spent $5.4 million on faulty incinerators that couldn’t be used, a government watchdog said in a report released Monday.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found that because of construction delays and safety issues with the facility’s electrical supply, the incinerators were unusable.
Open-air pits can pose serious health hazards to troops and personnel living in surrounding areas, the report said. Their continued use after a base of a certain size has been established is also in violation of a 2011 U.S. Central Command regulation, according to the report. That regulation says that once a base exceeds 100 personnel for more than 90 days — a threshold that FOB Sharana met — it must establish a plan for installing waste-disposal technologies such as incinerators.
“Nearly 3 years after the initial scheduled completion date for the incinerator facility at FOB Sharana, the incinerators have never been used,” the report said.
Despite known problems with the incinerators, SIGAR said, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accepted possession of them and paid the contractor, Denver-based International Home Finance and Development LLC, the full contract price $5.4 million.
read more here
Showing posts with label toxic exposures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toxic exposures. Show all posts
Monday, December 16, 2013
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Burn Pits leave generation of troops with health problems and they knew it
The Military’s Open-Air Burn Pits Have Left A Generation Of Troops With Health Problems
Business Insider
HARRISON JACOBS
NOV. 5, 2013
One of the most dangerous hazards of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was a product of the U.S. military, according to a new investigative report by The Verge's Katie Drummond.
U.S. soldiers have been coming home with respiratory issues that they say are a result of the noxious fumes spewing from burn pits on U.S. Military bases.
Burn pits, many as large as 10 acres wide, have been used extensively on military bases to incinerate the Army’s trash since the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The military burned nearly everything in the pits, including plastic, styrofoam, electronics, metal cans, rubber, ammunition, explosives, feces, lithium batteries and even human body parts, according to a 2010 report from The New York Times' James Risen.
read more here
If you doubt this or think it is new, think again. Reports go way back on Wounded Times search under Burn Pit
Business Insider
HARRISON JACOBS
NOV. 5, 2013
One of the most dangerous hazards of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was a product of the U.S. military, according to a new investigative report by The Verge's Katie Drummond.
U.S. soldiers have been coming home with respiratory issues that they say are a result of the noxious fumes spewing from burn pits on U.S. Military bases.
Burn pits, many as large as 10 acres wide, have been used extensively on military bases to incinerate the Army’s trash since the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The military burned nearly everything in the pits, including plastic, styrofoam, electronics, metal cans, rubber, ammunition, explosives, feces, lithium batteries and even human body parts, according to a 2010 report from The New York Times' James Risen.
read more here
If you doubt this or think it is new, think again. Reports go way back on Wounded Times search under Burn Pit
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Camp Lejeune contamination controversy continues as Marines suffer
Flap Continues over Lejeune Health Assessment
Associated Press
by Allen G. Breed
Aug 19, 2013
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A bipartisan group of U.S. senators and congressmen is urging the Centers for Disease Control to complete a new, comprehensive report on the health effects of toxic tap water at the Camp Lejeune Marine base.
The lawmakers also want the agency to investigate whether people were exposed to airborne toxins inside buildings after contaminated wells at the North Carolina base were closed in 1985. And they asked the agency to look into the feasibility of a "cancer incidence study" for Lejeune.
The four senators and two representatives were reacting to news that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, a division of the CDC, intends to issue a less comprehensive report than the one it released in 1997. The original public health assessment was withdrawn four years ago because of incomplete data.
They said they also are concerned the agency will ignore "the potential for harmful exposures via inhalation" in the decade and a half after contaminated wells at the coastal North Carolina base were taken off line.
The Aug. 9 letter to CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden was signed by U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan of North Carolina; Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson of Florida; and U.S. Reps. Dennis Ross of Florida and John Dingell of Michigan.
read more here
Associated Press
by Allen G. Breed
Aug 19, 2013
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A bipartisan group of U.S. senators and congressmen is urging the Centers for Disease Control to complete a new, comprehensive report on the health effects of toxic tap water at the Camp Lejeune Marine base.
The lawmakers also want the agency to investigate whether people were exposed to airborne toxins inside buildings after contaminated wells at the North Carolina base were closed in 1985. And they asked the agency to look into the feasibility of a "cancer incidence study" for Lejeune.
The four senators and two representatives were reacting to news that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, a division of the CDC, intends to issue a less comprehensive report than the one it released in 1997. The original public health assessment was withdrawn four years ago because of incomplete data.
They said they also are concerned the agency will ignore "the potential for harmful exposures via inhalation" in the decade and a half after contaminated wells at the coastal North Carolina base were taken off line.
The Aug. 9 letter to CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden was signed by U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan of North Carolina; Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson of Florida; and U.S. Reps. Dennis Ross of Florida and John Dingell of Michigan.
read more here
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Burn pit at U.S. Marine base in Afghanistan poses health risk
Burn pit at U.S. Marine base in Afghanistan poses health risk -inspector
WASHINGTON
Jul 11, 2013
(Reuters) - Open-air burn pits at a U.S. Marine base in Afghanistan pose a health risk to the 13,500 military and civilian personnel there and are still in use despite the installation of four incinerators at a cost of $11.5 million, an inspector general said on Thursday.
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in a letter to two top U.S. generals that burn pits at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province were "potentially endangering" the health of U.S. military and civilian personnel.
read more here
WASHINGTON
Jul 11, 2013
(Reuters) - Open-air burn pits at a U.S. Marine base in Afghanistan pose a health risk to the 13,500 military and civilian personnel there and are still in use despite the installation of four incinerators at a cost of $11.5 million, an inspector general said on Thursday.
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in a letter to two top U.S. generals that burn pits at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province were "potentially endangering" the health of U.S. military and civilian personnel.
read more here
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Gulf War veterans brain scans begin to offer hope
Brain scans lead to discovery of two types of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome
By Alan Zarembo
Los Angeles Times
Published: June 16, 2013
LOS ANGELES - Using brain scans and exercise stress tests, researchers have identified two biologically distinct subgroups of veterans suffering from "Gulf War illness."
Their bodies reacted differently to physical exertion, and their brains had atrophied in different regions.
None of the patterns were seen in a control group of healthy subjects.
The findings, published online Friday in the journal PLOS One, are part of a growing body of work that the authors said could eventually lead to biological markers for the mysterious condition, which is still defined by its hodgepodge of symptoms.
"That's the hope," said Georgetown University researcher Rakib Rayhan, lead author of the study.
Still, the importance of the differences his team identified is far from clear, said Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an expert on Gulf War illness at UC San Diego, who was not involved in the research. There are many ways to parse any population of patients with a condition that is so variable and diverse, she said.
After the 1991 Gulf War, veterans began complaining of various problems, including pain, fatigue, headaches and cognitive impairment. The symptoms ranged from mild to debilitating.
Up to 30 percent of the 700,000 troops who served in the war are thought to be affected.
read more here
By Alan Zarembo
Los Angeles Times
Published: June 16, 2013
LOS ANGELES - Using brain scans and exercise stress tests, researchers have identified two biologically distinct subgroups of veterans suffering from "Gulf War illness."
Their bodies reacted differently to physical exertion, and their brains had atrophied in different regions.
None of the patterns were seen in a control group of healthy subjects.
The findings, published online Friday in the journal PLOS One, are part of a growing body of work that the authors said could eventually lead to biological markers for the mysterious condition, which is still defined by its hodgepodge of symptoms.
"That's the hope," said Georgetown University researcher Rakib Rayhan, lead author of the study.
Still, the importance of the differences his team identified is far from clear, said Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an expert on Gulf War illness at UC San Diego, who was not involved in the research. There are many ways to parse any population of patients with a condition that is so variable and diverse, she said.
After the 1991 Gulf War, veterans began complaining of various problems, including pain, fatigue, headaches and cognitive impairment. The symptoms ranged from mild to debilitating.
Up to 30 percent of the 700,000 troops who served in the war are thought to be affected.
read more here
Friday, May 31, 2013
Actress turns husband in over ricin mail
Texas Army veteran quizzed over poison letters sent to Obama and Bloomberg after his actress wife 'finds ricin in their FRIDGE'
Nathan Richardson's wife raised the alarm after finding a substance in refrigerator and internet searches for ricin, the Mayor and Obama
Richardson is an Army veteran and works at an army depot in Texas
Letters warned Bloomberg and Obama to stay away from gun law debate
Daily Mail
By HELEN LAWSON, JAMES NYE and LYDIA WARREN
31 May 2013
A Texas Army veteran is being questioned in connection with poison letters sent to President Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg after his wife found a container in their refrigerator filled with what appeared to be ricin.
The man, who neighbors identified to KSLA as father-of-five Nathaniel Richardson, is a civilian employee of the Department of Defense who works at the Red River Army Depot. Sources said he is being treated as a person of interest.
His wife, actress Shannon Glass, told officers that as well as the container in the fridge, she also found internet searches related to ricin production, Obama and Bloomberg on their computer.
The development comes two days after it emerged that Bloomberg and his anti-gun group were sent two ricin-laced letters. On Thursday, it was revealed that another, identical letter was sent to Obama.
read more here
Nathan Richardson's wife raised the alarm after finding a substance in refrigerator and internet searches for ricin, the Mayor and Obama
Richardson is an Army veteran and works at an army depot in Texas
Letters warned Bloomberg and Obama to stay away from gun law debate
Daily Mail
By HELEN LAWSON, JAMES NYE and LYDIA WARREN
31 May 2013
A Texas Army veteran is being questioned in connection with poison letters sent to President Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg after his wife found a container in their refrigerator filled with what appeared to be ricin.
The man, who neighbors identified to KSLA as father-of-five Nathaniel Richardson, is a civilian employee of the Department of Defense who works at the Red River Army Depot. Sources said he is being treated as a person of interest.
His wife, actress Shannon Glass, told officers that as well as the container in the fridge, she also found internet searches related to ricin production, Obama and Bloomberg on their computer.
The development comes two days after it emerged that Bloomberg and his anti-gun group were sent two ricin-laced letters. On Thursday, it was revealed that another, identical letter was sent to Obama.
read more here
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Marine who dumped toxins felt illness was payback
Marine who dumped toxins felt illness was payback
May 18, 2013
USA Today
Ron Poirier, marine who dumped toxins onto the ground, felt cancer was payback for contributing to the worst drinking water contamination in the country's history.
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — Ron Poirier couldn't escape the feeling that his cancer was somehow a punishment.
As a young Marine electronics technician at Camp Lejeune in the mid-1970s, the Massachusetts man figured he'd dumped hundreds of gallons of toxic solvents onto the ground. It would be decades before he realized that he had unknowingly contributed to the worst drinking water contamination in the country's history — and, perhaps, to his own premature death.
"It's just a terrible thing," the 58-year-old veteran told the Associated Press shortly before succumbing to esophageal cancer at a Cape Cod nursing facility on May 3.
"Once I found out, it's like, 'God! I added to the contamination.'"
The cancer that killed Poirier is one of more than a dozen diseases and conditions with recognized links to a toxic soup brewing beneath the sprawling coastal base between the 1950s and mid-1980s, when officials finally ordered tainted drinking-water wells closed. As many as a million Marines, family members and civilian employees are believed to have been exposed to several cancer-causing chemicals.
read more here
May 18, 2013
USA Today
Ron Poirier, marine who dumped toxins onto the ground, felt cancer was payback for contributing to the worst drinking water contamination in the country's history.
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — Ron Poirier couldn't escape the feeling that his cancer was somehow a punishment.
As a young Marine electronics technician at Camp Lejeune in the mid-1970s, the Massachusetts man figured he'd dumped hundreds of gallons of toxic solvents onto the ground. It would be decades before he realized that he had unknowingly contributed to the worst drinking water contamination in the country's history — and, perhaps, to his own premature death.
"It's just a terrible thing," the 58-year-old veteran told the Associated Press shortly before succumbing to esophageal cancer at a Cape Cod nursing facility on May 3.
"Once I found out, it's like, 'God! I added to the contamination.'"
The cancer that killed Poirier is one of more than a dozen diseases and conditions with recognized links to a toxic soup brewing beneath the sprawling coastal base between the 1950s and mid-1980s, when officials finally ordered tainted drinking-water wells closed. As many as a million Marines, family members and civilian employees are believed to have been exposed to several cancer-causing chemicals.
read more here
Thursday, April 25, 2013
US military faulted for burn-pit use
US military faulted for burn-pit use
By Ernesto Londoño
The Washington Post
Published: April 25, 2013
The U.S. military spent $5 million on incinerators at a base in Afghanistan that never became operable, forcing troops to use a type of open-air burn pit that has been linked to serious respiratory problems among veterans, according to a government report.
The Pentagon banned burn pits at large war-zone bases after facing a flurry of lawsuits and health claims by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who were exposed to toxic fumes during deployments. The pits are used to burn everything from cafeteria waste to feces.
The case of the inoperable incinerators at Forward Operating Base Salerno in eastern Afghanistan, detailed in a new inspector general report, sheds light on the continued challenges of waste disposal in combat zones and the stark choices that commanders in Afghanistan are having to make as the U.S. military footprint continues to contract.
read more here
By Ernesto Londoño
The Washington Post
Published: April 25, 2013
The U.S. military spent $5 million on incinerators at a base in Afghanistan that never became operable, forcing troops to use a type of open-air burn pit that has been linked to serious respiratory problems among veterans, according to a government report.
The Pentagon banned burn pits at large war-zone bases after facing a flurry of lawsuits and health claims by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who were exposed to toxic fumes during deployments. The pits are used to burn everything from cafeteria waste to feces.
The case of the inoperable incinerators at Forward Operating Base Salerno in eastern Afghanistan, detailed in a new inspector general report, sheds light on the continued challenges of waste disposal in combat zones and the stark choices that commanders in Afghanistan are having to make as the U.S. military footprint continues to contract.
read more here
Friday, March 15, 2013
Camp Lejeune contamination may go back to 1948!
Contamination at NC Marine base lasted up to 60 years
By Maggie Fox, Senior Writer
NBC News
Some of the wells that supplied drinking water to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were contaminated by cancer-causing solvents for as long as 60 years, a new federal report shows.
Month-by-month calculations show that Marines and their families at the base drank and bathed in water that may have been tainted with trichloroethylene (TCE) from 1948 through 2008. Other water sources were contaminated with benzene from 1951 to 2008, the report shows.
Federal officials have known for years that the base’s water supply was badly contaminated, from fuel leaks and probably from a dry-cleaning plant as well.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that between 500,000 and 1 million people were exposed to the contaminated water from 1953 to 1987, when the last of several contaminated wells were closed. The new report takes the potential estimates back five years earlier.
"It is possible," Dr. Christopher Portier, director of the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, told NBC News. But he says he believes it more likely the contamination began in 1953, as previously estimated.
read more here
By Maggie Fox, Senior Writer
NBC News
Some of the wells that supplied drinking water to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were contaminated by cancer-causing solvents for as long as 60 years, a new federal report shows.
Month-by-month calculations show that Marines and their families at the base drank and bathed in water that may have been tainted with trichloroethylene (TCE) from 1948 through 2008. Other water sources were contaminated with benzene from 1951 to 2008, the report shows.
Federal officials have known for years that the base’s water supply was badly contaminated, from fuel leaks and probably from a dry-cleaning plant as well.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that between 500,000 and 1 million people were exposed to the contaminated water from 1953 to 1987, when the last of several contaminated wells were closed. The new report takes the potential estimates back five years earlier.
"It is possible," Dr. Christopher Portier, director of the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, told NBC News. But he says he believes it more likely the contamination began in 1953, as previously estimated.
read more here
Friday, February 8, 2013
Gulf War Illness May Be Due To Toxic Environments
Gulf War Syndrome, Other Illnesses Among Veterans May Be Due To Toxic Environments
Huffington Post
Lynne Peeples
February 7, 2013
In 1991, as part of Operation Desert Storm, former U.S. Army Spc. Candy Lovett arrived in Kuwait a healthy 29-year-old eager to serve her country. Two decades later, she's accumulated a stack of medical records over five feet high -- none of which relates to injuries inflicted by bullets or shrapnel.
"It's just been one thing after another," said the veteran, who now resides in Miami and whose ailments run the gamut from lung disease and sleep apnea to, most recently, terminal breast cancer. "At one point," she said, "I was on over 50 pills."
Former Air Force Tech. Sgt. Tim Wymore, who was deployed to Iraq in 2004, suffers from an array of health problems that mirror Lovett's. "Everyone has the same things," said Wymore, who has inexplicably shed 40 pounds in the last few months. "It's just weird."
Wymore and Lovett -- and countless others who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the desert region over the past three decades -- have struggled to understand this, but they share one nagging conviction: These ailments are tied to service in a war zone.
Their suspicions -- long rebuffed by insurance companies -- are now getting support from some doctors and environmental health researchers, who suspect that American soldiers are being unnecessarily exposed to heavily contaminated environments while serving overseas. Even when not engaged directly in combat, they say, servicemen and women -- typically without protective masks or other simple precautions -- live and work amid clouds of Middle Eastern dust laden with toxic metals, bacteria and viruses, and surrounded by plumes of smoke rising from burn pits, a common U.S. military practice of burning feces, plastic bottles and other solid waste in open pits, often with jet fuel.
Research published in December 2012 raises the possibility that in some instances, soldiers may have been exposed to airborne cocktails that included low levels of a deadly chemical warfare agent, the nerve gas sarin, which wafted hundreds of miles from U.S.-bombed Iraqi facilities.
read more here
Huffington Post
Lynne Peeples
February 7, 2013
In 1991, as part of Operation Desert Storm, former U.S. Army Spc. Candy Lovett arrived in Kuwait a healthy 29-year-old eager to serve her country. Two decades later, she's accumulated a stack of medical records over five feet high -- none of which relates to injuries inflicted by bullets or shrapnel.
"It's just been one thing after another," said the veteran, who now resides in Miami and whose ailments run the gamut from lung disease and sleep apnea to, most recently, terminal breast cancer. "At one point," she said, "I was on over 50 pills."
Former Air Force Tech. Sgt. Tim Wymore, who was deployed to Iraq in 2004, suffers from an array of health problems that mirror Lovett's. "Everyone has the same things," said Wymore, who has inexplicably shed 40 pounds in the last few months. "It's just weird."
Wymore and Lovett -- and countless others who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the desert region over the past three decades -- have struggled to understand this, but they share one nagging conviction: These ailments are tied to service in a war zone.
Their suspicions -- long rebuffed by insurance companies -- are now getting support from some doctors and environmental health researchers, who suspect that American soldiers are being unnecessarily exposed to heavily contaminated environments while serving overseas. Even when not engaged directly in combat, they say, servicemen and women -- typically without protective masks or other simple precautions -- live and work amid clouds of Middle Eastern dust laden with toxic metals, bacteria and viruses, and surrounded by plumes of smoke rising from burn pits, a common U.S. military practice of burning feces, plastic bottles and other solid waste in open pits, often with jet fuel.
Research published in December 2012 raises the possibility that in some instances, soldiers may have been exposed to airborne cocktails that included low levels of a deadly chemical warfare agent, the nerve gas sarin, which wafted hundreds of miles from U.S.-bombed Iraqi facilities.
read more here
Monday, February 4, 2013
No record Marine Corps did testing on water at Camp Lejeune
No evidence Marine Corps conducted critical water test at Camp Lejeune
Tampa Bay Times
By William R. Levesque
Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, February 4, 2013
The Marine Corps has repeatedly argued federal law didn't regulate the cancer-causing pollutants that fouled the drinking water at Camp Lejeune until long after the contamination was discovered.
But the Corps' own regulations, starting in 1963, required water testing at the North Carolina base and other Marine bases using a method that some say could have provided a warning about tainted water, according to documents and interviews.
The method, called Carbon Chloroform Extract, or CCE, is a "technically practical procedure which will afford a large measure of protection against the presence of undetected toxic materials in finished drinking water," said the 1963 Manual of Naval Preventive Medicine, discussing requirements for all Navy and Marine bases.
The Marine Corps' regulations mandated such testing annually, or every two years if water quality was "stable."
But no record of CCE testing at Camp Lejeune can be found in the thousands of pages of documents detailing what some believe to be the worst drinking-water contamination in U.S. history.
read more here
Tampa Bay Times
By William R. Levesque
Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, February 4, 2013
The Marine Corps has repeatedly argued federal law didn't regulate the cancer-causing pollutants that fouled the drinking water at Camp Lejeune until long after the contamination was discovered.
But the Corps' own regulations, starting in 1963, required water testing at the North Carolina base and other Marine bases using a method that some say could have provided a warning about tainted water, according to documents and interviews.
The method, called Carbon Chloroform Extract, or CCE, is a "technically practical procedure which will afford a large measure of protection against the presence of undetected toxic materials in finished drinking water," said the 1963 Manual of Naval Preventive Medicine, discussing requirements for all Navy and Marine bases.
The Marine Corps' regulations mandated such testing annually, or every two years if water quality was "stable."
But no record of CCE testing at Camp Lejeune can be found in the thousands of pages of documents detailing what some believe to be the worst drinking-water contamination in U.S. history.
read more here
Friday, January 18, 2013
Command Sgt. Maj. James Hubbard's widow warning on burn pits
Woman blames husband, veteran's death on toxic smoke from burning waste pits
KCTV News
Posted: Jan 17, 2013
By Laura McCallister, Multimedia Producer
By Alice Barr, News Reporter
LEAVENWORTH, KS
President Barack Obama just signed into law a bill that may help veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who were exposed to a potential health risk - pits of burning waste.
A Leavenworth, KS, woman blames exposure to that toxic smoke for her husband's death and is speaking out about the danger he and other veterans faced.
With more than three decades of service to the U.S. Army, Command Sgt. Maj. James Hubbard certainly earned his place in Leavenworth National Cemetery. But proving the reasons he is now buried there were caused by his service turned out to be much more difficult.
read more here
KCTV News
Posted: Jan 17, 2013
By Laura McCallister, Multimedia Producer
By Alice Barr, News Reporter
LEAVENWORTH, KS
President Barack Obama just signed into law a bill that may help veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who were exposed to a potential health risk - pits of burning waste.
A Leavenworth, KS, woman blames exposure to that toxic smoke for her husband's death and is speaking out about the danger he and other veterans faced.
With more than three decades of service to the U.S. Army, Command Sgt. Maj. James Hubbard certainly earned his place in Leavenworth National Cemetery. But proving the reasons he is now buried there were caused by his service turned out to be much more difficult.
read more here
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Chief Warrant Officer's worst enemy turned out to be burning garbage
Burn pit exposure cuts Poquoson soldier's career short
January 13, 2013
By Hugh Lessig
POQUOSON
Before he got sick, before the tremors, memory lapses and surgeries, Chief Warrant Officer Jeff Lamprecht guarded his buddies from an Apache attack helicopter, with Hellfire missiles at his fingertips.
The 40-year-old Poquoson native completed four combat deployments from 2003 to 2010: three to Iraq and one to Afghanistan.
He'd go back tomorrow if he could.
The narrow front seat of the lethal gunship was his second home, surrounded by laser range finders and target designators, a video monitor near his lap, a side-mounted helmet camera that offered a view similar to a two-way mirror.
That kind of multitasking and razor-sharp communication would be impossible today. Lamprecht can't feel much below his knees, and the simple act of standing up can make him dizzy.
"Sometimes my feet don't do what I want them to," he said. "I'll stammer my tongue. I know what I want to say, but my tongue just vapor-locks and I won't make the word."
He can't blame the Taliban or al-Qaida, and it wasn't battle stress or nerves.
His worst enemy turned out to be burning garbage.
read more here
January 13, 2013
By Hugh Lessig
POQUOSON
Before he got sick, before the tremors, memory lapses and surgeries, Chief Warrant Officer Jeff Lamprecht guarded his buddies from an Apache attack helicopter, with Hellfire missiles at his fingertips.
The 40-year-old Poquoson native completed four combat deployments from 2003 to 2010: three to Iraq and one to Afghanistan.
He'd go back tomorrow if he could.
The narrow front seat of the lethal gunship was his second home, surrounded by laser range finders and target designators, a video monitor near his lap, a side-mounted helmet camera that offered a view similar to a two-way mirror.
That kind of multitasking and razor-sharp communication would be impossible today. Lamprecht can't feel much below his knees, and the simple act of standing up can make him dizzy.
"Sometimes my feet don't do what I want them to," he said. "I'll stammer my tongue. I know what I want to say, but my tongue just vapor-locks and I won't make the word."
He can't blame the Taliban or al-Qaida, and it wasn't battle stress or nerves.
His worst enemy turned out to be burning garbage.
read more here
Friday, January 11, 2013
Burn-pit registry for veterans signed into law
Burn-pit registry for veterans signed into law
Army Times
By Patricia Kime
Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 10, 2013
President Obama signed legislation Thursday requiring the Veterans Affairs Department to establish a registry for troops and veterans who lived and worked near open-air burn pits used to dispose waste in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas.
In addition to including new requirements for providing a casket or urn for veterans with no known next of kin and establishing care for a military cemetery in the Philippines, the Dignified Burial and Other Veterans Benefits Improvement Act, S. 3202, aims to pinpoint the number of veterans who may have been exposed to burn-pit smoke so VA can track their medical histories and keep them apprised of new treatments for associated conditions.
Troops deployed in support of contingency operations and stationed at a location where an open burn pit was used will be eligible to register.
Veterans advocacy groups and families of service members who have become ill since their deployments hailed passage of the law as a “victory.”
read more here
Also
Obama signs Katie's Law, burn pit registry bills
Army Times
By Patricia Kime
Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 10, 2013
President Obama signed legislation Thursday requiring the Veterans Affairs Department to establish a registry for troops and veterans who lived and worked near open-air burn pits used to dispose waste in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas.
In addition to including new requirements for providing a casket or urn for veterans with no known next of kin and establishing care for a military cemetery in the Philippines, the Dignified Burial and Other Veterans Benefits Improvement Act, S. 3202, aims to pinpoint the number of veterans who may have been exposed to burn-pit smoke so VA can track their medical histories and keep them apprised of new treatments for associated conditions.
Troops deployed in support of contingency operations and stationed at a location where an open burn pit was used will be eligible to register.
Veterans advocacy groups and families of service members who have become ill since their deployments hailed passage of the law as a “victory.”
read more here
Also
Obama signs Katie's Law, burn pit registry bills
Friday, November 16, 2012
Six Marines served together at Camp Lejeune, only one is healthy now
Local Marines die, face health issues years after service at Camp Lejeune
Nov 15, 2012
Written by
Roger Weeder
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Section 7, Site 584 is where you will find Robin Yerdon's final resting place at Jacksonville's National Cemetery.
He's one of six Terry Parker High graduates who joined the Marines in 1977. Of the six, three are dead, two have serious health issues following their service at Camp Lejeune. Only one is healthy.
Kyle Yerdon said dad never talked much about Camp Lejeune.
"I'm just really devastated that it all happened, really. I don't understand how our government could ever think about covering that up," Kyle Yerdon said.
PART 1: First Coast vets speak out on impact of contaminated water at Camp Lejeune
Kyle and his brother no longer have a dad. Kyle said he is just learning details of the tainted ground water at Camp Lejeune that likely explains what happened.
A million gallons of aviation fuel that leaked with benzene, vinyl chloride and tetrcloroenthylene is causing health issues. Marines and their families who can prove they spent at least one month on base some time turning a 30-year span starting in 1957 are eligible for help.
read more here
Nov 15, 2012
Written by
Roger Weeder
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Section 7, Site 584 is where you will find Robin Yerdon's final resting place at Jacksonville's National Cemetery.
He's one of six Terry Parker High graduates who joined the Marines in 1977. Of the six, three are dead, two have serious health issues following their service at Camp Lejeune. Only one is healthy.
Kyle Yerdon said dad never talked much about Camp Lejeune.
"I'm just really devastated that it all happened, really. I don't understand how our government could ever think about covering that up," Kyle Yerdon said.
PART 1: First Coast vets speak out on impact of contaminated water at Camp Lejeune
Kyle and his brother no longer have a dad. Kyle said he is just learning details of the tainted ground water at Camp Lejeune that likely explains what happened.
A million gallons of aviation fuel that leaked with benzene, vinyl chloride and tetrcloroenthylene is causing health issues. Marines and their families who can prove they spent at least one month on base some time turning a 30-year span starting in 1957 are eligible for help.
read more here
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Oregon National Guardsmen win $85 million from KBR
This happened when Congress didn't give a damn and KBR made a lot of money. This is how National Guards Soldiers were treated but too many didn't care to pay attention.
Iraq War Contractor Ordered to Pay $85 Million
By NIGEL DUARA and STEVEN DUBOIS
Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore.
November 3, 2012
(AP)
A jury on Friday ordered an American military contractor to pay $85 million after finding it guilty of negligence for illnesses suffered by a dozen Oregon soldiers who guarded an oilfield water plant during the Iraq war.
After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for just two days before reaching a decision against the contractor, Kellogg Brown and Root.
The suit was the first concerning soldiers' exposure to a toxin at a water plant in southern Iraq. The soldiers said they suffer from respiratory ailments after their exposure to sodium dichromate, and they fear that a carcinogen the toxin contains, hexavalent chromium, could cause cancer later in life.
Rocky Bixby, the soldier whose name appeared on the suit, said the verdict should reflect a punishment for the company's neglect of U.S. soldiers.
"This was about showing that they cannot get away with treating soldiers like that," Bixby said. "It should show them what they did was wrong, prove what they did was wrong and punish them for what they did."
Each soldier received $850,000 in noneconomic damages and $6.25 million in punitive damages.
Another suit from Oregon Guardsmen is on hold while the Portland trial plays out. There are also suits pending in Texas involving soldiers from Texas, Indiana and West Virginia.
KBR was found guilty of negligence but not a secondary claim of fraud.
read more here
Oregon National Guardsmen still fighting for justice after Iraq
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Oregon National Guardsmen still fighting for justice after Iraq
While they were sure they were willing to face the risks of combat in Iraq, they had no clue they had to fear something else happening to them by a company paid by their own country.
National Guardsmen’s suit accusing Iraq War contractor KBR of concealing toxic danger begins
By Associated Press
Published: October 10
PORTLAND, Ore. — A war contractor knew a critical southern Iraq oilfield plant was riddled with a well-known toxin but ignored the risk to soldiers while hurrying the project along, firing a whistleblower and covering up the presence of the chemical when faced with exposure, the soldiers’ attorney said in opening arguments Wednesday in a federal civil suit.
An attorney for the contractor, Kellogg, Brown and Root, fired back in his opening salvo of a trial expected to last weeks that the soldiers’ injuries weren’t a result of their exposure to the toxin, called sodium dichromate. Geoffrey L. Harrison argued that the company had no knowledge of the chemical’s presence at the plant and when they found it, they promptly and repeatedly warned the military of the danger.
A jury of six men and six women will decide whether the company is culpable for 12 Oregon National Guardsmen’s exposure to the toxin, a known carcinogen, and whether that exposure led to their ongoing respiratory illnesses. The soldiers will also try to show that the fear of future illnesses is causing them to suffer emotional distress.
read more here
Iraq contractor seeks appeal from law suit
Saturday, September 22, 2012
More trouble for Camp Lejeune families
Camp Lejeune shuts down water treatment plant after mercury found
By: ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOURNALNOW STAFF
The Associated Press
Published: September 22, 2012
RALEIGH
Camp Lejeune, the coastal Marine base with a history of problems with its drinking water, shut down one of its water-treatment plants after about 8 pounds of the type of mercury found in thermometers was discovered last week in a pipe in the facility.
Elemental mercury was found Saturday in the pipe at Hadnot Point Water Treatment Plant during maintenance, base spokesman Nat Fahy said Friday. Tests conducted after the discovery showed none of the elemental mercury in the water, Fahy said.
read more here
By: ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOURNALNOW STAFF
The Associated Press
Published: September 22, 2012
RALEIGH
Camp Lejeune, the coastal Marine base with a history of problems with its drinking water, shut down one of its water-treatment plants after about 8 pounds of the type of mercury found in thermometers was discovered last week in a pipe in the facility.
Elemental mercury was found Saturday in the pipe at Hadnot Point Water Treatment Plant during maintenance, base spokesman Nat Fahy said Friday. Tests conducted after the discovery showed none of the elemental mercury in the water, Fahy said.
read more here
Monday, September 17, 2012
Fort McClellan: More Toxic Than Camp Lejeune?
Fort McClellan: More Toxic Than Camp Lejeune?
Posted by Levi Newman
Fort McClellan is the former home of the U.S. Army Military Police and U.S. Army Chemical Schools. Located in Anniston, Ala., it was one of the largest training posts the Army had to offer before the Environmental Protection Agency closed the fort down in 1999. Nearly 500,000 men were trained there during WWII, and hundreds of thousands of others used this installation to hone their military skills during the post’s 82-year history.
Countless brave men and women spilled blood, sweat and tears over the training grounds. Everyone lived in close quarters and prepared for combat abroad — much like any other fort. But throughout the fort’s long run, there was a dark secret that nobody — save a chemical company — knew about.
Between 1933 and 1999, Fort McClellan was constantly exposed to major biochemical health hazards, including ionizing radiation and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Think about that for a second.
The people living at or around Fort McClellan were soaking up PCBs and other caustic chemicals through the air, water, soil and wildlife, all over a 66-year span. Soldiers were laying in them on the firing range, they filled their canteens with them during “hydration formations,” and they breathed them in while they ran “Cardiac Hill.” And they never suspected a thing.
read more here
Posted by Levi Newman
Fort McClellan is the former home of the U.S. Army Military Police and U.S. Army Chemical Schools. Located in Anniston, Ala., it was one of the largest training posts the Army had to offer before the Environmental Protection Agency closed the fort down in 1999. Nearly 500,000 men were trained there during WWII, and hundreds of thousands of others used this installation to hone their military skills during the post’s 82-year history.
Countless brave men and women spilled blood, sweat and tears over the training grounds. Everyone lived in close quarters and prepared for combat abroad — much like any other fort. But throughout the fort’s long run, there was a dark secret that nobody — save a chemical company — knew about.
Between 1933 and 1999, Fort McClellan was constantly exposed to major biochemical health hazards, including ionizing radiation and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Think about that for a second.
The people living at or around Fort McClellan were soaking up PCBs and other caustic chemicals through the air, water, soil and wildlife, all over a 66-year span. Soldiers were laying in them on the firing range, they filled their canteens with them during “hydration formations,” and they breathed them in while they ran “Cardiac Hill.” And they never suspected a thing.
read more here
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Woman exposed to Camp Lejeune toxic chemicals has MS
Woman Claims Camp Lejeune Made Her Sick
Posted: Sep 04, 2012
By Mark Kelly
Lynchburg, VA - A local woman's connection to a story has gotten lots of national, even international attention.
It was 1981 when officials first said there could be a problem with the water at Camp Lejeune. They found a metal degreaser and a fuel compound in that water - the same water service members and their families used to cook, wash and drink.
Diana White now lives in Madison Heights, but she lived at Camp Lejeune as an infant and has fought for years to try to get her medical bills covered. Now, a new law is giving her hope.
In 2000, doctors diagnosed Diana White with Multiple Sclerosis. MS gives her pain in her hands, arms even eyes. No one in her family has MS, and she blames Camp Lejeune.
"It's disgusting because they destroyed me when I was still in my mom's womb. And they knew it," said White.
White's dad was a Marine. Her family lived on the base and drank the water.
"You bathed in it, you drank it, you washed in it," said White.
read more here
Posted: Sep 04, 2012
By Mark Kelly
It was 1981 when officials first said there could be a problem with the water at Camp Lejeune. They found a metal degreaser and a fuel compound in that water - the same water service members and their families used to cook, wash and drink.
Diana White now lives in Madison Heights, but she lived at Camp Lejeune as an infant and has fought for years to try to get her medical bills covered. Now, a new law is giving her hope.
In 2000, doctors diagnosed Diana White with Multiple Sclerosis. MS gives her pain in her hands, arms even eyes. No one in her family has MS, and she blames Camp Lejeune.
"It's disgusting because they destroyed me when I was still in my mom's womb. And they knew it," said White.
White's dad was a Marine. Her family lived on the base and drank the water.
"You bathed in it, you drank it, you washed in it," said White.
read more here
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