Veterans Still Waiting For Justice from VA After Camp Lejeune

No one gave Camp Lejeune Marines justice in the 80's, or the 90's or in the last decade. They knew serving this country as a Marine could be hazardous to their health if they deployed but they never thought it would be more dangerous just to live there.

Veterans express frustration to VA over Camp Lejeune benefits
Tampa Bay Times
William R. Levesque
Times Staff Writer
Saturday, December 5, 2015

"You're not helping us, you're hurting us. The more you delay, the more of us who are going to die. And we thank you very much for that." said Camp Lejeune veteran Paul Maslow, 64, of Daytona Beach, who said he has inoperable tumors on his spine and elsewhere in his body.

ZACK WITTMAN Times
Camp Lejeune veterans and community members listen to epidemiologists discuss tainted water at the base during a panel hosted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

TAMPA — Robert Shuster of Hudson stood up Saturday at a public meeting with the Department of Veterans Affairs and federal scientists studying the health effects of polluted drinking at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

He held up two pieces of paper. One was the surgical pathology report Shuster sent to the VA that diagnosed him with sarcoma. The other document was a letter from the VA denying his claim for benefits, saying in stilted language the disease did not exist in him — he didn't have a malignancy.

"How can it not exist?" Shuster, 54, asked plaintively.

About 150 Marine Corps veterans and family members crowded a room at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay for a town hall meeting to hear VA officials and federal scientists provide an update on work studying contamination at the North Carolina base.

The VA representatives heard great frustration from veterans about their difficulties in getting the agency to provide benefits for those who were sickened by the water.

Up to a million veterans were exposed to what scientists consider one of the nation's worst episodes of water contamination. Drinking water at the base was tainted with a stew of industrial solvents and components of gasoline for at least 30 years ending in the 1980s.

Tens of thousands of those veterans and their family members now live in Florida, the state with the second-highest number of potential victims behind North Carolina, federal figures show.
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Iraq Veterans Sue KBR For Burn Pit Toxic Exposures

Five Casper veterans sue company over toxic burn pits in Iraq
Casper Star Tribune
Lillian Schrock
October 9, 2015

Five Casper military veterans filed a federal lawsuit Friday alleging they were exposed to toxic fumes when a Houston-based corporation improperly burned waste during the war in Iraq.

Ochs Law Firm filed the suit against KBR Inc. in the U.S. District Court of Wyoming. The suit is believed to be the first toxic burn pit case filed in Wyoming, according to the Casper-based law office.

The suit states KBR was hired to handle waste disposal for American operations in Iraq.

KBR failed to take necessary safety precautions and incinerated unsorted waste, including chemicals, in burn pits, exposing the soldiers to health-damaging toxins, the suit claims.
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ALSO

Vets Can Finally Sue Contractors for Cancer Caused by War
After the Supreme Court found that KBR could be sued over the burn pits it operated on bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, I received a memo from an Air Force bioenvironmental flight commander, Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, saying that the troops at Air Base Balad were being exposed to “an acute health hazard.”

At that point, no one had reported on the burn pits, which were used by the military and its contractors to dispose of trash at almost every base in Iraq and Afghanistan.

New Mexico

Ailing vets sue, say toxic burn pits cost them their health

KBR, Halliburton Found Not Immune in Burn-Pit Suits
March 6 (Bloomberg) -- KBR Inc. and Halliburton Co. aren’t automatically immune from lawsuits by military service members over illnesses caused by exposure to contractor burn pits, a U.S. appeals court said, reversing a lower court ruling. KBR is only entitled to immunity if it adhered to the terms of its contract with the government, something the district court failed to explore adequately, U.S. Circuit Judge Henry Floyd wrote in sending the case back for further proceedings.

There are a lot more like this one from 2010

Houston National Guard troops file suit over Camp Taji burn pits
Ill wind blows, some in Houston Guard unit believe
Baghdad burn pit operated by KBR said to cause migraines, breathing problems and rashes
By LINDSAY WISE and LISE OLSEN
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Feb. 1, 2010

CAMP TAJI, Iraq — One night in mid-January, a shift in the wind sent a sudden flurry of white flakes into a detainee internment facility guarded by soldiers from Houston’s 72nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

The Texas Army National Guard troops weren’t witnessing a rare Baghdad snowfall. The flakes drifting from the pitch-dark sky were ash and bits of charred trash belched from an open-air burn pit about 100 yards from the outer walls of the internment facility.

Operated by Houston-based contractor KBR, the pit consumes 120 tons of garbage a day here at Camp Taji, a U.S. military base north of Baghdad. On calm days, noxious smoke billows upward and dissipates into a smog-like haze. When the wind blows, the acrid-smelling fumes pour into towers and yards where about 800 Texas troops from the 72nd keep watch.

“It hovers over like a blanket,” said Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Ethier, 36, of Montgomery. “After it rains, you’ll get puddles of stuff. It’s like a yellowish, brackish color. It looks metallic. It’s just disgusting.”

Soldiers say a fine layer of soot settles on their uniforms and black goop comes out when they blow their noses. They complain of migraines, breathing problems, coughs, sore throats, irritated eyes and skin rashes.

The Texas Guard troops aren’t the first to report problems from exposure to burn pits at U.S. military bases across Iraq and Afghanistan.

Veterans Discover Death By Camp Lejeune Chemicals

Veterans denied disability benefits by VA 
Veterans exposed to Camp Lejeune water contamination fight for benefits
WKMG News 6
Author: Tara Evans, Producer Published
On: May 15 2015

DUNNELLON, Fla. - A Central Florida veteran is fighting for his life, as well as disability and insurance benefits, after he said the kidney cancer that is costing him his life was caused by water contamination at Camp Lejeune. He said thousands of others are in the same boat, many of whom, live in Central Florida. He said many might not even be aware their illnesses could possibly have been caused by the toxic water.

Scientists said from January 1, 1953, to December 31, 1987, two water treatment plants on the North Carolina base were contaminated with several chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and benzene, which are known or suspected human carcinogens. Those water systems were Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point, and included several wells.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found the contamination was due to a dry cleaner on base, as well as leaking fuel and chemicals from other base activities. 

The Marine Corps said the affected wells have since been shut down and said the current drinking water meets all government standards and is tested more often than required. "Our Marine Corps family is very important to us and their health and welfare is a primary concern," said U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Maureen Krebs.

"The Marine Corps continues to work with ATSDR/VA to help identify service members and their families that may have been exposed, and are therefore potentially eligible for health care." But for more than 30 years, scientists maintain chemicals were in the water that Marines and their families were drinking, showering in, washing their clothes with, and cooking with.
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Court Overturns Justice for National Guard Soldiers

Court overturns $85 million award for Oregon soldiers
AP
By Steven Dubois
May 14, 2015

A federal jury in Portland found KBR guilty of negligence after a three-week trial in late 2012. Each of the 12 soldiers was awarded $850,000 in noneconomic damages and $6.25 million in punitive damages.

PORTLAND, Ore. — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an $85 million jury award to a dozen Oregon National Guard soldiers who said they were sickened from guarding a water treatment plant during the Iraq War.

The military contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root successfully argued that Oregon was not the proper jurisdiction for the case. KBR is based in Houston, and similar cases filed by soldiers from Indiana, West Virginia and South Carolina are pending in federal court there.

“We are thrilled with the result; it is the right result and we look forward to a successful conclusion to this and all the legacy tort claims that relate to KBR’s work supporting the U.S. military in Iraq,” KBR attorney Geoffrey Harrison said by phone Thursday.
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Tucson Veteran's Guardian Angels Have Big Hearts Deep Pockets

Anonymous donor pays off Tucson veteran's $217K mortgage 
KVOA News 4 Tucson
Written By Lauren Reimer
May 11, 2015

Those troubles are over. An anonymous donor saw the story we ran last Tuesday, and with the help of two quick working realtors, paid off the mortgage on the building, a total of $217,000.

TUCSON - A Tucson veteran has found his guardian angel. Facing foreclosure, and terminal cancer, Bob O'Rourke and his wife Kathy are now breathing a sigh of relief.

Just last week, they feared they would lose their home and business.

Thanks to some of our viewers, their worries are now fewer.

"I never would have thought it was going to happen to me,” said Bob.

Bob has cancer, believed to be connected to drinking contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in the 1970's.

Pain makes it so he can only work a few days a week.

The mortgage went unpaid, and his application for disability from the VA went unanswered.

"I figured they were going to auction the building and I'd get a call and they'd tell me how long I have to move out," said O'Rourke.
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Camp Lejeune Marine Battles to Live After Chemical Exposure

Former Marine fights for disability benefits after chemical exposure
KVOA News
Written By Lauren Reimer
May 5, 2015

TUCSON - A Tucson veteran who thought his fighting days were over is now in a battle he can't seem to win. It's against the very organization that's supposed to help him and other vets deal with the effects of war.

His case goes back 40 years, but now his time is running out.

Stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina off and on for three years back in the 70's, former Marine, Robert O'Rourke, is one of thousands possibly exposed to drinking water contaminated with dangerous chemicals.

With his health declining, he filed for veterans' benefits and qualified, but had his claim for disability denied.

"I have kidney cancer, lung, liver, and now it's in my bone in back," said O'Rourke.

In 2012, a new law made it possible for veterans and civilians who lived at camp Lejeune between 1957 and 1987 to receive VA health benefits if they were diagnosed with any of 15 listed health conditions.

O'Rourke qualified, and now has his medical expenses and prescriptions paid for.

"Their medical care is fantastic," said O'Rourke. "They took care of everything right away."

The cancer will never leave his body. "Eventually it's going to kill me," he said.

This makes working nearly impossible. A jeweler by trade, the 60-year-old is not yet eligible for social security. He thought he would apply for disability, but was denied.
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Camp Lejeune Contamination Victims Include Thousands in Florida

Thousands in Florida potential victims of Marine camp contamination 
Orlando Sentinel
By Elyssa Cherney
March 21, 2015

Christina Peach, 39, was diagnosed with stage 1 kidney cancer last year. Peach, who was born on the Marine base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, attributes her illness to contaminated groundwater she may have consumed while living nearby in 1975. Her father , Michael Hightower also died
(Tom Benitez, Orlando Sentinel)

Christina Peach's parents welcomed a seemingly healthy baby into the world in 1975 at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Camp Lejeune, the North Carolina base where her father was stationed as a Marine sergeant.

Seven years later, a chemical consulting company found that water from the emergency-room sink contained 1,400 parts per billion of trichloroethylene — 280 times its regulatory limit for drinking water today — which "has been reported to produce liver and kidney damage and central nervous system disturbances in humans," according to a memo from Grainger Laboratories in 1982.

Peach, 39, who now lives in Mount Dora, believes the water she was exposed to in utero and as an infant is responsible for the kidney cancer she developed last year and for her father's premature death.

Doctors discovered the mass growing on her right kidney when she got a CT scan for appendicitis in January 2014. Her father, Michael Hightower, 61, died 10 months later from lung cancer that had spread to his brain, bladder and bones, she said.
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Twentynine Palms Marines Exposed to Banned Fire Retardant

22 Marines exposed to fire retardant in California accident
By Associated Press
Published: February 13, 2015

The U.S. banned new production of halon in the 1990s because it can deplete ozone in the atmosphere, but its use is still allowed.

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (AP) — Nearly two dozen Marines were treated for exposure to a fire retardant gas Thursday after an extinguishing system accidentally went off in an assault vehicle during a training exercise, but there were no serious injuries, officials said.

An equipment malfunction caused the fire suppression system to go off inside a tank-like amphibious assault vehicle during an afternoon exercise at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, base spokesman Dave Marks said.

There was no fire or explosion but 22 Marines were exposed to halon, Marks said.

All of them were taken to the base hospital. Three were kept overnight for observation and the rest were released to resume training, Marks said.
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Troops exposed to chemical warfare toxins in Iraq

Pentagon shrugged off troops' chemical exposure in Iraq
Defense officials are reaching out now to offer medical help
UPI News
By Mary Papenfuss
Nov. 6, 2014

The information about the large number of potential exposures emerged following an internal review of Pentagon records ordered by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel after an investigation by the New York Times initially found that 17 service members were injured by sarin or a sulfur mustard agent.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Some 629 U.S. troops reported suspicions that they had been exposed to chemical warfare toxins in Iraq, yet the Pentagon failed to adequately treat them or track possible exposures, defense officials have revealed.

Contact with the toxins occurred beginning in 2003 when troops found degraded chemical weapons from the 1980s hidden in underground caches or in makeshift bombs.
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VA to begin compensating family members of Camp Lejeune

VA vows to pay families sickened after exposure to Lejeune water
News Observer
BY MARTHA QUILLIN
October 31, 2014

Despite promises by the Department of Veterans Affairs, critics of the agency say they don’t trust it to help Marine Corps family members exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune because the VA is still fumbling the cases of sickened veterans two years after Congress ordered they be treated for free or at low cost.

The VA announced last week that it’s ready to begin compensating family members for the out-of-pocket costs they have incurred since March 2013 for 15 medical conditions associated with exposure to chemicals that entered the drinking water at the Eastern North Carolina military base. The Marine Corps has said the water was contaminated with more than a dozen chemicals, including known carcinogens, between 1957 and 1987.

The military has said that between 750,000 and 1 million people – veterans, family members and civilian workers – may have been exposed to contaminated water before the tainted sources were shut down.
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Chemical Weapons Exposures to Iraq Veterans Kept Secret

Report: Troops, vets to get checked for chemical exposure in Iraq
Stars and Stripes
Published: October 30, 2014

The Pentagon will offer medical examinations and long-term health monitoring to servicemembers and veterans exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq as part of a review of how the military handled encounters with chemical munitions during the American occupation, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

An Oct. 15 Times story found that while the United States had gone to war looking for an active weapons of mass destruction program, troops instead quietly found and suffered from the remnants of the long abandoned arsenal.

Since that article, which detailed instances of exposure that the military kept secret in some cases for nearly a decade, more veterans and servicemembers have come forward, the Times reported. To date, neither the Pentagon nor any of the services have released a full list of chemical weapons recoveries and exposures.

The Times found that the military did not follow its own guidelines in the initial care of many patients, and did not establish a means for tracking their health, as guidelines also required.

In response, two senior Army doctors said in interviews this week that new medical examinations for troops and veterans who were exposed to chemical munitions would begin in early 2015. The Navy too has announced it will ramp up care.
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Toxic Battlefields Burn Pits Leave Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Fighting for Their Lives

'Toxic battlefield'
Many tie Iraq, Afghanistan War veterans' illnesses to burn pits, dust
Live Well Nebraska
By Steve Liewer
World-Herald staff writer
Posted: Sunday, October 12, 2014

U.S. MARINE CORPS
Burn pits used especially in the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to destroy trash sent piles of wood, paper, medical waste, metal, plastics and even human waste up in smoke.

Jeff Flint remembers the sandstorms that regularly cloaked his military base in Iraq in a choking darkness.

And the black smoke, from the base’s fiery 10-acre garbage pit, that frequently blanketed both the gate where he stood guard and the tent where he slept during his yearlong deployment with the Nebraska National Guard in 2006-07.

“It was constant, 24 hours a day. It made you sick, nauseated,” said Flint, 45, of Fremont, Nebraska. “Put a dome over a city, and that’s what it was like.”

The hacking cough he developed more than seven years ago has never gone away. And it’s been joined by the tingling in his body and the numbness in his hands from multiple sclerosis, which he was diagnosed with two years after his return.

Flint is among tens of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan War vets who have developed chronic illnesses since returning from the war zones. Many — including Flint and his brother, John, who served with him and also has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis — are convinced they are sick because of noxious stuff they breathed in during their deployments.

“It’s just a toxic battlefield,” said Dan Sullivan, president and CEO of the Sergeant Sullivan Center, a nonprofit organization that supports veterans with post-deployment health problems.
“You’ve got a bunch of toxic stuff floating around in an atmosphere that picks everything up.
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Fort McClellan Veterans Sick and Dying From Toxic Exposures

Sick veterans who served at shuttered, toxic Army base turn to Congress, VA for help
FoxNews.com
By Barnini Chakraborty
Published September 19, 2014

VetFriends.com

WASHINGTON – Sue Frasier spent the first six months of her military career at Alabama's Fort McClellan. But that short stint -- 44 years ago at an Army base the EPA later would find so toxic it would shut it down -- was all it took for her to start getting sick, she says.

Her problems began shortly after completing boot camp in 1970 at the Anniston, Ala., base. Today, she says she's coping with asthma, a life-threatening gastrointestinal disease that required surgery, and fibromyalgia that results in long-term pain and tenderness in her joints and muscles.

"It hurts everywhere, but at least I can still walk and talk," she told FoxNews.com.

Frasier is among thousands of veterans who were stationed at the former Army base who believe they were exposed to dangerous polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. They repeatedly have turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs for help, seeking aid for medical treatment and a formal study of their ailments -- but say their pleas have been largely ignored or buried in red tape for decades. Today, they're looking to fresh leadership at the VA, and allies in Congress, to finally take on their case.

The true cause of the veterans' ailments has never been officially determined. Fort McClellan housed several Army components, including a division for chemical weapons training and research. But many veterans suspect they were sickened by chemicals dumped near Anniston by Monsanto Co., which had facilities in the area and disposed of chemicals near the base.

Two pieces of legislation have been introduced to deal with the veterans' medical claims. A proposed Senate bill would establish a national center for research on the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions of the descendants of veterans exposed to toxic substances during service in the Armed Forces. The bill has not advanced.

Over on the House side, a bill more specific to Frasier and similar veterans' claims, and backed by Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., would require the VA to create a registry of everyone who served at Fort McClellan from 1935 to 1999. It then would require the department to reach out to those veterans and offer health exams and information about the effects of toxic exposure. It also would open up disability payments to the veterans.

The House bill, though, has been stuck in congressional gridlock for five years and hasn't made its way out of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
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U.S. taxpayer dollars going up in smoke in Afghanistan

U.S. troops in Afghanistan sent waste to open burn pits, report finds
LA Times
By DAVID ZUCCHINO
July 21, 2014

Although the U.S. has spent millions to build incinerators in Afghanistan to avoid exposing anyone to toxic smoke from open burning, American troops sent waste to an Afghan-operated open pit for five months last year, according to an inspector general’s report issued late Monday.

The Afghans continued to burn their own dangerous waste -- including batteries, tires and plastic -- in the pit because they didn’t want to spend money on fuel to run new, U.S.-provided incinerators, which stood unused behind a locked gate, the report found.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s report said the incidents violate a 2010 Pentagon prohibition against using such pits except in extraordinary circumstances. U.S. forces did not notify Congress, as required, to seek an exemption from the ban, the report said.

“This is another case of U.S. taxpayer dollars going up in smoke,” said John F. Sopko, the inspector general. “Congress was never told about it -- and worst of all, the health of U.S. troops has been put needlessly at risk.”
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EPA: Fort Carson dumped 143,000 pounds of chemicals into Colorado waterways

News 5 Investigates: 143,000 pounds of chemicals from Fort Carson found in Colorado waterways
KOAA News
Eric Ross
July 2, 2014

Data obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency shows nearly 850,000 pounds of toxic chemicals ended up in Colorado rivers and streams in 2012.

News 5 uncovers one of the largest offenders is Fort Carson. Digging deeper, we learned the military post has a history of violations. Some violations were verbal or written warnings, while others resulted in hefty fines.

According to the EPA, 143,000 pounds of toxic chemicals from Fort Carson made their way into Clover Ditch which runs into Fountain Creek.

"We don't want any toxins in our water," El Paso County Commissioner Dennis Hisey said.

We brought our findings to Hisey, who just so happens to serve on the board for the Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District.

"Regardless of whether it's in our stream or in our drinking cup, what we need to be concerned about is what's in the cup," Hisey said.
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Housing Complex for OEF and OIF Veterans Contaminated

CONTAMINATED SOIL FOUND AT LONG ISLAND HOUSING COMPLEX FOR VETERANS
WABC News New York
Wednesday, June 11, 2014

ISLANDIA (WABC) -- Authorities have made a disturbing discovery at a Long Island housing development for veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Officials in Suffolk County say test results show contaminated soil at Veterans Way in Islandia, where six affordable housing homes were built for veterans.

The ground tested positive for hazardous pesticides, metals and petroleum.

The Suffolk County Water Authority and health department have been contacted to test the well water.

Among the contaminants found at the Veteran's Way development were petroleum byproducts, pesticides including DDT and chlordane, and metals such as chromium, cobalt, lead, nickel and zinc.

"The highest levels of contamination were found to be in the berm on the property, and that means the fill in the berm has to be removed," Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota said. "We have called in the Suffolk County Water Authority and the County Health Department to review these results and develop plans for well testing and other measures to ensure the safety of the drinking water for this development."
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OEF OIF Veterans Burning For You

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 21, 2014

Burn Pits have been making troops sick and Congress was fixing it in 2008. If you think any of what is going on with our troops and veterans is new, it isn't. It has been one long nightmare for all of them.

This is another reminder of what Congress did not take care of. Aside from the troubles with the VA, there are so many other things Congress could have fixed but they played politics with the troops the same as they played politics with our veterans. It is like a game to them but the men and women serving this country had to pay for it.

Seven members of Congress have added their names to a growing list of legislators concerned about service members who say burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan have made them sick.

“It has come to our attention that a growing number of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming sick and dying from what appears to be overexposure to dangerous toxins produced by burn pits used to destroy waste,” reads a letter from Rep. Tim Bishop, D-N.Y., to Eric Shinseki, the new secretary of veterans affairs. “Further conversations with other veterans have revealed that the armed forces have not investigated this threat adequately.”

That piece of news didn't come out last year or the year before. It came out in 2009.

What did Congress do? They wrote a bill.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., would amend Title 38 of the U.S. Code, which deals with veterans benefits, by adding a passage stating that a veteran exposed in the line of duty to “an occupational and environmental health chemical hazard of particular concern” is eligible for hospital care, medical services and nursing home care for any disability, even if there is “insufficient medical evidence to conclude that such disability may be associated with exposure.”

The bill comes in the wake of a series of hearings about troops being exposed to carcinogenic material at Qarmat Ali water treatment plant in Iraq; a sulfur fire in Mosul, Iraq; and burn-pit smoke throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

The veterans felt they had no other choice but to sue KBR in 2010.

Some 241 military personnel and contractors who became ill after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are suing a Houston-based firm, claiming they were poisoned by smoke from trash fires, the Washington Post reported Friday.

The claimants, who are from 42 states, are suffering from a range of conditions including cancer and severe breathing problems, which they blame on the thick, black smoke. The symptoms were reportedly nicknamed "Iraqi crud" by troops.

They are taking legal action against Kellogg Brown & Root, which operated more than two dozen burn-pits in the two countries, the Post reported. It used to be a subsidiary of Halliburton, which is a also a defendant in the case.

Veterans Returning Home From Iraq, Afghanistan Point To Open Air Burn Pits As New ‘Agent Orange’
CBS News
Ken Bastida
May 20, 2014

They’ve filed class action lawsuits, alleging the operator of the pits KBR and its former parent company Halliburton acted negligently. KBR denies that, and argues as a military contractor it shares the same immunity as the government from lawsuits over war related injuries.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Hundreds of veterans coming back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are falling ill and many are dying of what’s being called the new “Agent Orange”: open air burn pits.

There’s no proven cause but vets and their families say they know why.

Lieutenant Colonel Gwen Chiaramonte is proud to have served her country. At Balad Air Force Base in Iraq she was a combat stress therapist, familiar with exposure to danger off base. “You worry but you think you just have to live,” she said.

Now she believes there was danger from within too: An open air pit where the base’s garbage was burned. “They they just threw everything in. Vehicles, tires, plastic bottles, trash, medical waste, dead animals. Then they would pour jet fuel on it and just light it,” she said.

Chiaramonte says the burn pit spewed columns of ashy smoke that often blew right into her nearby housing unit. “It would smell like it would be on fire,” she said.

She started getting constant nose bleeds. Then when she got home, the really bad news: A rare form of aggressive ovarian cancer.
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This makes all of this seem even worse since this is what came out in 2008

Monday, December 1, 2008

Senator Akaka wants answers on burn pit toxins

Akaka wants DoD, VA to review war-zone toxins

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 1, 2008 19:08:25 EST

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has asked that the co-chairs of the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs Oversight Committee begin a review of environmental toxins — including those coming from burn pits — at bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Reports of possible exposure to smoke from burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan have come to the committee’s attention,” Akaka wrote in a letter dated Dec. 1. “Concerns about such exposure would appear to be an ideal opportunity for focused efforts to track the location of service members in relation to the possible exposure sites.”

The letter was addressed to Gordon England, deputy defense secretary, and Gordon Mansfield, deputy VA secretary.

Marine's wife grieves after burn pit in Iraq killed husband in Colorado

'Our plan was to grow old together': Heartbroken widow of decorated Marine, 33, who succumbed to cancer blames his early death on controversial burn pits in Iraq
Daily Mail UK
By SNEJANA FARBEROV
23 April 2014

The family of a retired 33-year-old U.S. Marine who succumbed to cancer over the weekend believe that his untimely death was the direct result of his exposure to open-air burn pits in Iraq.

Sean Terry, a married father of three from Littleton, Colorado, passed away Saturday after a seven-month battle with terminal esophageal cancer.

‘We had plans. Our plans were to grow old together and raise our kids together. We can't do that now,’ his wife Robyn Terry told 9News just days before his death.

Mrs Terry and the veteran's friends insist that the Marine who earned a Purple Heart while serving in Iraq in 2005-2006 was sickened by toxins from burns pits, which for years had been used in Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of waste.

According to information available on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs site, at this time, research does not show evidence of long-term health problems associated with exposure to burn pits.

However, the agency's site concedes that 'toxins in burns pits may affect the skin, eyes, respiratory respiratory and cardiovascular systems, gastrointestinal tract and internal organs.’

The portal goes on to say that most of the irritation is temporary and resolves once the exposure is gone. ‘This includes eye irritation and burning, coughing and throat irritation, breathing difficulties, and skin itching and rashes,’ the statement reads.

The VA's page also cites a 2011 Institute of Medicine study, which found that high levels of fine dust and pollution in Iraq and Afghanistan 'may pose a greater danger to respiratory illnesses than exposure to burn pits.'
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VA Open Air Burn Pit Registry Late

Senators Press VA to Explain Delay in Burn Pit Registry
NBC News
BY BILL BRIGGS
March 18, 2014

Two U.S. senators insisted Tuesday that Veterans Affairs Secretary Erik Shinseki reveal why his agency is nearly three months late in creating a legally-mandated registry of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans potentially poisoned — some lethally — by exposure to toxic trash-fire trenches.

The so-called "burn pits," scattered throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, spewed acrid smoke while breaking down damaged Humvees, ordnance, mattresses, rocket launchers, and even amputated body parts. Some were ignited by jet fuel.

Perhaps the largest such dump was in Balad, Iraq, spanning the length of 10 football fields. The plumes produced have been dubbed "this generation's Agent Orange."

On Jan. 10, 2013, President Barack Obama signed a law giving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs one year to create and maintain the Open Air Burn Pit Registry, meant to identify and monitor veterans who inhaled the pollutants. The VA also was directed to later report its findings to Congress.
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Iraq War did not end for those we sent

Study: Soil dust suspected in illnesses among Iraq vets
Navy researcher says DoD falls short in addressing threat
Air Force Times
By Patricia Kime
Staff writer
Feb. 20, 2014

When Army Sgt. Jayson Williams deployed to Iraq in 2003, he was a healthy 33-year-old who enjoyed the outdoors, running and playing with his son.

When he returned home, he found he couldn’t do routine chores without becoming exhausted or needing to take deep breaths.

He deployed twice more, and his condition worsened. First thought to be emphysema, his diagnosis later was changed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. And after having an invasive lung biopsy, he received even grimmer news — constrictive bronchiolitis, an irreversible lung disease that robs a patient of lung function.

Williams thinks his condition is the result of smoke from a burn pit near his barracks and fumes of a sulfur mine fire that raged for a month near Mosul, spewing toxic materials into the air.

But a growing body of research indicates another factor may contribute to long-term respiratory diseases of veterans like Williams: microscopic dust particles containing heavy metals and other toxins.

A long-term study has found that 14 percent of deployed troops reported chronic respiratory symptoms such as cough, bronchitis, shortness of breath and asthma, compared with 10 percent who did not deploy. The results suggest specific exposures, rather than long exposures, may play a role — particularly among ground troops who deployed to the desert environment of the Persian Gulf.
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