Burn Pits - Today's Agent Orange
[Editorial written by Jerry Donnellan
February 2017]

You know -- I would have thought today’s troops could have found their own poison, and not have to borrow one from our war in Vietnam.

You remember Agent Orange. Our friends at the Pentagon told us dumb vets it was just a weed killer when they first started spraying it in ‘Nam in ’61 or ’62. After testing it here in the States on military bases or on railroad tracks and high tension wires - ever wonder why nothing grew under the high tension wires?

A number of years ago, people who lived near these clearings began developing cancer. They looked up at the wire and talked about electromagnetic fields, when perhaps they should have been looking under their feet. That stuff has a half-life of 7 years.

Veterans of my war began developing illnesses that were unexplained. The VA coined the term, “Vietnam Syndrome.” They did this to explain this hodgepodge of illnesses and cancers. They even commissioned studies by the Health and Medicine Division, previously known as the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Medicine (HMD). This “independent, objective analysis” was to show that Agent Orange wasn’t responsible for these illnesses. The HMD shaped the methodology and data to influence the outcome of the study to be what the VA wanted it to be.

At the time, we didn’t care. We were just happy to have gotten out of ‘Nam in one piece. Some of our fellow Vietnam vets began to do some research and encouraged others more experienced in the field, and found the dioxin in Agent Orange caused cancer.

This data was taken to Uncle Sam who didn’t want to hear it. So as a group we felt the only way to get attention was to sue. Since we couldn’t sue Uncle Sam, the decision was made to sue the manufacturers of Agent Orange. Primarily, Dow, Monsanto, and Diamond Shamrock. In the final analysis in 1984, we won 480 million dollars, which if nothing else called Uncle Sam’s bluff, and the VA then had to agree to begin compensating those exposed to Agent Orange. At first only one illness was connected. Over the years, it’s grown.

Veterans began submitting claims to the VA in 1977. Even though the suit was settled in ’84, by 1993, only 486 claims had been settled in the veterans’ favor – that is of 39,419 submitted. God knows how many veterans passed in the interim.

Now a number of diseases and cancers have been rated presumptive by the DVA. In English that means if you had say, Diabetes or Prostate Cancer, and you served in Vietnam, the connection was accepted and you would be granted compensation. Understand this took a very long time and a lot of people. Not only the Vietnam veterans, but we also had the backing of the Korean War veterans as well as the WWII veterans.

When I came back from Vietnam in 1969 I was in my early 20’s. Korean War veterans were in their 30’s, and WWII veterans were in their 40’s. That gave us an awful lot of people. An awful lot of votes.

Burn pits. They sound innocent – kind of like a bonfire, when actually most were the size of your backyard. One in Balad was 10 acres and burned 200 tons of garbage a day. What was burned? Everything. Dogs, body parts, chemicals, batteries, fuel, medical waste, vehicle parts, jet fuel. These burn pits were to have been temporary. However, the contractor, Kellogg, Brown, and Root, operated the burn pits as part of their 35 billion dollar logistics contract in Iraq and Afghanistan. They went on burning in open air pits for years, even after Uncle Sam had dispatched cleaner burning incinerators.

Back to the point. In these pits they also burned plastic bottles, styrofoam cups, and styrofoam. Why that’s important is when those things are burned, they release, you got it – dioxin. So here we are half a century later exposing our troops to the same thing, exposing them to something we knew would make them sick and could kill them.

When Iraq and Afghan vets began to question this hodgepodge of illnesses that they were coming down with, they commissioned a study in 2011. Two years after the study, HMD – yes the same group that tried to debunk Agent Orange, was back to debunking burn pits. Close to 20 years before they were debunking what had come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome.

At that point, Congress commissioned the Research Advisory Committee (RAC) to conduct an independent study. RAC reviewed the evidence from nearly 2,000 scientific studies and government reports including both human and animal studies. RAC came back to Congress and said the previous studies were “irreparably flawed” and that the illness was “real.”

So, if you served in Iraq or Afghanistan and you were around burn pits, which many of you were probably billeted next to and exposed 24/7, if your lungs are doing their job they serve as a filter for the smoke and ash that was being taken in. Ever look at the back of an air conditioner? Kind of like that.

So, you were exposed in all likelihood to dioxin. I’m not trying to scare you, but understand I am still filing claims for my buddies from Vietnam whose exposure was nearly half a century ago. Please understand another thing: that is, Vietnam vets are on average 70 years old. So, in the not too distant future we’ll be gone – and the number of vets and votes will dwindle.
So, learn from us. If you feel you have symptoms, file a claim ASAP!     Jerry

For further information, please visit: VA: How to Get Care for Burn Pit Exposure
or check out our website:
New York Vets / RockVets or http://newyorkvets.org

To file a Claim you can also contact the veterans' counselors at Rockland County Veterans Service Agency, 20 Squadron Blvd., Suite 480, New City, New York 10956.  Telephone: 845-638-5244.  Please call to set up an appointment.