By Carson Frame
For years, (click here) veterans say they’ve been getting sick. They believe the culprit is open burn pits used in Iraq and Afghanistan. A class-action lawsuit against Houston-based military contractor Kellogg Brown and Root was thrown out this summer, and many of those affected don’t know where to turn.
Army Reserve Captain LeRoy Torres will never forget the 10-acre plot of land, full of burning garbage, located about a mile from his sleeping quarters at Balad Air Base in Iraq. The year was 2008.
All the military’s waste was thrown into the pit, doused with a jet fuel known as JP-8, and set on fire.
“You’d see tires, plastics, batteries. Large bottles and containers of fluid, no telling what it was,” Torres said. “Solvents. Medical waste. You’d see those red medical bags from the hospital just being tossed in the fire.”
Staff Sergeant Jeremy Daniels arrived at Balad in 2005. He remembers seeing items destined for the flames.
“It doesn’t matter if it comes out your room, if it comes off your body, if it comes out your body. Go down there and light it ablaze.”
At the height of its activity, the Balad pit burned about 200 tons of trash each day.
The smoke it gave off was overwhelming, especially when the wind blew a certain way. It stuck to people’s clothes, filled their lungs, and got in their eyes.
“It was a cloud. You wore it,” he said. “If you walked around on that post, you smelled like it. It is the most horrid sulfuric smell you have ever frickin' smelled.”
LeRoy Torres agrees. “There were times—I remember one time clearly—I couldn’t even see the road 6 feet in front of me,” he said.
Soon after they arrived at Balad, both Torres and Daniels got sick. Torres started coughing up a black mucus that military doctors called ‘Iraqi Crud.’ It was the result, they said, of his body getting used to the environment in-country.
Daniels developed a weeping rash on his lower extremities that didn’t resolve for months. The skin sloughed off and bled. Doctors suggested that he was allergic to his laundry soap. Then he developed fourth nerve palsy, a neurological disorder that affects vision.
“While I’m walking to work, my left eye goes up and to the right while I'm still trying to look forward. I end up with the worst drunken double vision I've ever seen.”
After they returned home, the issues got worse. Torres’ respiratory problems were given a name: constrictive bronchiolitis, an untreatable and often fatal lung injury. Daniels' neurological problems were labeled ‘relapsing multiple sclerosis’ with an ‘extremely aggressive onset.' He now uses a wheelchair.
Both men were medically retired from their jobs. They both blame the burn pits for their health problems....
I realize a gas mask has a particular application, but, if the US military can come up with a gas mask that is good for three to four hours, they can come up with a gas mask for soldiers to wear while disposing of trash. The US military needs to find a responsible way of handling their trash other than burning.War on the fly is one thing, an encampment is quite another.
