[T]he head of the Vermont National Guard spoke Thursday in favor of a bill to raise awareness about the health effects veterans suffer from exposure to open burn pits on overseas deployments.
Adjutant General Greg Knight, just elected last month, thanked lawmakers who support S.111, which would enable the state to collect data from veterans and the medical community about the problems veterans have experienced serving in the Middle East and Afghanistan, where garbage and other materials are routinely disposed of in large pits ignited by jet fuel.
“I appreciate the effort. I believe in it. I thank you for doing it,” Knight told members of the Senate Government Operations Committee. Before and after his testimony, Knight sat next to June Heston, the widow of Brig. General Mike Heston, who died last year of pancreatic cancer after significant burn pit exposure. She testified in favor of the bill in February.
Knight said he suffered exposure serving in Iraq and, highlighting the problems many veterans have experienced, said it took him a week to complete the application process to join the national registry collecting data on veterans exposed to burn pit fumes. There are 394 Vermonters that have signed up for the burn pit registry, a jump of 10 percent in the past two months.
Knight said it was not just the fumes that were dangerous. Dust clouds from burn pit residue are also a hazard for military personnel. Knight said the residue gets stuck in mucous membranes and can’t be removed even after multiple showers.
“It’s in you,” Knight said. “It becomes a part of you.”
A veteran who suffered exposure said he felt “violated” the way he has been treated by the government, a response he likened to the denials of the Roman Catholic Church during the sex abuse scandals. In emotional and sometimes angry testimony, Wesley Black said he contemplated “swallowing my gun” after learning of his colon cancer diagnosis. He said the bill being contemplated might lack “teeth” but said he hoped it would serve as a “springboard” to push for change. Black said a vet can be disqualified for help on burn pit exposure if they had ever smoked cigarettes.
A doctor who recently left the Veterans Administration Hospital in White River Junction expressed frustration that statistics being collected on veterans exposed to burn pits appear to be going nowhere. Dr. Barbara O’Mara said she resigned this week “because I was repeatedly disciplined for advocating for patients too much.” She noted the burn pit registry is not new but was started back in 1991. She expressed frustration at the Department of Defense and its unwillingness to acknowledge the evidence connecting burn pits and illnesses, including not only rare cancers but chronic conditions.
Lawmakers and bill supporters hope encouraging veterans to sign up for the registry will create a wall of evidence to force the government to help veterans get medical help. Speakers noted it took decades for veterans of the Vietnam War for the government to acknowledge the connection between cancers and other health problems to Agent Orange exposure. Several Vietnam vets testified about how long it took for the federal government to recognize the dangers of that defoliant used in Southeast Asia. Black, in tears, thanked the Vietnam vets who blazed the trail to fight the government for medical care.
“I’m standing on the shoulders of these giants,” he said.
Chair Jeanette White, D-Windham, said an all-out effort was required to get the word out on burn pit exposure. She said the bill was only a small part of a much larger needed effort.
“We’d like to be able to solve more of this issue. We have to make a start,” she said, noting state lawmakers only have control over a small amount of “a huge problem.”
White said the Senate committee planned to vote the bill out next Tuesday. Gov. Phil Scott, she said, supports the bill and White said had been assured by House leaders the bill would be taken up this year, even though it didn’t meet the crossover deadline.
Part of the plan would include making and distributing pamphlets that would be distributed through the Vermont National Guard and other military groups and also sent to medical providers. Several who testified have said not only are veterans unknowing of the symptoms to look for but many in the medical community are ignorant too.
