In his first 10 days as president, Joe Biden visited wounded service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The visit was more than a somber return to the place where his son, Beau, died from a rare brain cancer in 2015. It was a sign to ailing veterans and advocacy groups that the president might deliver the care post-9/11 veterans have struggled for decades to get.
“Beau Biden almost certainly died of exposure, probably to a burn pit,” said Afghanistan veteran Mark Jackson, who works on behalf of veterans suffering rare diseases and ailments after being stationed at a contaminated secret base in Uzbekistan known as K2.
“Rare cancer is rare cancer,” he said. “And I know a dozen or more people that died of that same cancer. I think, statistically, I should know zero.”
‘OUR AGENT ORANGE’: VETERANS WHO SERVED AT TOXIC UZBEKISTAN BASE WANT HELP FROM CONGRESS
While serving in the Delaware National Guard, Beau Biden was deployed to Iraq in 2008-2009 and was believed to have been exposed to toxic burn pits.
Similar burn pits exist across the Middle East, carrying airborne particles into the lungs of service members. The toxins also are found in food and water supplies. At K2, depleted uranium, the remnants of chemical weapons, and other hazards existed, but without proof of a service connection to an ailment, veterans cannot get the tests and preventive care they need.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently spoke by phone about shared interests. The Pentagon declined to say if the issue came up but affirmed that ailments related to both burn pits and K2 are on Austin’s radar.
“I can assure you, this issue remains of great concern to Secretary Austin,” spokesman John Kirby told the Washington Examiner. “He looks forward to working with Secretary McDonough as we come to grips with the medical issues posed by exposure to burn pits and to toxic material at K2.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs did not respond to multiple inquiries from the Washington Examiner.
Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn recently told the Washington Examiner that the issue of airborne hazards for service members who deployed to the Middle East must be examined.
“We have to follow through with the health needs of these service members because of environmental exposures that they may have experienced during their time of deployment,” she said. “These open burn pits, these airborne hazards, the contaminants that were in the soil and in the water.”
Blackburn, who counts among her constituents many veterans and active-duty service members affected, fought in 2020 to have K2 veterans added to the VA’s burn pit registry, which studies the long-term effects of exposure.
But beyond studies, Blackburn said legislation must help veterans qualify for care when they cannot prove their disease is service-related.
‘Cost of war’
Tom Porter of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America believes Biden is on board and that the burden of proof will finally be lifted for post-9/11 veterans.
“President Biden already has voiced his willingness, that he would like this to be a priority for him,” Porter recently said.
“I think he views this as something of a personal matter because his son, Beau Biden, was deployed overseas like many of us were,” he said. “And I think he believes that this had something to do with his fatal illness.”
On Thursday, House and Senate members introduced the K2 Veterans Care Act of 2021 in their respective chambers. The bill would give the 15,000 or so K2 veterans who served at the Karshi Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan from 2001 to 2005 a presumption of exposure.
“We’re trying to use that presumption of service connection that the new bill introduces and use that as a wedge that kind of kicks the door open for all toxic exposures,” Jackson explained.
Jackson said other bills that would help veterans across the Middle East are already in the works.
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will reintroduce the Presumptive Benefits for War Fighters Exposed to Toxins Act of 2021, he said.
The bill, touted by comedian Jon Stewart, amounts to comprehensive burn pits legislation.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis also plans to reintroduce the Toxic Exposures in the American Military Act of 2021, Jackson said.
When 2020 legislation calling for a presumption of exposure failed to win a vote and was then pulled from the National Defense Authorization Act, Jackson said it was due to senators’ concerns over the cost to the VA.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Porter said the cost to care for sick veterans should not be a factor.
“If you’ve been exposed while you’re deployed, while you’re wearing that uniform with an American flag on the, on your sleeve, then you need to be, you need to be cared for when you get back,” he said. “It’s a cost of war.”
