Burn Pits: VA Needs to Reflect Soldiers’ Commitment and Sacrifice

September 20th, 2010. By Hunter West

Signing up for military service—in other words, putting your life as you know it on hold for the benefit of your country—should not be met with questions, stonewalling, or delays from the US Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) when you come back from some god-forsaken sector of the world half the man you used to be.

The VA should kiss the ground you walk on—that is, if you can even walk at all.

Tim Wymore can barely walk. He can do so only with a cane. He can barely stand. Of course, he can’t work. Worse, it seems he can’t look after himself, either. His wife has had to put her career on hold, and suffer the loss of her income (a loss felt by the entire family of five) in order to care for her husband.

Yes, Wymore gets VA disability benefits. But he doesn’t get the full measure of his due. That’s because, incredibly, the VA does not consider his disability permanent. In fact, the VA, according to an article at stltoday.com, thinks Wymore’s condition “may improve”. The obvious question is that if his condition “may” improve, then isn’t it reasonable to think it also “may not”?

So even though the man cannot work, can barely stand, can only walk with a cane and is 44 years old, the VA is withholding benefits that would ensure his family would be looked after once Wymore is gone.

For the Wymores, that sad day is not an ‘if’, but a ‘when.’ And they worry that the ‘when’ is going to happen prior to 2012. Why 2012? Because that’s when the VA is set to review his disability rating—and the Wymore’s say Tim’s condition has been worsening. Wymore’s wife, Shanna, says in stltoday.com, “We’ve gone so far downhill so fast I don’t want to see what another six months will look like.”

That’s shameful.

The genesis of Wymore’s disability, regardless of the degree assigned currently by the VA, has nothing to do with being in the line of fire or any other stereotypical byproduct of armed combat. No, this smacks of Agent Orange, a peripheral threat that has been plaguing Vietnam vets ever since their active days in the heavily treed forests of that particular hell.

Iraq vet Wymore was stationed at Balad, one of the largest US military bases that also featured an open-air burn pit. Each week, while he was stationed there, Wymore was assigned dump runs with his truck, which entailed him driving to the edge of the pit and unloading anything he had been ordered to dispose of. Tents, trash, air conditioners. It all went into a burn pit that measured 300 feet deep and was the length of five football fields.

The pit spewed black smoke that was a constant. The soldiers were not provided with masks of any kind, to protect them from potential toxins. He told a newspaper in Missouri that he could even smell the fumes from the pit in his trailer at night.

All the while during his tour of duty at Balad he complained of headaches, stomachaches and having trouble breathing. The Army’s response was to provide ibuprofen.

He was there only six months. Yet when he returned home his health continued to decline. He suffered an infection in his stomach, he came down with pneumonia. He had to have most of his colon removed.

And now he is an old man trapped in a young man’s body. And yet the VA does not regard the 44-year-old man as permanently disabled.

What a crock.

In recent days the VA has finally expanded the list of health maladies VA benefits will cover with the respect to the health (or lack thereof) of soldiers affected by Agent Orange. This, decades after exposure.

The Agent Orange debacle, together with Wymore’s disparaging health, should convince the VA that bullets and land mines are not the only weapons that can fell a soldier. The environment can sometimes be just as lethal.

And regardless of the cause, why, in heaven’s name, should the VA delay or question any veteran, period? It’s shameful. These men and women give up everything, and risk their lives to serve their country. Even if they come home completely healthy (and few do), the VA should adopt a no-questions-asked when it comes to VA benefits for those willing to serve.

Wymore was a hale and hearty fella with a wife and three strapping boys. They were on track to retire at 50. But Wymore gave all that up to serve. And now he is but a shell of the man he once was.

If a soldier is willing to give up everything for his country…

His country should do everything for him. Everything. Period. End of story.

Anything short of everything is a travesty and a stain on everything that America claims itself to be.

Tags: burn pit, burn pit lawsuit, Iraq, VA, Veterans, Veterans Benefits

This was posted on Monday, September 20th, 2010 at 9:38 am and is filed under Veterans . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.