Military Burn Pits - Veterans Tell Thier Stories

The History of Burn Pits During the Global War on Terror

During the U.S. military operations in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003–2011) and Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001–2021), open-air burn pits were widely used to dispose of waste at forward operating bases due to the lack of established waste management infrastructure. These pits, ranging from small barrels to massive 10-acre sites, burned a variety of materials, including hazardous substances, releasing toxic smoke that exposed millions of service members, contractors, and local civilians to harmful pollutants. The health consequences, including respiratory ailments, rare cancers, and other chronic conditions, have become a significant issue for veterans, prompting legal, legislative, and scientific efforts to address the toxic legacy of burn pits, often compared to the Agent Orange crisis of the Vietnam War era. This overview examines the history, operation, health impacts, environmental consequences, and ongoing efforts to mitigate the effects of burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Burn pits were employed as a primary waste disposal method in Iraq and Afghanistan due to their cost-effectiveness and operational simplicity in austere environments. The U.S. military and contractors, notably Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a former Halliburton subsidiary, operated hundreds of burn pits across Southwest Asia, with at least 230 documented in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2011. The largest, at Joint Base Balad (JBB) in Iraq, spanned nearly 20 acres and burned up to 200 tons of waste daily at its peak in 2007, with each service member generating approximately 3.6–4.5 kg of waste per day. In Afghanistan, burn pits collectively disposed of over 400 tons of waste daily at their height. Other significant sites included Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and Karshi Khanabad (K-2) Air Base in Uzbekistan, where environmental monitoring identified nearly 400 chemicals in the smoke, including petrochemicals, tetrachloroethylene, and radioactive materials.

Waste burned in these pits included plastics, medical and human waste, electronics, batteries, munitions, petroleum products, chemicals, paints, rubber, and even vehicles, often ignited with JP-8 jet fuel containing benzene, a known carcinogen. The open-air, low-temperature combustion led to incomplete burning, producing toxic byproducts like dioxins, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and particulate matter (PM), which were carried by winds across bases and nearby civilian areas. Burn pits were initially intended as a temporary measure, but their use persisted for years, even after incinerators were available, due to delays in installation and lack of trained personnel. By 2009, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued guidance limiting burn pit use to emergencies, but as of 2019, nine were still operational in Syria, Afghanistan, and Egypt as a last resort.

The health effects of burn pit exposure are a major concern, with the DoD estimating that 3.5 million service members were potentially exposed. Veterans have reported acute symptoms such as eye irritation, coughing, throat irritation, breathing difficulties, and skin rashes, as well as chronic conditions including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sinusitis, rhinitis, and rare cancers. A 2015 study of K-2 veterans found a 500% increased cancer risk and a 75% chance of developing related illnesses. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) reported that 86% of surveyed veterans exposed to burn pits believed they had related symptoms, with 89% linking health issues to exposure. Personal accounts, such as those from veterans like Wesley Black, describe severe outcomes, including cancers potentially linked to burn pit smoke, echoing the experiences of Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

Civilians living near bases, particularly around Joint Base Balad, also faced significant exposure. Iraqi residents reported respiratory issues, with farmers noting soot on their skin and livestock experiencing birth defects and fertility problems. A 2006 memo by Lt. Col. Darrin L. Curtis described Balad’s burn pit as the “worst environmental site” he had seen, citing carcinogens and respiratory sensitizers posing both acute and chronic health risks to troops and locals. The lack of comprehensive medical records in Iraq, especially during the Islamic State occupation, has hindered conclusive studies on civilian health impacts, but anecdotal evidence suggests widespread sickness. Environmental scientist Eoghan Darbyshire noted that vulnerable populations, such as children and the elderly, likely faced worse outcomes due to comorbidities and war-related exposures.

Scientific studies, such as the 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report and the 2020 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) study, have struggled to establish definitive causation due to the variable composition of burn pit emissions and lack of exposure records. However, the presence of dioxins, benzene, and fine particulate matter is strongly associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, with benzene linked to cancers like leukemia. The 2006 Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Program (EPMSP) confirmed high levels of PM from burn pits, geologic dust, and metal sources at 15 sites across Iraq, Afghanistan, and other regions.

Burn pits caused significant environmental contamination in Iraq and Afghanistan. Air and soil sampling near burn pits confirmed the presence of dioxins, VOCs, and heavy metals, which polluted local ecosystems. At former Iraqi chemical weapons sites, such as those used by Saddam Hussein’s regime, burn pits were constructed without soil testing, potentially exacerbating contamination with residual mustard and sarin gas. The plumes of toxic smoke, described as a “poisoned blanket” by Iraqi residents, spread across bases and civilian areas, contaminating water sources and agricultural land. The 2008 air quality study at Bagram Airfield found particulate matter levels two to three times above permitted standards, indicating long-term environmental degradation. The lack of containment in open-air burning allowed toxins to settle into soil and water, posing risks to local populations and wildlife long after U.S. forces withdrew.

The health and environmental concerns surrounding burn pits led to significant advocacy and legislative action. In 2009, President Barack Obama directed federal agencies to study burn pit effects and implement protective measures. The DoD issued guidance in 2006 and 2009 discouraging burn pit use, but compliance was inconsistent until regulations in 2010 restricted their use in Iraq. The Veterans Administration (VA) established the Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry in 2014 to track health issues, though early iterations were criticized for inefficiencies. By 2022, the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act was signed into law, expanding VA benefits and establishing presumptive service connections for 24 conditions, including asthma, sinusitis, rhinitis, and nine rare respiratory cancers, for veterans serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other regions post-August 2, 1990, or September 11, 2001. This removed the burden of proving exposure, a significant barrier given the DoD’s lack of detailed records on burn pit contents or individual exposures.

Despite these advances, challenges remain. As of July 2022, the VA had approved 573,000 disability claims for respiratory conditions but denied 315,000, often citing lack of diagnosis or medical nexus. Veterans’ groups, such as IAVA and Burn Pits 360, continue to advocate for broader recognition, with individuals like Chelsey Poisson pushing for improved VA care and research through initiatives like the Hunter Seven website. Lawsuits against KBR, which operated many burn pits, have largely failed, with courts ruling that military commanders, not contractors, dictated operations.

The DoD began transitioning to incinerators in 2004, spending over $81 million to install 23 systems at nine bases in Afghanistan by 2011, though delays and operational issues limited their effectiveness. By 2016, only one burn pit remained in Iraq, and none in Afghanistan, with conventional waste practices adopted at enduring locations. Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the DoD is responsible for remediating environmental damage from past activities, but cleanup in Iraq and Afghanistan has been limited due to the ongoing conflict and logistical challenges. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended in 2010 that the DoD comprehensively implement burn pit guidance and analyze alternatives, but progress has been slow. Ongoing monitoring and research are needed to address residual contamination in soil and water, particularly at former chemical weapons sites.

The use of burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan represents a significant environmental and public health failure, exposing millions of service members and civilians to toxic pollutants with long-term consequences. While the PACT Act and VA registry have improved access to benefits and care, the lack of definitive scientific evidence and historical exposure records continues to hinder veterans’ claims and comprehensive cleanup efforts. The parallels to Agent Orange underscore a recurring pattern of delayed recognition of military toxic exposures, with veterans like Wesley Black and advocates like Chelsey Poisson highlighting the human cost. The legacy of burn pits extends beyond the battlefield, affecting local ecosystems and communities, and demands continued research, accountability, and investment in health care and environmental restoration to honor the sacrifices of those exposed.

Interview with Andrew Brewer

Seth: My guest today is Andrew Brewer. Andrew is a veteran, and Andrew has quite a compelling story to tell about his service, some of the things he was exposed to, and what it was like for him when he left the service. This is one of those stories that’s important and not a whole lot of people know about it. Today, we’re going to talk mostly about burn pits. That’s been a subject that’s been gaining steam, and I want to get the word out. Andrew has a story to tell, and I want to help the world hear that story. So, without further ado, here’s Andrew. How are you today, sir?

Andrew: Very good, Seth. I appreciate what you’re doing. This means a lot to me and, I know, to a lot of other veterans that you’ve already probably talked to, how much it means to them to spread the word like this about something. This is the new Agent Orange for our generation, and a lot of people are not realizing it. We’re just trying to stay ahead of the ball by getting it taken care of now, not wait until we’re in our 60s and 70s trying to combat the same thing that they had to before.

Seth: Yeah, absolutely. You know, those guys didn’t get the care that they deserved when they got back. We’re blessed to have a better system and a more grateful society, but there’s still a lot of work to do, and that comes down to education. That’s where we come in. So, you have a story, and I want to help you tell that story. If you wouldn’t mind, just kind of telling us in your own words, you know, from beginning to kind of the end, what is your story in regards to burn pits?

Andrew: I was born and raised in Indiana. Bainbridge was my main area, basically Indianapolis area. When I turned of age, I didn’t really want—I never planned on going to the military, but it was one of those things that I was doing good, and I had taken a year off of school, and I was like, well, why not do something? Then I found out about this College First program, which was a big thing for the military at the time, and I got in. Basically, I went to get my schooling paid for—that was my initial intent. I kind of dug deep in. My unit got activated in early 2008. I joined in 2007, in March, and in 2008 is when our unit got put on the list to go as a National Guard unit out of Brazil, Indiana. My commander kept asking me to go, but because I had the College First program, I didn’t have to go. But it was one of those that I felt like I had to, and I wanted to go. So, I ended up signing up with my right to go ahead and volunteer to go over. We got to Iraq January 2nd, 2009.

We got there, and we did the initial phase of getting in there and getting climate-adapted, which was in Kuwait, and then moved to Iraq. Our main base was Al Asad, Iraq, air base. From there, I was actually part of one of the forward operating bases. I went to COP Hit. If I remember correctly, it’s like northeast of Al Asad, and it was a little combat outpost. We were there for about six months until we closed it down. That’s when I actually started learning about burn pits.

I didn’t realize the effect it would have, obviously, then. I just thought it was cool, just like a big backyard fire—well, it’s a lot bigger scale than that. They used a lot of gasoline, jet fuel to light the fire, and we burnt anything and everything you could think of. I was actually one of the people—there were like 15 of us Army people, and we basically ran the basics, essentially like the supply, the logistics, the food, the water, the fuel. The Marines did their in-and-out convoys and stuff like that, and they operated the burn pits. There were many times they’re like, “Hey, take this to the burn pit, take this,” and I’m taking forklifts full of what we called water bags, but like 100,000-gallon tank bags for fuel or water to dispose of them if we were done with them or if they had a hole in it. We’d take it in there, they just lit it up, and that was it. A lot of hazardous and white waste that we were supposed to properly dispose of, we never did. We just put it in the burn pit and tried to get rid of it. It did—I mean, medical supplies, uniforms, trash, anything you can think of. At first, it was kind of cool. I thought, being 21, I’m like, okay, that’s not a big deal. It’s just trash, and we’re burning it. But then, after a little bit, you start noticing the smell, that smell you can never get out of your nose. That black smoke, you could see it just covered the base, and it was always rolling over. The pit was never in one spot. The base itself was probably like a mile in diameter, maybe a mile from one end to the other, and they constantly moved the burn pits around. Most of the time, it was going 24/7. A lot of people—I didn’t realize this until later—but a lot of things you don’t realize is you’re breathing that in while you’re sleeping, not just walking around doing everything. When you’re sleeping, when you’re not doing anything, you’re still breathing that in, and that’s when, I guess, it started really doing more damage too. So, between during the day and at night, they were going through and just doing open burn pit—that’s what it was mainly called, the open burn pit—where it’s just out in the middle of nowhere, and you see the big black smoke rolling over the whole entire COP.

We were there, and when we closed that base down, we were like, “Oh, we don’t need it, just get rid of it, go take it to the burn pit.” So, anything that wasn’t really important, we just took to the burn pit and burned it. I think at one time, we had three different burn pits going at once, trying to burn off stuff to get rid of it so we didn’t have to haul it back to Al Asad. After we got mostly everything burned up as we could, a few of the important things like our little supply—water and food and some other stuff—is what we mainly took back, but other than that, everything else was very much burned to get rid of. Went back to Al Asad, and they even still had burn pits there. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Al Asad, but the air base is quite large, but you could, anywhere in the base, most of the time, see that black smoke just piling up and blowing over. It wasn’t always blowing over, but one way or the other, it eventually started blowing over across the base. So, even then, it was still going through, receiving it, and it was just part of the norm, is what we took it as. That was a lot of my experience. I did a lot of running to the burn pits, being closer to it. I’ve helped light a few of them just because I thought it was cool at the time, not realizing now the difference of it. And then the trouble started, basically, there.

We came back a few days before Christmas in 2009, but we were released from active duty January 14 of 2010, I think, or something like that. Even before then, I was able to pass my PT test, which I was proud of because it was always a hard thing for me to do. Well, as time went on, I started noticing my time started getting slower, and I’m like, I haven’t changed any way I was working out, I was doing all the other things, I just couldn’t do normal things. I just blew it off like, okay, obviously, I’m just doing something wrong, and I didn’t do it right.

I stayed in until 2014, so another four years, and I constantly had to fight the PT test, trying to pass it. Honestly, ever since coming back from Iraq, I was never able to pass it the actual way of physically doing the push-ups, sit-ups, and run. I was able to do push-ups, sit-ups, no problem, but with the run, I just couldn’t do it. My lungs weren’t able to do what I needed to do. It wasn’t until 2014, when we had our son—well, I obviously didn’t have my son, my wife did—but we had our son, and we were living in Avon, Indiana, at the time. I was picking him up from the bedroom and took him all the way out to the living room, and I’m talking 60, 70 feet, maybe—not a really big distance. She was like, “Man, you’re kind of winded.” I’m like, “I just picked him up and brought him in. He only weighed six pounds, seven pounds.” Walking from one side to the other, she was like, “There’s something wrong.” We always knew there was something wrong, but we kept trying to figure out what it was. I had been to, at that point in time—that was 2014, March, when my son was born—that’s when I got out, four days before my son was born, actually. That started the process of us trying to figure out what’s going on. I had a lot of other medical issues going on, and I was trying to figure out what it was, but the big thing to me was always my breathing. I didn’t know what was wrong.

I went to the VA multiple times. At the time, I had private insurance as well, and I could go to the VA. They kept passing PFT tests, basically to test your lungs to see how you’re doing, and they all fell in the normal limits. They always passed them, so they’re like, “Okay, there’s nothing wrong with you.” I’m like, “No, there’s still something wrong. I can’t climb a flight of stairs.” Even climbing a flight of stairs, I was heavy-winded. At the time, I was, what, 25? I’m 32 now, so six years—I can’t believe I can’t remember—26. So, I was 26 at the time and noticing that even climbing a flight of stairs, I was getting short-winded, something I used to never have a problem with. I used to take the stairs all the time because I didn’t want to do the elevator, and obviously, it was harder and harder for me to keep doing that. We started noticing some other things going on, and they started saying I was fine. I was like, “Okay,” so I went to outside care, to IU Health. There, they tested and said, “We see something wrong. We can tell that physically there’s something wrong, but we can’t figure out what it is, and we just don’t know how to help.”

At that time, I was at the point of like, “Okay, well, obviously, I can’t find anybody. I don’t know.” Lauren Price is who I got a hold of, and it was through the Veterans Advocates, I believe, or Burn Pit Registry—I forget how we connected again. I’d have to talk to my wife to remember. Anyway, we got a hold of her, and she invited us into this group, and she started talking to us. She told us her story, and I was like, “Man, that sounds really familiar.” Everything that was happening with me was kind of the same. I’m like, “Okay, so what did you do?” I still had private insurance at the time, and my wife, after they talked for a little bit, then I started really getting to know her on a personal level, doing all the traveling I’ve done with her and stuff. She was like, “Hey, there’s Dr. Robert Miller out of Nashville, Tennessee. If you can afford it, if you can do it, that’s the person you need to go see.” I know you said something about you trying to talk to him or trying to get his part of it. Basically, he was the one that led that push initially about the burn pits and discovered that there is a problem here. Sorry, talking a lot sometimes, I start getting short. Talking to him, he’s like, “I was the one that led the thing.” Me and my wife, I don’t remember the day that we flew to Nashville, Tennessee, to see him. She would know the dates—I’m not really good at dates, except for one day I remember is April 16th of 2018, when I got my diagnosis. That’s when I remember. Before then, it was like November, December of ’17, we went out there to talk to him. He was like, “Here, can you do me this—what was it?—this was his walking test.” I don’t know exactly what he calls it, but it was like a walking test. He had a little pulser that he put on my finger and said, “Stand right here, this is what it is. I want you to walk with me and walk around my office.” It wasn’t a very big office, like my little office. He’s like, “I want you to walk around there with me.” We walked two laps, and he started seeing my pulse ox start dropping down. He was like, “Okay, I’m pretty sure I already know what it is.” I was like, “Really?” He’s like, “The only way that I can actually get a definitive answer is we have to do a lung biopsy. That’s the only way to actually confirm the diagnosis, but based off of everything that I’ve seen you do, your story, and everything else, everything lines up. It sounds like the burn pits basically closed the inside of my lungs up or filled the smaller airways.”

I think we visited him one more time in like January or something like that, and then I think it was the end of March, we visited the last time, which was a pre-op to make sure everything was good. Everything was good to go. He was like, “Okay, now you’re gonna come back in, and I have a thoracic surgeon.” Talked to him, he went through and explained the process: “This is what I’m going to do. I want to make three incisions, I believe it’s on the right side, three incisions, and I want to go in and get a couple pieces to biopsy, and then we’ll be able to figure out from there.” It was April 16, 2018. We were still staying at a hotel room because I was not cleared to fly, and my wife had been in an accident two weeks prior, so traveling, driving wasn’t the best idea. We actually ended up staying in our hotel room for almost a month in Nashville.

We had that—Miles, he called me and goes, “I’d like for you to come in. I need to talk to you to confirm everything, but my studies were correct. You do have obliterative bronchiolitis,” is, I believe, the official diagnosis of what it’s called. There’s a lot of different names, and I might be wrong on this, but I’ve been also told that it’s kind of referred to like popcorn lung. Basically, it fills up the smaller airways in your lungs, which, I guess, helps you breathe. With those being filled up with the black stuff from the burn pits and stuff, it makes it much harder to breathe. That’s where it basically starts to process, and basically, my lungs haven’t completely shut down, but they’re not at their normal capacity for my age. We went into his office and sat down and talked to him, and we were trying to figure out what to do. At that time, 2018, we had been down in Florida for about a year or so for my son—he had medical issues, and moving down helped him. I was in the transition of moving down because I was working up north, and I was traveling back down here. I was like, “What does this mean for me having obliterative bronchiolitis?” He goes, “I can’t give you an exact diagnosis.” He says, “But I can’t tell you that it is considered a terminal condition. You could live 30 years, but I have seen many that have only made it half that.” He goes, “I can say 30, but you should be very happy if you make another 15.” So, it was like a very weird diagnosis, like, at the time, I was only 30 years old, and I just got a terminal diagnosis, and trying to figure out all this. The biggest problem for me was when I found out I’ve been battling the VA with this the whole entire time. I’ve kept saying, “Hey, there’s this issue, there’s this issue.” He’s like, “Well, let’s file the Burn Pit Registry. It’s fine, it’ll help you.” Okay, I filed that. That’s a piece of paper for you to sign to say possibly there is something wrong, but that doesn’t do anything, and it’s, to me, it’s pointless as of right now.

Governor Bill Ruckus, he’s trying to make it bigger and more beneficial, I guess. He’s trying to turn it into something, along with Warren and some other ones, trying to turn it into something more than just a piece of paper that we signed saying, “Hey, we were here,” and that was it. I think the last two years has done a lot. We got an answer that I didn’t necessarily want, but an answer that I felt like was needed to know of the terminal diagnosis. It’s like, great, now there’s an expiration time, and I know that’s not the exact way how it works, but now I’m burning the candle on both ends, and I don’t want to not live my life the way I want to, or I want to spend time with my family. I want to do everything I can to get the best out of it. So, I guess I view a lot of things differently now, and I take different viewpoints on stuff because I don’t take things for granted because I don’t know the last day. Yes, I know tomorrow I can get in the car, get in a car accident, and not make it—I understand that—but when you get a diagnosis of something that was caused by the military, especially after they were supposed to stop doing the open burn pits. I believe it was in 2006, 2008, or somewhere in there, they got the incinerators that they were supposed to be using, but it wasn’t effective for them to get it set up and make them work, so they started doing the open-air burn pits and kept doing them. I think there was supposed to be an official stop order of like 2013 that they were supposed to stop doing the open burn pits. I don’t know, the last I know, about a year ago when I was at a conference in Tampa, there was another sighting that they’ve been trying to do it only at dark so you can’t see it as often, but they’re still doing the burn pits. They’re just trying to sneak around not to be noticed of it, instead of spending the extra time. The incinerators were there, they just didn’t want to set them up, but they’d rather just do the open air, which puts us at risk. I mean, I guess that’s the best way to summarize it.

Seth: Thank you for sharing that story. That’s difficult, man, and, you know, that tugs on the heartstrings. I’ve met a lot of people who’ve had very similar stories, but the theme is all the same, in that guys like you were exposed to things while in service, and that’s terrible, but what’s more terrible is that the VA isn’t doing enough to help people. You know, it’d be one thing if you go to the VA and they say, “Okay, yeah, we’re gonna take care of you,” but you gotta fight tooth and nail with the VA just to get recognized, let alone get any kind of treatment. To my knowledge, the VA is fully aware of this issue, and the diagnosis you have is common, but I don’t know that there’s a single doctor in the entire VA system that does diagnose that and can even treat that. So, we have to go to the civilian world, and I keep hearing this Robert Miller guy, and I need to talk to him because, man, everybody just rants and raves about how awesome he is. If it wasn’t for him, we would never know where we’re at.

Andrew: Now, I can’t confirm any of this, but what I’ve been told, I have a pulmonologist that helps me with my lungs, and we’ve done all the treatments that we can that are out there up to date, and none of it’s helped me a little bit more than before. It’s still basically been the same level. I haven’t increased it or made it worse, or in the guy’s state level, and it hasn’t benefited. The pulmonologist, I don’t know how exactly he said it, but basically, they know of it, but to make a statement of “they got this from the burn pits,” they can’t make those statements because it’ll fall back on them. So, to me, when I heard that, it told me that there’s more to it than what they want to say. They know about it, but they don’t want to. They’re even trying to keep more people quiet about it by not letting them speak up because, if you talk to Miller, from my understanding, he basically, for lack of better terms, got blackballed from the military when he did it. He made the statements, he did the tests, he ran all these, and these all confirmed that, “Hey, this is what it was.” He started speaking up about it, and when he started speaking up about it, he got backlash from the government. They basically turned their back on him, and every time he tried to set up a meeting to go talk to them in a congressional factor or however that goes, they said that they either canceled, moved it, changed times—basically trying to do everything they could to avoid him to speak, if that makes sense. To hear that from Dr. Robert Miller that that’s happened, and then, on top of it, talking to other doctors at the VA about the lung condition, and they’re like, “I can’t really confirm, right, denied, I can’t tell you yes or no,” which, to me, in my head, tells me that they know more than what they want to say. They’re just only saying what they can to protect themselves, which, I mean, I understand you gotta protect yourself, but it doesn’t look like they have the best interest in us. They have their own interests.

Seth: Yes, that’s absolutely true. You know, from everyone I’ve talked to, including Lauren Price, who I’ve also interviewed, the real problem is that it all comes down to money. It’s not that they don’t want to help veterans per se, it’s that if they recognize burn pits as a common cause of your condition and various others, there isn’t enough money available to open up for treatment and disability claims for all the veterans. That’s exactly true of your condition but also of Agent Orange. There are enough veterans affected by Agent Orange alone that if the government fully acknowledged the harm that they caused and paid out disability claims and provided health insurance, it would bankrupt the VA in one year with just Agent Orange alone. So, I hate to say it, but yeah, it’s all financial.

Andrew: That’s worse when I don’t even know how many people have died even just from the burn pits. I know Agent Orange, there have been—it’s been around a lot longer, so the numbers obviously are higher because it’s been there. I don’t know if Lauren talked to you, there’s a show out there or movie—I forget the guy that made it now—it was about burn pits, and a few people she knows were actually in that video. They filmed it—oh, man, I have to ask my wife. Maybe, is it Delay, Deny, Hope You Die?

Seth: Thank you, yep, that’s exactly the movie.

Andrew: We—that’s how I first actually met Lauren Price. It was a showing, and she’s like, “Hey, come down to Tampa, I got your ticket, we’ll get in to watch it.” I went and watched it, and I could not believe—like, I’m getting cold chills right now just remembering seeing that video. It’s a powerful statement, and I think, by the time that they went, they showed everywhere, like two or three of them already had passed away that were in that video because of how some people got it worse than others, which I understand. But it’s already taking lives, and it’s only been 10 or 19 years since we first started, or 2001. So, yeah, 19 years, and we already got a death toll going, and there’s so many more years to go. I know that’s nothing compared to what Agent Orange had, and I know Agent Orange is up there with numbers, but burn pits is in the same range.

Seth: Yep, absolutely. You know, it’s a shame, and I’m not sure what can be done about it, but I do know that, as long as I’m around, I’m gonna do what I can to make sure people don’t forget. That’s all I can do, and if I can get the attention of some senators and some congressmen and ruffle some feathers, then I absolutely will. But, you know, I want to thank you so much for sharing your story because it’s guys like you that are getting ahead of this, so hopefully we don’t have to wait 50 years like the Vietnam guys. Hopefully, we can get some good help and get some good lobbies going for recognition at the federal level and get this thing opened up as wide as possible, as fast as possible.

Andrew: That would be great, and I really appreciate everything that you’ve done. I appreciate letting me on your show to tell my story. As long as I’m still here, I’ll still keep telling my story, and I’m trying to keep getting out because people need to know. Somebody like you, doing what you’re doing, is helping more than what most other people can do. So, I really appreciate you taking the time out to talk and let me tell my story.

Seth: No, I appreciate it. You know, I’ll go the extra mile for my veterans. I’m a veteran myself, so, you know, I don’t have the same struggles that you do, but we’re all in this together—our brotherhood.

Andrew: Yeah, exactly.

Seth: Well, hey, man, I want to thank you so much for sharing your story. I know it’s probably not the easiest thing to tell, but it’s important to tell it so people know.

Andrew: Exactly. Thank you very much, I greatly appreciate it.

Seth: Alright, so that’s the end of the official recording. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to just say one little spiel. I’m gonna get it on record just for, you know, editing purposes. What I’d like you to say is, just say, “I’m Andrew Brewer, and I have,” and whatever your diagnosis is. That’ll give me a little clip that I can cut nice and clean that I can use for, you know, a documentary down the road. So, whenever you’re ready.

Andrew: Hello, my name is Andrew Brewer. I have been diagnosed with obliterative bronchiolitis of the lungs.

Seth: Awesome. And if you can just say, “I served in Al Asad in whatever year,” or wherever the base that you were at.

Andrew: I served in COP Hit and Al Asad Air Base, January 2009 to December 2009.

Seth: Awesome, thank you. Yep, that’s all I need. Okay, hey, man, I really appreciate this. You know, I’m gonna do whatever I can to get the word out there. So, if you have any other veterans that you know in the circle that want to tell their story, I would absolutely be willing to have them on the show as well and do what I can to share it. I’ll post this to podcasts, and I’ll post this to YouTube as well, and I’ll share it on social media and all that good stuff.

Andrew: Well, let me know when you do, or tag me or something, so I can share it on my site. I’m thinking I have a couple others in mind. They’re just—they’re not as outspoken as I am about it. They like to keep to themselves a little more.

Seth: Nope, I understand. You know, it’s a hard thing to talk about, I’m sure. But yeah, so, awesome, man. Well, once again, thank you so much. You know, I wish you health, I wish you happiness, and keep in touch. If you have any kind of information that you want to keep me informed on—I know you’re kind of in that circle, and you’re talking with Lauren—anything you might find interesting that you’d want me to share, I’m happy to share it on my pages and anywhere else, just to spread the word.

Andrew: Okay, I appreciate it. If you want to get her side or something, my wife, we can try to figure something out. I don’t know how to best do it, but we can figure something out.

Seth: Yeah, so what’s her story, just as your caregiver? Is she also a veteran, or is she more of the caregiver?

Andrew: From her side, I’ve had her—she’s told her side in a few of the things, and it’s pulled a few heartstrings. I’m like, “Hold on, the heartstrings as well,” because I’ve never viewed it from that side of it. Even hearing, even though it’s my own story, hearing it from her, it just seems different. I don’t know, they see stuff that we don’t see, and she saw stuff that I didn’t realize until I was playing catch-up because she already figured it out.

Seth: Yeah, so, yeah, absolutely. So, maybe next week, we can find a time, you know, the same kind of timeframe, the next week or the week after that, where maybe I can sit down with her as well.

Andrew: Okay, I’ll definitely talk to her and get that worked out, and I might put you both in a group or something so you guys can talk it out.

Seth: Okay, yeah, okay, awesome. Well, hey, man, appreciate it. You have an awesome Friday and an awesome weekend, and we’ll be in touch.

Andrew: Thank you so much, Seth. God bless. Have a good one.

Interview with Kevin Hensley

Seth: Awesome, hey Kevin, how are you, man? Thanks for joining me.

Kevin: Thanks, I appreciate it.

Seth: Yeah, so I know we’ve been kind of talking back and forth for a while about getting something like this done, and I’m glad we can finally link up and have a good conversation.

Kevin: Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to make this happen.

Seth: Yeah, you know, it’s no trouble to me at all. This is something I weirdly look forward to, you know. I mean, obviously, I don’t delight in the kinds of conversations that we have because I talk to a lot of people who are suffering from a lot of things, but it gives me, I guess, kind of a mission, if you will, to share some of these stories and spread awareness. So, I’m grateful for that, you know, and I’m grateful that people like yourself are willing to open up and share your stories with me.

Kevin: It’s been a long time. It’s actually my wife who started me on sharing the story, and ever since she did, there’s been a huge reply. So, I figured I would take the next step further and try to share some more to see if we can’t help other vets and family members who have lost their loved ones due to what we’re going to discuss and talk about today.

Seth: Yeah, so with that said, you know, I guess we’ll jump right in. The topic of conversation is burn pits, and you know more about that than most people. You run several Facebook groups, and you’re involved with several organizations. So, really, what I’d like to do is I’d really just like to hear your story, just kind of in your own words, start to finish.

Kevin: Okay, well, I joined the military in 1995. My first deployment was in 1996, before September 11th even happened, so I’m kind of in the middle between the Gulf War and 9/11. After that, I went to Jordan in ’96, I went to Saudi Arabia in ’98. Between there, I did a stint in Osan Air Base, Korea. Then, right after September 11th, I was all hands on deck for kind of going into our higher threat alerts at home station and then moving on to a deployed location where it started—the burn pits in Jacobabad, Pakistan, in 2003. I was there for about five months, four and a half, five months. Then I hit Iraq in 2006, between a PCS move from Georgia to Colorado, and then we landed in Kirkuk in 2006. At that time, we were on the backside of the base, supporting operations with the 5th Cav, the 82nd, 101st Airborne Divisions, the 25th ID. Basically, we were on the backside where a Kurdish village and a Sunni and Shiite village were located a couple clicks down the road from us. We were making sure that guys got in, if anybody got hit or anything like that during convoys, that we secured that back area for them to get back to the rear to be taken care of. That’s where I really think, in 2006, is where I got sick. I was probably down for about a month. I was told I had the “Iraqi crud.” I’m sure you’ve heard this numerous times from previous podcasts if you’ve interviewed a lot of other people. They told me I had the Iraqi crud, they told me to shut up and color, get a straw, suck it up, you know, all that other stuff. The guys were looking out for me. My guys knew that something was wrong because I was probably sick for about a good month, month and a half. They knew if I went and got more help, additional help, that I would probably be sent home, and we would lose another body because, by that time that I got sick in June and July, we were only a month or two out before transitioning back to stateside location.

When I got back, I did my post-deployment health assessment survey. I told them the kind of things that I was exposed to. Again, wasn’t taken really seriously, just kind of pushed off because a lot of people don’t understand and don’t have the ability to understand what we see and what happened while we were there. So, I deployed again in 2008 to Balad in support of Iraqi Freedom as well, where the biggest, largest burn pit is, a 10-acre burn pit operation on the base in Balad. So, I went from kind of bad to worse in that aspect of it, I guess you could say. You know, living out there, getting—I mean, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Imagine you in your backyard, digging a hole and burning your waste, your trash, all that stuff, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and having your kids go outside and play. You wouldn’t do that, nor are you allowed to do that in the United States. So, you know, living in that environment, working in that environment, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we go from the hooch to the showers. As soon as you came out of the shower, all the soot and the ash would just fall right on top of you from that smoke and inhalation and stuff like that.

Then, I got back, again, did my post-deployment health assessment survey, went on to kind of riddle the same information at that point about what I was doing there. Again, got the cold shoulder, kind of got ignored. Just told I had—this time, I went to the medical facility, they just told me I had asthma, it was allergic rhinitis. I’ve been diagnosed with probably about 25 different things than the actual thing and what it is. The thing with me is, I’m the anomaly because I’m a non-smoker. They can’t figure out why now I have the lungs of a 91-year-old, and I have constrictive bronchiolitis at this point. Because, you know, being a non-smoker, they want to say that the smoking guys, “Oh, it’s just because you self-induced it, you did it yourself,” kind of thing.

Long story short, I deployed a couple more times. I kind of fell under the radar. I started having issues with PT tests as far as doing the mile-and-a-half run. I used to be able to run like three and a half miles, do the 5Ks, the 10Ks, without a problem. I started noticing I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt like I was like a fish out of water, basically, with the first—probably the first 150 feet that I would start running, you thought I was gonna fall over and have an asthma—not asthma-like attack, but it was ten times worse than that. I mean, it was just, at that point, I couldn’t even control my breathing. Had a hard time doing that, and then I got exempt from the runs a couple times. Then, I deployed a few more times. I’m a lucky one because I made it to retirement. Before I was actually going to retire, I got called about probably a week after I pushed the button—because you can push the button in retirement about a year before you actually retire—and they said that they were going to med board me because of my restrictions. I started falling through—they said I fell through the cracks as far as getting the service. I’m like, “Well, your med board lasts about 24 to 48 months. I’ve got about 11 months to go before retirement, so what do you want to do here?” They basically called me back about a week later and said, “Well, we’re going to let you go ahead and retire.”

I noticed activities with my kids were few and far between where I couldn’t go out. I could hardly have a hard time going outside, being able to have strenuous activities, walking short distances, running anywhere, you know, kind of just catching up with my kids. Because, you know, if you have small children or toddlers, you understand that running after them is like a daily process. So, after I got out of service, I retired. I started trying to figure out what these burn pits did and trying to get some research about burn pits. I found this group called Burn Pit Families. They recommended Dr. Miller, which is in Nashville. At that time, I moved up to Tennessee because that’s where my folks were. I retired out of Georgia, moved up to Tennessee, so I’m about 200 miles away from Dr. Miller. So, I thought, sure, I’d go down there and see what he says.

The VA didn’t have a pulmonologist for me in Johnson City, Tennessee, and they sent me to the VA Choice. They sent me to a pulmonologist. I had the letter, the environmental letter from Balad in 2006 that was done—I don’t know if you’re familiar with that or not—but I showed him that. I showed him all my medical history because, basically, I took about four or five hours to separate my conditions to show what I had. He said, “Well, that sounds really bad. I’ll have to do some research, and I’ll see you in a year.” Well, I didn’t accept that “I’ll see you in a year” when he had no answers. So, I found out about Dr. Miller, and I went to him. He saw me about six to eight times during that first year, and I found out I was a candidate for lung biopsy. When they did the lung biopsy on me, when they cut me open, the doctor told my wife that as soon as they opened me up, they saw the soot and the ash and all the burning and the plaques all over my lungs. They knew right away, without even having to go any further, that I was going to be diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis.

So, I took care of that. I’m on oxygen now, as you can see—I don’t know if you can see the tube or not—but I’m on oxygen day and night. Nighttime is full-time, daytime is depending on how much exertion I do to be on or what happens during the day. Then, I’m on breathing treatments, and I’m also on inhalers. Again, if it wasn’t for finding Dr. Miller and dealing with him and his experience with the burn pits—because he’s also testified in front of Congress, and he’s dealt with the guys out of Fort Campbell where 38 out of 49 guys came out of Fort Campbell with the same diagnosis when he first started this back in the early 2000s, mid-2000 range, from Fort Campbell. So, it’s been a huge issue with that, and, you know, not knowing much about it, not hearing much about it. Dr. Miller told me I was his first Air Force guy that he’s ever dealt with, so it’s kind of, you know, it’s been a trial and error. It’s been finding people, finding resources, it’s been doing a lot of research to get us to where we are right now and to get people to help that we need and I need.

Battling the VA with believing my story, with understanding my story. I did a SERS scan as well. I went to Littleton, Colorado, and I did a SERS scan where they also found toxic inhalation in the part of my brain, which I sent you that bit of information there as well. So, not only do you have it in your lungs, you have it in your brain because you’ve inhaled it, which makes sense. But that’s the only place that allows for the toxic inhalation. The problem with a lot of guys is they don’t have, when they come out of the military, if they don’t retire, they don’t have that insurance to be able to go to these places and get that kind of help and take care. I mean, my lung biopsy was over sixty-seven thousand dollars out of pocket, you know. The SERS scan was about thirty-three—you’re looking at over a hundred thousand dollars just for those two tests. If you don’t have separate insurance, and if you don’t have a way to get insurance depending on what you’re doing with your job, these guys are coming out of the military, you have to accept what the VA’s telling you. The VA’s telling everybody pretty much the same story: you just got asthma, you know. So, that’s basically my story in a nutshell. I mean, I’ll give you a little bit of information as far as we go on down the road with other things that have happened and other things that I found out, but that’s basically the nuts and bolts of what started this whole process.

Seth: Yeah, I’ve heard that story a couple of different times, couple of different ways from a lot of people. Usually, it’s all the same: constrictive bronchiolitis as a result from burn pits in Iraq, mostly, but sometimes Afghanistan. Balad is notorious for Air Force because, obviously, it’s an Air Force base, but also one of the bigger dormitories was just yards from the burn pit. So, it was, like I said, a 10-acre burn pit, and all day long, you’re breathing that stuff in. They’re not filtering the air to the degree that would be required for the air inside the dormitories and things like that to be considered safe. So, it’s just inside, it’s outside, it’s lingering everywhere, and you just can’t get away from it, you know. Constrictive bronchiolitis, in my understanding, is that a terminal condition? Is that correct?

Kevin: It is. That’s a terminal condition. Right now, I’m at the three-year mark. I’m kind of in the red right now. I actually go back to see Dr. Miller on the 13th of October to do a pulmonary function test to see where my lung volumes are at this point. Basically, the extent of it is, I’m looking at a full lung transplant if not now, soon, you know. So, that’s kind of the items that are going on with that. It’s a serious thing. There is a compassionate allowance for Social Security for disability, but, you know, if you look at 38 CFR, the burn pit ratings for the VA, it’s not on there. That’s why we’re trying to pass some bills and get the bills identified for presumption of conditions for legislation through Congress right now. That’s what we’re working on.

I’m excited to join with Burn Pits 360 as well, and we went to Capitol Hill with Jon Stewart and John Feal from the FealGood Foundation, and Senator Gillibrand, and Congressman Ruiz, and actually the former VA Secretary, the Secretary of the VA who just resigned previously, he was there as well, to advocate for burn pits. It’s pretty much been, ever since my wife shared my story—because I felt like I was still alive, so I didn’t have it as bad as everybody else does—but as I’m going through this and talking to families and talking to other vets and stuff like that, it’s been a huge positive response. Because the biggest thing I want everybody to know is this is not about me, this is about all of us. This is about everybody who’s been affected by burn pits. There’s over 209,000 vets who signed up for the Burn Pit Registry, and they told me that Burn Pit Registry through the VA wasn’t going to go anywhere, it wasn’t going to do anything, so it’s just going to sit there in cyberspace and spin. Those 209,000 vets, plus their families, plus the families of people who were diagnosed previous to that even happening and don’t even know, they deserve health care, they deserve to be taken care of, they deserve to have some kind of explanation, some kind of help, some kind of treatment for this problem.

Seth: Yeah, absolutely. You know, our veterans deserve the best care that we can possibly give them. They put their lives on the line to defend the country, and the least that we can do for them is recognize the service disabilities and cover the medical costs. For most of the people, that’s not the case. There are many veterans who are going completely bankrupt just taking care of their own medical care that is a result of their service. The VA offers them nothing, and that’s a tragedy.

Kevin: It sure is. A lot of people have gone through bankruptcy, they’ve lost their homes, they’ve lost their cars, they’re getting collections notices from medical places because they’re trying to get help. The VA told my wife and me that we blindsided them after we had the lung procedure because we needed to get oxygen. I paid for the oxygen out of pocket at first, initially we did, and then the VA started to pick it up, which we’re thankful for that after they sent us for further testing. They said that we blindsided them, and my wife said, “Well, if it was your vet, would you want him treated appropriately as well?” They basically shook their head and said, “Yes, we would.” So, it’s kind of like a double-edged sword as far as that goes. That’s why we’re pushing these bills, and we’re going to Congress. Jon Feal and Jon Stewart are on board with us now. They’re the ones that helped the first responders for 9

Interview with Kevin Berger

**Seth**: Okay, yep, that's better. Okay, yeah, I think that'll be a better connection. No, thanks for doing that, you know, I got you on the line here so I would hate to waste the opportunity with any kind of dead audio, you know. I mean, I want to make sure that we do this right so I think we'll probably just try to start from the beginning. Appreciate you being patient.

So yeah, I came by you via Kevin Hensley, and you mentioned that you know Kevin, and he recently asked you to be on the board of a group for veterans with CB, right?

**Kevin Berger**: Yes.

**Seth**: Okay, now CB, for those who don't know, is constrictive bronchiolitis, and that's a condition that's somewhat rare in the medical field, but from my understanding, it’s mostly caused by the inhalation of chemical toxins and airborne heavy metals. Is that fair to say?

**Kevin Berger**: Yes.

**Seth**: Okay, yeah, so the disease itself is common amongst many veterans, and it’s typically caused by exposure to burn pits, you know, and burn pits are prevalent all over the theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably a million other bases that we just don’t really know about, right? And they even have open-air burn pits in the United States for some military bases where they burn off munitions, bombs, and explosives and things like that. A lot of people don’t really know that. So, you know, in your experience, you were exposed to that. Really, kind of, just, like, if you don’t mind, just kind of taking it from the top, really, and tell me, you know, about your military experience. You mentioned that you kind of joined around the 9/11 timeframe.

**Kevin Berger**: Yeah, I joined in March of 2001, U.S. Army, Military Police Corps, and went to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I finished off my basic training in AIT, Advanced Individual Training, in August of 2001. So, I was actually getting to my first post when 9/11 happened, and I was actually at the in-processing station watching it happen live on TV. So, I remember it well, and, you know, we were told at first we might end up going to Afghanistan, and then they were like, no, we’re not sending you guys anywhere. So, it was kind of like a back-and-forth battle, I think, between the post and FORSCOM and all that fun stuff. And we ended up getting deployed to Iraq in 2003, and we were all over country in Iraq. We started off in Kuwait, though, and we started off at Camp New Jersey, which is in the northern area of Kuwait. And, you know, we tracked up with 4th ID and provided route security and convoy security. And we got to the south part of Baghdad, I think it was April, in April sometime. And from there, we just kind of camped out on the side. We had this camp called Camp Side of the Road, and it was basically like one of those rest stops where people could, you know, I guess, go over, take a break, sit and eat at a picnic table. And we were camped out there for a few weeks to a month, and we would escort 4th ID tanks, of all things, with Humvees. We’d escort them, and we’d escort them up to Taji base in Baghdad. And, you know, we found—I found out later on, much later on, that they were actually burning old chemical weapons there, or they had built a burn pit on top of, I guess, where there were chemical weapons. And, you know, that kind of had me concerned when I found that out. But after Camp Side of the Road, we traveled up to Balad for a bit, and that’s where our company was headquartered at. Now, the platoons were headquartered in different areas. We had a platoon headquartered with the company HQ in Balad, we had a platoon up in Tikrit, us and another platoon were at Camp Ashraf, and there was a platoon in Bakuba, so we were kind of scattered. It was, I mean, we found out, I guess, I found out from my team leader not too long ago, actually, that when we were camped out next to the road by Camp Ashraf, we were actually camped on top of a garbage dump, and a bunch of people were getting sick, and I didn’t know anything about it. They didn’t really talk to us about what was going on, and my team leader’s like, yeah, we actually, that’s why we ended up moving on Camp Ashraf. I was like, oh, that’s interesting. So, but we were actually downwind, almost directly from Balad, like we’re almost due east of Balad. So, we’re at Camp Ashraf for the remainder of our time there, and we had burn pits, you know, there on the base with us, and it was pretty close to where we lived. I mean, it was right next to, you know, the area where the trailers were at that we’re staying in, and our motor pool was literally almost right next to it, so, you know, there was constant smoke. There is one episode I remember really vividly, and there was like a chlorine gas that completely encamped us. It just surrounded us while we were there, and you breathed it in, and it just burned your lungs. I mean, before, before I went to Iraq, I had some really high PT scores, and once I came home, you know, my breathing sucked. My PT scores went down. It just, it was really horrible for me because I was like, why, you know, why is it I can’t run a quarter of a mile without coughing and having a hard time breathing. And it was never explained except that I had asthma, and that’s what I’ve been diagnosed currently with, so, you know, we’re looking at that. But the most important thing that happened with me is I developed thyroid cancer, and I was diagnosed in 2018 with papillary thyroid cancer. The tumor was so big you could actually see it on my neck, and come to find out, my team leader, who I was in Iraq with the whole time, developed the same thyroid cancer in the same spot, roughly about the same size, and we were diagnosed the same year. And it just comes off strange that it wouldn’t be related in some way.

**Seth**: Yeah, and CB too, I mean...

**Kevin Berger**: I’ve had a cough for 20 years, and I’ve had some people say, oh, it’s asthmatic, I’ve had other people say, oh, it’s not asthmatic. All I can tell you is inhalers don’t work. They don’t, they don’t really help. My pulmonologist, he wants to start me on a different kind of treatment, but he’s worried it could give me frail bones and immunocompromise my system. So, you know, it’s, with me, it’s, we’re in a unique—my wife and I are in a unique situation because my wife is actively fighting brain cancer, and she’s actively on chemo right now, and she wasn’t in the service or anything. We don’t actually know a whole lot about how she got her cancer, but it’s a rare tumor called oligodendroglioma, so it’s a slow go, a very slow-growing cancer. But, yeah, it’s just, it’s very frustrating to me a lot because I’ve reached out to just about every single representative in my state that I could, and, you know, everyone from Debbie Dingell’s office to Gary P.—Senator Gary Peters—and Haley Stevens. And, you know, Haley Stevens, she’s got someone in her office named Sophia, she’s been helpful, but then there’s been a lot of fighting back and forth with a guy in her office named Michael Tash, and he just, he doesn’t care about us, and he actually hung up on me one time when I was trying to just kind of vent about why I was upset, and he just hung up on me, and that was really, really hurtful.

**Seth**: What state do you live in?

**Kevin Berger**: I’m in Michigan.

**Seth**: Okay, and these are your House and your Senate leaders on the federal level?

**Kevin Berger**: They’re mixed, actually. General, I don’t know if you know his name, General Bergman, he’s from Michigan. I’ve reached out in quite a few emails to him because he sits on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and nothing. I’ve reached out to the House Veterans Affairs Committee itself several times, nothing. Like I said, I got this one young lady from Hailey Stephen’s office named Sophia, she’s, you know, she said she’s been forwarding my emails to the congresswoman, but the congresswoman, it seems, maybe she’s not interested in helping us because she hasn’t answered. There’s a gentleman who, just funny thing, there’s a gentleman from Gary Peter’s office who recently emailed me on Friday or Thursday, and he wants to talk to me Monday, all of a sudden. I told him I had an interview coming up, I didn’t tell him when, and I didn’t tell him with who, but I said, you know, I’ve been reaching out for a long time, and I don’t want to hear any complaints, well, you haven’t talked to us, or you didn’t try. I mean, I got all the emails saved, so this is something I’ve been asking about since 2017. So, it’s not a new issue by any means. So, you know, it’s just, it’s really hard, like, not all guys go through this, but, you know, I actually had someone that I respected and worked with at one time, and he tried to accuse me of stolen valor, of all things, and this is around the same time that I was trying to get benefits with the VA, too. And, you know, the VA here in Michigan, they fought me tooth and nail. I’m at 100% currently, which I’m thankful for, you know, don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely thankful because our family situation with my wife having cancer and being that, you know, not being at work right now, if I had to stop working, then I’d at least have something to fall on. But, you know, all this stuff that I have going on, it’s documented in my military records, and it’s like, it just gets ignored by the doctors at the VA. It’s like, yeah, it’s like some of the doctors, I do think, really care, but some of them, I think they’re there to get a bonus, and it bothers me that that would be the case. I mean, I would think if you’re going to the VA, you want to go to help guys. But we’ll see, I mean, I would really like to send this video to them so they can see what we have to deal with because it’s not just me, there’s probably hundreds of thousands of veterans out there in similar circumstances, and it’s like everybody keeps saying, we don’t want this to be the next Agent Orange. It’s too late, it’s already there, it’s been 20 years. I mean, when are you guys gonna take responsibility to take care of us, you know? You asked us to sign on the dotted line and go fight, we did, we did it willingly. The only thing we ask is, when we get home, you take care of us.

**Seth**: Yep, I don’t think that that’s complicated, and they have the money to take care of this now and try to mitigate damages before it gets way, way too bad. And they can start investing right now, then do it, you know. It’s really frustrating.

**Kevin Berger**: I agree, you know, it all comes down to money, and I think the VA does want to help us, I do not think that they just want to leave us at the wayside. It’s really up to Congress to budget the money that they need to help us, and what infuriates me more is when I hear these studies that go on in the VA, and it’s like, you get a million-dollar study for the National Institute of Health, and they’re all saying, well, we think that lung disease actually could be caused by blast injury. Well, it doesn’t matter what it’s caused by, if it’s still there and it was there caused by combat, that means it’s service-related by definition, so why do we need to study a blast injury? I mean, blast injuries are quite a bit different than toxic inhalation, and, you know, I’m fighting for my cancer claim right now, and this, now, my team leader, he’s, his cancer claim, after I wrote him a statement and he wrote me a statement, his cancer claim was approved, and he’s getting like 30% for his thyroid cancer. I have not gotten anything, in fact, the VA here in Detroit is, I guess, arguing that it’s not related at all to my service, which I don’t understand how one person, two people who serve together, same cancer, same area, diagnosed the same year, how they wouldn’t be related. I find that odd. But, you know, thyroid issues, I don’t know if you have any issues with your thyroid, anyone who has them understands, kind of, there, it’s very debilitating. It causes a lot of exhaustion, it, because it regulates your metabolism, so you have a lot of weight issues, like either extreme weight gain or extreme weight loss, there’s like nothing in the middle. And, you know, I actually had to move hospitals from Detroit to Ann Arbor because I actually had a doctor at the Detroit hospital keep me off my thyroid medicine for too long, and I ended up in the emergency room, and I actually consulted a lawyer on that to see to make sure that it wasn’t something that could have endangered my life, and they said that it very well could have put me in a coma by doing that. And, but they said, you know, from what we can tell, there’s no, you don’t have any long-term harm, which is fine, and, but they said that they really, they really dodged a bullet on that because I could have, that could have killed me, you know. And that’s not really comforting to hear from anyone. So, I moved to the Ann Arbor campus, and I mean, I still have issues there too, but it’s a little better. It’s really hard, I don’t know if Kevin told you, it’s hard for us to even get appointments, and they seem to know me by name, which is odd because I don’t know them. Yeah, I don’t know how they know my name unless there’s some kind of C file that’s kept or something, which is kind of disgraceful in of itself, but I just want to go get treated like any other veteran, you know. I fought for my country, like, like all you guys. Kevin fought for his country. I don’t think we should have to deal with criticism from the same place we’re trying to get treatment.

**Seth**: Yeah, that’s, yeah, I never thought that that would be an issue. I never thought I’d have an issue getting benefits.

**Kevin Berger**: Yeah, that’s, yeah, I never thought that that would be an issue. I never thought I’d have an issue getting benefits, and my wife’s grandpa, he’s a, he’s a former Marine, I’m sorry, he’s a Marine, never a former Marine, he’s a Marine, and her dad’s a Marine as well. Your grandfather, he’s like, yeah, what they’re gonna do is, and I guess it’s just something, maybe they do here in Michigan, I don’t know, but he said that they, they’re gonna deny you, and then you’re, they’re gonna make you fight, fight for it because they know if they deny 10 people, they’re only gonna have three or five, four out of ten that actually fight to get their benefits. Yeah, I said, well, that’s, that’s disgraceful, you know, that really bothers me to my core, and Michigan’s actually got one of the lowest benefit rates in the country, from what I heard, like, they don’t grant benefits here like they would in Texas or California or other states, you know, Florida. So, I don’t know what that’s all about, but it should be one equal playing field for all veterans, we should all have the same opportunity.

**Seth**: Absolutely, so, but, yeah, so, I mean...

**Kevin Berger**: Like I said, I’m really disappointed. None of our representatives have signed up on either bill that’s being pursued in the House or Senate, and I just, I don’t understand it because, like I said, it should not be a political issue, this should be an American issue, this should be something everybody stands behind because we’re, we’re left to advocate for ourselves. I mean, we don’t have, we don’t have anyone from our government helping us on this, and I guess I never really understood that because when I was in, it was always like, you know, cool, cool, and then all of a sudden you get out, and it’s like, you’re on your own, sorry, thanks.

**Seth**: So, it’s a shame, you know. I mean, I live in Kansas, and on the Senate Veterans Committee, the chairman is Jerry Moran, and he’s a Republican, Kansas, and he’s one of two that represents my state. So, I’m gonna try to do what I can to reach out with him, and I’m gonna start sending him these videos, you know. And I know that he’s generally a patriotic guy, and he generally likes to do the right thing, but politics are a messy thing, and this is, unfortunately, a political issue. So, I, my goal from this is not to just have these conversations, I want to affect change, and really, it’s all about numbers, right? So, one conversation won’t do it. There needs to be a hundred conversations, you know, and I am happy to do a thousand, right? If there are a thousand people who reach out to me who have burn pit-related diseases and illnesses, I will talk to every single one of them, and that is my goal, is to just do that, to facilitate that, to put that out online so people can see it, and therefore, you know, hopefully, it gains traction, and we get the attention of our representatives because that political pressure is really going to be the only thing that makes a difference. People gotta know, and if they don’t know, then they can’t care, but if they watch this video, they can’t not care any longer, right? There’s just not—it’s just not possible, you know, and I just, it’s just not a big enough issue, and we’ve got to get the momentum going. So, my goal is to make a documentary, you know, and when I get enough people to talk to me, that I can put all these videos together and package them. So, part of the way is to make it kind of compelling. So, I’m going to ask you to do a little bit of a monologue for me here as we kind of wrap this up. We got a couple minutes left before we run out of time. So, I would like you to just, in your own words, say, my name is Kevin Berger, I served in the Army in Baghdad from, you know, 2003 to whatever, I was exposed to burn pits, I have CB, you know, if you would just kind of recite that, so when I can, I can put all those little pieces together at the beginning to make it kind of a compelling narrative.

**Kevin Berger**: I just want to clarify real quick, I haven’t actually been diagnosed with CB, so I can’t really say that yet.

**Seth**: Got it.

**Kevin Berger**: Yes, yep, he seems to be the world’s best expert in this, you know, if you can get in to see him, you know, good on you because everybody I talked to says that’s the guy.

**Seth**: For sure, so, yeah, if you wouldn’t mind, you know, just kind of running through that. I’m Kevin Berger, I served in Iraq at this time, I was exposed to burn pits, and I have lung disease.

**Kevin Berger**: My name is Kevin Berger, I’m a United States Army veteran, post-9/11 veteran, pre- and post-9/11 veteran. I served in Iraq from ’03 to ’04 as an MP, and I came home and was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and small airways lung disease, is what it says, so currently asthma, and we’ll see where it goes from there, but yeah, I also have a liver hemangioma.

**Seth**: No, thank you for that, you know. That’ll help me kind of for documentary purposes down the line, kind of match some of those up as I talk to veterans, you know, and kind of make a good, powerful opening, you know. And I don’t know anything about making a documentary, so I’m kind of figuring this out as I go along, and, you know, I hope that I can make it compelling in a way that makes sense.

**Kevin Berger**: And like I said, I really look forward to continuing to work with you, and I definitely want to help Kevin out as much as I can on his organization. Like I said, I’ve not gotten actually diagnosed with CB, right now it’s just diagnosed as asthma, so we’ll see how that goes. All I know is I’ve had this cough, it’s a chronic cough, you’ve heard it during the interview here, and I’ve had it since I was in Iraq, that’s when it started. So, you know, and, and like you, I, you probably got one, like I did, depleted uranium questionnaire, so I don’t know if I was exposed to it, my knowledge says I wasn’t, but they don’t ask if I was exposed to burning enemy vehicles, they just asked if I was exposed to burning friendly vehicles.

**Seth**: Absolutely, you know, I don’t think or two about that, and I think that it can be its own conversation in a way, so I want to thank you for sharing your story with me and coming on the line with me. I know it’s probably not the easiest thing to talk about, but it is important, and, you know, I’m going to do my best to get this out there, you know, on YouTube and share this to politicians and things to try to affect some real change. So, if you know anybody else who would be interested in speaking with me, please send them my way, and I’d be happy to interview them as well and document their story.

**Kevin Berger**: Absolutely, and we’re still, we’re still kind of getting started here in Michigan, but the first thing we have to do is get the information out there, and once we get the information out there, I’m sure people are going to start coming to us, and, you know, if I can send anyone I can to you, I’ll add you on Facebook, and I’ll send you as many people as I can. I mean, something’s got to happen, we can’t keep living like this. I mean, I’m 38, I have two kids, both under the age of six, and I kind of want to be around when they get older, and, you know, it, we’re in a unique situation because my wife has brain cancer, so it’s like, it’s a double whammy, you know. How many people can say both parents have cancer and major health issues, you know?

**Seth**: I wish you guys the best, you know. I hope that when you go to see Dr. Miller, he has something helpful and enlightening to share with you, and there’s a good treatment plan, you know. I mean, I hope your wife—you know, and you guys are in my thoughts and my prayers, so I wish you guys the best.

**Kevin Berger**: Thank you very much, Seth, I really appreciate it.

**Seth**: Thank you for your time, and we’ll be in touch. Let me know how it goes.

**Kevin Berger**: All right, yep, thank you for your time, and thank you for your sacrifice and service as well.

**Seth**: Thank you for your time, and thank you for your sacrifice and service as well. I appreciate that. Have a good weekend, talk to you later.

**Kevin Berger**: All right, thanks, you too.

**Seth**: Thanks, you too. Goodbye.