Friday, March 12, 2010
"Don't worry, this stuff won't hurt you." - Vets say toxic tests sickened them; government says prove it
"...the military spent years disavowing the tests altogether. The denials ended in the late 1990s, but the government has offered medical care and compensation only to those who can establish, by a preponderance of evidence, their illnesses were the result of exposure.
As of 2008, just 39 of 614 benefit claims filed by veterans in relation to tests nationwide had been approved.
Army says it used 'voluntary human subjects, 'but ill man says 'I was private first class I did anything they told me to do.'"
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
01/21/2010 02:52:31 PM MST
Editor's note: Third in a three-part series.
Even those who know the area best won't step far off the narrow, muddy road that runs through the center of the desolate toxic dump at Utah's Deseret Chemical Depot.
It's been more than 30 years since the U.S. Army used this vast scrubland, known as the East Demilitarization Area, to dispose of a deadly arsenal of chemical and conventional munitions -- but the military still hasn't figured out how to clean up its mess.
The Defense Department does acknowledge the disaster, just as it has belatedly admitted having tested a gamut of chemical and biological weapons on military members in Utah's vast west desert during the Cold War. But the U.S. government insists that the tests have contributed to long-term illnesses in only a handful of exposed service members. And that has led the Department of Veterans Affairs to deny almost all claims for care and compensation made by those who believe they got sick as a result of the tests.
Although the Cold War was fought mainly by proxy and politicians, it was not without its casualties: Many died while waiting on the military to so much as acknowledge its secret programs.
Now, Dwight Bunn fears he might also slip away before the government takes responsibility for its actions.
The former soldier is sick. And he wants to know why.
'Don't worry, this stuff won't hurt you.'
Bunn was 21 years old when he arrived at Dugway Proving Ground, just over the snow-dusted hills from the Deseret demilitarization dump, in Tooele County. The official mission of his unit, the 45th Chemical Company, was to create smoke screens for infantry assaults. But in the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, the Army had other uses for the group.
Among the company's secretive duties: Helping to dispose of the carcasses of animals used in chemical weapons tests.
Starting in the 1940s and continuing through the 1970s, the Army tested and disposed of thousands of tons of chemical and biological agents in sparsely populated Utah, including munitions loaded with sarin, VX, mustard, tabun and various hallucinogens.
Bunn, whose tour of duty in Utah began as the U.S. was beginning to build up its forces in Vietnam, also believes members of his unit were exposed to Agent Orange. "They told us, 'Don't worry, this stuff won't hurt you. It's a defoliant and so it will kill the trees, but you'll be fine," he said.
Bunn said military officials have told him they can find no record of Utah tests involving the toxic herbicide, which has been linked to dozens of medical conditions.
But for the Washington state man, the government's denials are less than convincing. After all, the military spent years disavowing the tests altogether. The denials ended in the late 1990s, but the government has offered medical care and compensation only to those who can establish, by a preponderance of evidence, their illnesses were the result of exposure.
As of 2008, just 39 of 614 benefit claims filed by veterans in relation to tests nationwide had been approved.
Bunn, who suffers from restrictive lung disease, has asked the VA for care and compensation for his condition, in which tissue surrounding the lungs hardens and makes it difficult to exhale.
But the 65-year-old veteran's claim has been denied. And he's infuriated by a government that kept the program secret for decades, and now expects him and others to be able to offer proof that the tests made them sick.
"I've been exposed to a hell of a lot of stuff," he said. "Can I say definitively what did this to me? No I can't. But I've never lied about it. The military -- it conducted tests on humans and didn't acknowledge it. That's not right."
'Blow it up and burn it.'
Long rows of wooden pallets, stacked with bomb casings and ragged pieces of shrapnel, memorialize the Army's last attempt to clean up the Deseret demilitarization dump. The inefficient bomb-by-bomb effort was abandoned in the 1980s when military leaders realized it was too dangerous to continue.
"They just walked away," said Troy Johnson, Deseret's environmental program manager.
It's hard to understand why they even started. Just to the south of Deseret's colossal, modern weapons incinerator, the charred shells of nearly 60,000 mortars form an artificial bluff hundreds of feet across. Some of the bombs are believed to be filled with the hardened remnants of mustard agent.
Not far away, ditches the size of swimming pools are filled with paint cans, fire extinguishers, oil drums, tear gas canisters and cluster bombs. Unexploded ordnance litters the ground...
In Full, The Salt Lake Tribune
H/t: Chemical Weapons Working Group
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