This story originally published Dec. 4, 2020 at 5:17 p.m. It was updated Dec. 16 to reflect that Congress passed the measure.
More than 15,000 veterans who served at a secret Soviet-era airbase in Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan may have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and other hazards, including "black goo" oozing up from the ground.
Now, Congress has passed a measure granting those veterans access to the Department of Veterans Affairs burn pit registry to help track exposures. It's the latest development in a series of efforts by lawmakers and the White House aimed at helping so-called "K2 veterans."
Lawmakers also included a requirement for more research about the veterans' exposures in the massive annual defense authorization bill, which has not yet passed. The research is likely the next step toward expanding care and benefits for the veterans who have sickened or died after serving at the base.
Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller is also drafting an executive order for the president which would add Uzbekistan to VA's burn pit registry and could allow K2 veterans to receive depleted uranium screenings at VA.
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Rep. Mark Green, R-Tennessee, a doctor and combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, including flying through Karshi-Khanabad, sponsored a bill earlier this year calling not only for a study of exposures at the base but for a registry for those veterans and for VA to provide care and benefits to those with illnesses linked to the exposures. The executive order and measures included in larger bills are modeled on Green's original legislation, his office said.
"I'm pleased that the administration is considering efforts to champion this cause," Green said Wednesday. "It’s far past time that we offer our K2 veterans the answers and care they have deserved for nearly two decades." The acting Defense Secretary, like Green, also passed through K2 as a special operator, Green said. "This draft executive order is another crucial step forward. We will continue this fight and we will not stop."
Parts of Green's bill were included by lawmakers in a sweeping veterans' omnibus package that passed out of Congress on Dec. 16 and now heads to the president's desk. It was also included by lawmakers when finalizing the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a massive must-pass annual defense bill which outlines defense policy and spending authorizations and typically includes measures such as troop pay raises, equipment and more. The bill is all but guaranteed to pass in recent years and has been prime real estate for major military and veterans legislation, including on toxic exposures.
Congress is expected to vote on the NDAA bill in coming weeks, sending it to the president for final approval, though he has threatened to veto it over an unrelated provision for renaming military bases honoring Confederate leaders. With a presidential signature on either major bill -- both with broad bipartisan support -- the K2 research is assured.
"The original bill had the presumption that any veteran who gets cancer and was assigned to K2, that that cancer came from exposure at K2," Green, a retired Army major, said he flew through K2 as a member of the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. "But the presumptive was not included in the amendment. What is there is the studies, the advanced epidemiological, longitudinal studies."
Green said that the move was a compromise, since VA and the Senate were not ready to support presumptives for those veterans sick or dying from what they and their families believe are illnesses caused by their exposures at the Uzbekistan base. Green believes it, too.
"I'm prepared to say it's from those toxic exposures," he told Connecting Vets on Dec. 4. "VA and the Senate, I guess, are not ready to do that."
Green's bill was the first filed aiming to help K2 veterans.
"K2" refers to the Soviet-era base used by U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine forces as the northern staging ground for the Afghanistan invasion. A trove of recently declassified Pentagon documents revealed what may be the first official admission by the Defense Department that the former Soviet military base was a hazard.
The Pentagon documents showed the base was built on a foundation of dangerous levels of radiation. Defense officials estimated that more than 15,000 troops served at and may have been exposed at K2. The U.S. military occupied the base from at least 2001-05 and it is currently home to the 60th Separate Mixed Aviation Brigade of the Uzbek Air Force.
The base, constructed quickly above what turned out to be the remains of a former chemical weapons factory, is still not part of any official toxic exposure registries at VA or the Defense Department, though veterans who served on the base, or their families, have shared stories of how they have sickened and died because of toxic exposure there. Those veterans reported symptoms from gastrointestinal illnesses and neurological disorders to rare cancers, and described "black goo" oozing up from the ground.
Legislation requiring more studies is key to formally link the exposures to potential illnesses veterans may experience, but it does little to help veterans ill and dying now, and continues to push the timeline for benefits decisions.
Green, a cancer survivor, said he understands the argument some lawmakers and VA have made against expanding care and benefits for ill K2 veterans -- "I just don't agree with it," he said, frustration clear in his voice.
Critics argue VA is already experiencing capacity issues, Green said. "We never knew we'd be at war for 20 years and that's a much larger than anticipated demand on VA."
Adding a presumptive for illnesses K2 veterans might be suffering adds to that demand, and Congress may have to allocate more resources to VA to meet the needs of those veterans. But Green says it's time.
"You don't get here by accident," he said of high rates of cancers and other illnesses reported by K2 veterans and their families.
"The conversations with the widows are the hardest," Green said.
Cost has continually been cited as a major hurdle to expanding care for veterans exposed to toxicants through many American conflicts. The NDAA includes a measure to grant care and benefits for Agent Orange-exposed vets decades after the Vietnam War ended, and still excluded veterans with hypertension largely because of cost.
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Failing to address toxic exposures is a major national security risk, Green argued.
"Just because a veteran signs on the dotted line and decides to go to combat for our freedoms doesn't necessarily determine how much a veteran is going to push him or herself when the bullets are flying," he said. "Part of it is knowing someone has your back. My wife is going to be taken care of. If you know that ... You're a little more aggressive as you assault that hill ... It compels you to be more bold, which in military parlance means victory. It directly impacts the future security of our country. You want to know you and your family will be taken care of."
Green said he will continue pushing for presumptive benefits for K2 vets in Congress, but said there's an easier route available, if leaders are willing to take it: the White House or VA Secretary.
"We're not going to let this go," he said. "But they could fix this tomorrow."
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For information on how to add yourself to VA's burn pit and airborne hazard registry, click here. Even though Uzbekistan is not listed on VA's registry, VA officials told Congress K2 veterans may be eligible to add themselves to that
registry.
Need help with toxic exposure? Click here for a list of resources and information on VA and Defense Department registries.
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Reach Abbie Bennett: abbie@connectingvets.com or @AbbieRBennett.
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