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A team of veterans who served at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan for the duration of the Afghan War say they are not able to get the Pentagon to declassify info about the toxic compounds they could have been uncovered to.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
In the early many years of the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. navy relied closely on an airbase in Uzbekistan that was recognized as K2. K2 is now regarded for one more rationale – harmful exposure. Veterans who served there have documented exceptional ailments or cancers, and numerous have died. Now they are demanding solutions from the Pentagon, as NPR’s Quil Lawrence stories.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: For 20 several years now, Kim Brooks has been battling a war she under no circumstances signed up for.
KIM BROOKS: My spouse, Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Brooks, was a 1989 West Issue graduate.
LAWRENCE: They married the future calendar year and experienced 4 kids by the time 9/11 happened. Tim deployed to a foundation called Karshi-Khanabad – K2 – in Uzbekistan in the vicinity of the Afghan border. Troops there outlined annoying dust and bizarre substances seeping up by way of the ground. Tim arrived dwelling, and quickly after, he started listening to rumors about uranium and other harmful toxins. A yr afterwards, he experienced a seizure at a command ceremony as he was preparing to deploy to Iraq. At the hospital, the news was not fantastic – mind most cancers.
BROOKS: The medical professional tells us that Tim has a phase 3 astrocytoma, and it truly is intense, and he has probably 11 months max to reside. You know, we make it out to the parking large amount, and Tim collapses on the ground in tears, sobbing. So he’s 6-foot-5. He’s on the ground, and he is sobbing.
LAWRENCE: Tim defeat the prediction by a month. He died a calendar year later on, nevertheless on active duty with the Army. Of their four youngsters, a person went to West Level and later on Iraq. One more is now a attorney at the Yale Veterans Authorized Expert services Clinic, which assisted file a lawsuit this 7 days.
(SOUNDBITE OF Press Conference)
STEVE NELSON: I’m the director of governing administration affairs and a board member for the Stronghold Flexibility Foundation. I would like to thank Senator Blumenthal for your ongoing assistance and staying in this article right now. I would also like to thank the CVLC for web hosting us nowadays and helping us in our journey.
LAWRENCE: Steve Nelson, with the Stronghold Liberty Foundation, spoke at a push meeting asserting the suit brought for the reason that the Pentagon has not answered a liberty of information and facts ask for, a FOIA.
(SOUNDBITE OF Press Convention)
NELSON: This FOIA litigation seeks to drive the govt to give a record of the contaminants it found and documented at K2. This facts is remaining inexplicably and shamefully withheld.
LAWRENCE: The Pentagon referred NPR’s question to the Division of Justice, which declined to remark on why this info is just not getting introduced. Fifteen thousand vets served at K2. Hundreds of them say they are ill, but they can’t even notify medical professionals what to take care of them for right up until they know what was contaminating the foundation.
MARK JACKSON: When I was there, some dudes came off a C-17 wearing moon suits, carrying Geiger counters, and I was in working shorts and a T-shirt.
LAWRENCE: Mark Jackson served 4 overcome tours. He spoke to me past 7 days, and then he rushed himself to the emergency room when the sepsis in just one of his elbows burst. He is obtained extreme osteoporosis, anemia, and his thyroid unsuccessful and was removed.
JACKSON: I have experienced surgical procedures four situations in the previous six months, and I consider myself lucky mainly because it is really not most cancers.
LAWRENCE: Jackson’s assistance was recognized with a Bronze Star medal pinned on by Lloyd Austin, then a typical, now Secretary of Defense. Jackson now desires Secretary Austin to understand him yet again and all of the other K2 veterans by releasing the facts they have to have to endure.
Quil Lawrence, NPR News.
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