The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America's Soldiers
–Joe Biden, former Vice President of the United States of America
The Agent Orange of the 21st Century… Thousands of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These soldiers, afflicted with rare cancers and respiratory diseases, were sickened from the smoke and ash swirling out of the “burn pits” where military contractors incinerated mountains of trash, including old stockpiles of mustard and sarin gas, medical waste, and other toxic material.
This shocking work includes:
Based on thousands of government documents, over five hundred in-depth medical case studies, and interviews with more than one thousand veterans and active-duty GIs, The Burn Pits will shock the nation. The book is more than an explosive work of investigative journalism—it is the deeply moving chronicle of the many young men and women who signed up to serve their country in the wake of 9/11, only to return home permanently damaged, the victims of their own armed forces’ criminal negligence.
Reviews (76)
An amazing job, unflinchingly telling our story
SSG Hickman, well done! We have never met, but you've done an amazing job, unflinchingly telling our story. In 2004 I wondered why the captured Sarin Nerve Agent weapons we were loading onto C-17's in Baghdad never made the news. I wondered why I was plagued with rashes and why my short term memory was so messed up after I got back from the desert. Later on I wondered why I met so much resistance from VSO's and the VA when I wanted to file a claim after I was diagnosed with a very rare and lethal form of cancer. Joe Hickman asks these same questions I was asking myself. He has gone even further and dug up lots of answers to them. Nothing in this book can change what happened. But reading our story, told so brilliantly, fills me with gratitude that it is being told. Great work! Thank you Joe!!!
Read it for a Veteran
Before encouraging your newly graduated sons and daughters to join the military, I highly recommend reading this book so they know who they are "working" for when they enlist. What this book has demonstrated for me is that the military industrial complex (the DOD, the VA, corporations like Haliburton, and former-CEOs-now-politicians) have learned nothing from the Agent Orange and Gulf War poisonings, mostly because of a total lack of accountability and putting profits ahead of people. Your trust and confidence in these institutions will be shaken after reading it. With that said, this is an easy and necessary read for any American who truly cares about the well-being of America's veterans. You will be outraged before you finish the first chapter. Joseph Hickman has done a great service by documenting his findings here and gives the reader much to explore on their own after finishing the book. The controversy surrounding burn pits is far from over.
More U.S. troops killed by Halliburton than by Iraqis?
The U.S. government, from Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton, told blatant lies about the Iraqi government creating chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in 2002, despite having been informed of the fact that Iraq was doing no such thing. U.S. leaders lied about ties between Iraq and terrorists that they also knew did not exist. Then the U.S. military attacked and invaded Iraq, in the process heavily bombing old sites of Iraqi chemical weapons from the 1980s, many of those weapons having been provided by the United States. In large part because of the U.S. origin of the old Iraqi chemical weapons, the U.S. kept quiet about them during the new war. Another reason for the official silence was that, during the 2003 U.S. destruction of Iraq, many of those old weapons were seized by fledgling terrorist groups. The war had done exactly what it had been justified as being needed to prevent; it had given WMDs to terrorists. The geniuses running the U.S. military set up U.S. bases at the sites of old chemical weapons piles, dug giant burn pits into the ground, and began burning the military's trash -- monumental quantities of trash, something like The Story of Stuff on steroids. They burned hundreds of tons of trash every day, including everything you can think of: oil, rubber, tires, treated wood, medicines, pesticides, asbestos, plastic, explosives, paint, human body parts, and . . . (wait for it) . . . nuclear, biological, and chemical decontamination materials. The burn pits poisoned Iraq, together with depleted uranium weapons, napalm, white phosphorous, and various other horrors, creating unprecedented epidemics of birth defects, and killing untold masses of Iraqis. The burn pits also poisoned tens of thousands of U.S. troops, many of whom have died as a result, including very likely the son of the current U.S. vice president. The burn pits profited Halliburton, the company of the previous U.S. vice president. The burn pits were no secret, although bases sometimes stopped the burning during VIP tours. Typically, huge clouds of smoke filled the air and created immediate breathing difficulties and sicknesses. Soldiers knew which colors of smoke were most dangerous and discussed it as they discussed an enemy. Numerous burn pits turned hundreds of previously healthy U.S. troops into invalids. But the burn pits at six particular bases caused the most severe illnesses and the most deaths. They caused, among other things, numerous cases of constrictive bronchiolitis, which could only have resulted from exposure to mustard gas -- a chemical weapon left over from a program the United States had supported when it existed and used as an excuse for war when it didn't. I'm reminded of a ship that sits at the bottom of the Mediterranean. In 1943, German bombs sank a U.S. ship at Bari, Italy, that was secretly carrying a million pounds of mustard gas. Many of the U.S. sailors died from the poison, which the United States dishonestly claimed to have been using as a "deterrent," despite keeping it secret. The ship is expected to continue leaking the gas into the sea for centuries. The earth and water of Iraq have been similarly poisoned, as have U.S. soldiers. The Pentagon made crystal clear in Iraq, as most everywhere else, that it cares not a damn for the people or the natural environment of the places it attacks, and that it cares even less for the troops it uses to do so. But if you imagine that the Pentagon has reserved its concern for the civilian inhabitants of the Fatherland, don't look too closely into the open-air burns still happening in the United States. The U.S. military is the third-largest polluter of U.S. waterways, top producer of superfund disaster sites, and top consumer of petroleum. At least 33,480 U.S. nuclear weapons workers who have received compensation for health damage are now dead. Where it is blocked by legal regulations effectively enforced, the military shows restraint; where it isn't, it doesn't. In Virginia, the military very responsibly throws dead soldiers into a landfill rather then burning them. Either method communicates equally well just how much the military cares. Halliburton, for its part, is as happy to deal death at home as abroad. Residents of Duncan, Oklahoma, have sued Cheney's cash machine for poisoning the ground water with ammonium perchlorate. Government investigators also concluded that Halliburton was, in part, to blame for the BP oil spill that flooded into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Joseph Hickman's new book, The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America's Soldiers, collects the evidence, including from similar incidents during the first Gulf War that were known before the first 2003 burn pit was dug and lit. Hickman gives us stories of young healthy men who headed off to Iraq believing the lies, believing that the U.S. government that is now begging Russia to stop attacking terrorists because the U.S. wants to overthrow yet another government -- believing that this U.S. government had good intentions in attacking Iraq. These poor souls went to Iraq hoping to protect people from horrible suffering, and ended up inflicting horrible suffering on people including themselves. They come home, develop cancer, get stonewalled by the VA, and die dreaming of what it might have been to have health and the wealth needed to attend college. Their American Dream was cut short by the militarized American Fantasy. Joe Biden supported a war that very likely killed his son by means of burn pits. He then chose not to run for president because of his grief. His decision not to run received more media coverage than several months of the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders who had voted against the war. But did Biden lift a finger to hold Halliburton or the military or the Congress accountable? Not that I've heard. Hickman describes the burn pits, and analogous poisons from past wars like Agent Orange in Vietnam, as "recklessly endangering the health of our fighting men and women." The only trouble with this is the fact that all war, all "fighting," consists of recklessly endangering the lives of the vast bulk of the victims (the Vietnamese, Iraqis, etc.) and of the U.S. troops. There's nothing non-reckless about any war. Perhaps distant drone pilots are not endangered in the typical way, but then look at how they're mocked within the Air Force. If troops weren't endangered, people wouldn't treat them with reverence and describe them -- as Hickman does -- as somehow "serving" their country, even while the facts he includes in his book speak otherwise. The U.S. Supreme Court has held since 1950 that members and former members of the military cannot sue over injuries received on the job. It may, however, still prove possible to win compensation from Halliburton. If so, you can probably chalk up another assist to Chelsea Manning who leaked evidence that the military had knowledge of the dangers when it created the burn pits, knowledge that General David Petraeus blatantly lied about in response to a Congressional inquiry. It now appears that the 2003- war on Iraq not only created ISIS, but armed it with mustard gas, thereby proving, I guess, that Saddam Hussein could indeed had given WMDs to terrorists had he just been as evil as the U.S. military.
A Vitally Important, Must-Read Book
It probably never will be known with certainty why Major Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, left for Iraq a healthy and vibrant 40-year-old man only to return home a year later to succumb to a series of mysterious and unexplained illnesses that metamorphosed into incurable brain cancer that took his life at age 46. But a convincing if circumstantial case can be made that the cause was exposure to toxic smoke from immense open-air burn pits at Camp Victory and another base where Beau Biden was bivouacked. One of the more insidious backstories of the Iraq war, which Joe Biden enthusiastically supported as a Democratic senator from Delaware, is how the friends of his predecessor, Dick Cheney, at Halliburton got rich providing housing, meals, water and many other services to Beau Biden and hundreds of thousands of other American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a cost of an estimated $39.5 billion by reliable estimates, much of it in no-bid contracts as the Pentagon outsourced many of the non-combat duties handled by the military in previous wars. In this shocking new book, investigative journalist Joseph Hickman, himself a Marine and Army veteran, asserts that Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, where Cheney was CEO before he became vice president, poisoned thousands of American soldiers and many thousands more Iraqis with the toxic smoke from the burn pits they operated in place of the incinerators typically run by the military. Some of the burn pits were operated on or near chemical warfare sites from Saddam Hussein's rule. Hickman’s story follows an arc tragically familiar to the victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam: Denial by the government that there was a problem, refusal by government agencies to address the problem, and finally, in the face of overwhelming evidence, grudging admissions by the government that there is indeed a problem. The Burn Pits is a must-read book, and I would have given it five stars if Hickman was a bit better writer.
A must read
This book was superbly written and, as many have pointed out, should be required reading for all Americans. What it discusses is shocking and should make any American feel deeply troubled by what U.S. soldiers and veterans have to put up with during deployment and long after they return from the battlefield. I don't come from a military family or know many people who have been or are in the military, so I didn't have a great awareness of these issues. What I can say as an environmental scientist, is that burn pit air pollution has no doubt been spreading all over the place--toxic metals and metalloids such as cadmium and lead are more likely to appear in the smallest particle size fractions, which are most easily transported through the atmosphere--we're talking here thousands of miles, or even more--before depositing back to the earth's surface. And as pointed out in the book, the smaller the particle, the more dangerous when inhaled, as the more likely it is to reach the brain, lungs, and vascular system. It disturbs me greatly to think of the quantity of pollutants being pumped into our atmosphere and distributed over the planet, let alone the huge harm is is posing to those immediately next to and near the burn pits with the highest exposures. Clearly this is just another case where people at the top who could easily put a stop to these practices won't be bothered to learn from the mistakes of the past (and in this case, present) because of all the money and greed involved. I'm so glad to have come across this book, since there is so little media attention on this very important and disturbing issue. What a travesty--I will definitely be paying much greater attention to veterans issues from now on. U.S. soldiers are definitely paying WAY too high a price for enlistment.
Conferring with 20 other oncologists in order to gain some insight on what the best course of treatment would be
Thank you, Joseph Hickman, for bringing to light the criminal negligence of KBR/Halliburton and our own DOD. Sadly this horror is not getting much coverage in the main stream media. I had never heard a word about burn pits until March 21, 2017. It was that day my son-in-law, Heath, was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease and a rare stage IV terminal lung cancer. His oncologist's first question to him was, "What the hell have you been exposed too?" before he went on to explain that his type of cancer could ONLY have been caused by exposure to toxic chemicals and inhalants. Conferring with 20 other oncologists in order to gain some insight on what the best course of treatment would be, no one had anything to offer. He is being treated with chemotherapy and immunotherapy which is extending his life but we don't know for how long. The prognosis is grim. This is a 36 year old family man with a 4 year old daughter who should be looking forward to seeing his daughter off to her first day of kindergarten next fall instead of making sure his paperwork and affairs are in order to prepare for the end of his life. Heath served in Iraq as an army medic at Camp Victory and Liberty. There were times he was ordered to stand guard at or very near a burn pit. For three months of his 1 year deployment he stood as ordered within 50 yards of a burn pit for many hours each day. He has cancer in his lungs, membranes, heart, and bones now. There is no primary tumor which leaves nothing to focus on with treatment. The autoimmune disease causes multiple daily nosebleeds and some days bleeding from his ears. It's been a total nightmare. I feel as if I'm watching him slowly being murdered, day by day. And to learn that the DOD and VA denies ANY accountability for poisoning hundreds of thousands of people, not just soldiers, but civilians as well, should alarm and piss off to no end every one who knows this.
We would like to extend to you a hearty congratulations on the ...
Dear CMSgt Jordan, We would like to extend to you a hearty congratulations on the recent disapproval of your VA disability application. We are more than proud to be able to offer you yet another opportunity to exhibit your dedication to the core value of "Service Before Self". We appreciate your dedication and greatly admire the fact that you enlisted and served during four different decades, tirelessly performed assigned duties, and voluntarily deployed on a combat tour in order to provide mature and stable leadership to our junior troops. We are especially pleased that we were able to supply you with the opportunity to sacrifice your health in service to your country. The derision and scorn that you received upon your return to home base was designed to further develop your character and provide you with additional opportunity to exhibit your ability and willingness to accept hardship and sacrifice as the character building opportunities that they are certainly meant to be. Thank you for understanding that supervision and leadership sincerely do "not" have your welfare and well being in mind. We do appreciate your willingness to avoid forcing them to glimpse a harsh sample of reality, instead allowing them to continue their illusion of a military branch filled with Shiny Happy People, Unicorns, and Cotton Candy Rainbows. As a military professional you should be commended on your ability to understand that the medical personnel that you were lead to believe are in place to assist you are only concerned with your ability to pass your semi annual fitness assessment and insuring that problems and concerns are not allowed to rise to a level which could reflect badly upon the unit leadership. Another accolade must be offered for your attempted involvement of the office of your Senator, Mr. Ted Cruz for assistance with dealing with the mind numbing, soul crushing bureaucracy that passes as a safety net for our nations war fighters. We are sure that by now it has dawned on you that you have not, and will not, ever be afforded the courtesy of a response from this representative or his staff. However be assured that your issue is raised on a bi-annual basis during their mandatory Enjoyment Session/Bake Sale/Revival Meeting. Additional prayers are available for a nominal campaign contribution and for a limited time you are eligible for our special double prayer which as you may have surmised gives you double the prayer power for you dollars. Be assured that your concerns related to the effects of burn pit usage on the health of yourself and many others has been slowly drawing attention from some members of the leadership chain. You may have heard that burn pit exposure is being considered as a possible cause of the illness that took the life of the the son of our Vice President. We can assure you that with this type of attention it will only be a matter of years before our elected officials and Veteran Administration leadership will commence a drive to begin to start thinking about getting ready to start thinking about beginning to select the shape of the table required to think about starting to get ready to consider beginning to plan a meeting and choose a caterer. Thank you again for your service and sacrifice! Now, would you please keep this between us and just go away. Regards, Your Gubment I have been fighting this battle for over 4 years now. Joseph, thank you brother for putting this book out for us. Reading it did me a world of good and made me realize that I am not alone.
I hope more people read this book and take action to support our veterans!
I hope more people read this book and take action! SSG Hickman, THANK YOU for providing more information on this continuing problem in regards to our government's responsibility and lack of action towards our veterans! One reviewer stated that there was not enough information provided! If all of the information on this subject had been included in this book, it could not have published in a readable format! Hopefully this book will encourage others to research and demand that our government provide the care and support that is needed! Our veterans need and deserve all of the support we can provide. They put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, and now they need us to support them in their quest for treatment. It should be simple........medical problem = treatment! But with every major conflict, every war, veterans face the same obstacles, but with different labels!
Doing it again. Will they never learn or care.
A great book that every American should read. Being a combat veteran I have personal experience with the lack of support and unnecessary exposure to agents that are detrimental to one's health. Tens of thousands of us were sprayed with Agent Orange while out on operations but the VA would not recognize any problems related to that for many years after the "war" was over. Hopefully, if enough of our citizens become aware of what is happening with these burn pits, we can put pressure on our representatives in Congress to get the military to comply with their own stated standards and stop the unhealthy conditions that exist today. The very least that a soldier should be able to expect is that he or she should be safe from any harm at the hands of the military and country that he/she serves and in the event that any health condition develops that treatment will be made available.
Heartbreaking and True
The young wife of one of my son's friends has stage 4 colon cancer because of her exposure to the burn pits near U.S. military bases in Iran and Afghanistan. This non-fiction book contains narrative chapters and passages that tell the stories of individual soldiers, a feature that puts a human face on the suffering caused by the burn pits. The author also provides lots of well-researched facts with citations. Buy this book, and after reading it, write to your representatives in Congress asking them to fund better treatment for our veterans.
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