Iraq burn pits killed soldiers

Disease caught in Iraq fatal to vet
BY BOB KALINOWSKI (STAFF WRITER)
Published: May 16, 2012
FORTY FORT - Loved ones of U.S. Army Spc. Dominick J. Liguori say he was fighter, but the 31-year-old could not overcome the lung disease they say he developed while serving in Iraq.

Family and friends gathered Tuesday night to say farewell to the Swoyersville man, who died Friday after a three-year battle with a lung disease called sarcoidosis.

Family members say Spc. Liguori developed the disease from exposure to open-air burn pits while serving in Iraq, and the ailment slowly scarred and destroyed his lungs.

"For whatever reason he go it, he got it," Spc. Liguori's mother, Andrea Kovalik, 50, said outside a viewing and funeral service for her son at the Hugh B. Hughes Funeral Home. "As it heals, it kills you. So his lungs were all tight and scarred."

Respiratory issues affecting military veterans exposed to open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan have been the subject of several recent national news stories.

The Department of Defense maintains that research on the link between lung disease and the burn pits remains inconclusive but nonetheless has shut down all burn pits in Iraq and says it has plans to do so in Afghanistan by the end of the year, according to news reports.

Concerns about a possible link have led to a proposed law in the U.S. House of Representatives called the Open Burn Pit Registry Act. The law would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to create a registry of veterans who have health problems they believe are related to exposure to open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. Subcommittee hearings were held on the topic in April.
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