National Guardsman Dying After Burn Pit

Iraq War Vet Lived to See Birth of 'Burn Pit' Registry for Ill Troops
NBC News
BY BILL BRIGGS
July 8, 2014

A new federal registry of U.S. troops and veterans possibly sickened by toxic smoke in Iraq and Afghanistan has gathered nearly 11,000 eligible names -– including the ill airman who inspired the site but expected to die before it launched.

“What I really feel is relief. It's been a battle,” said Master Sgt. Jessey Baca, 54, a member of the New Mexico Air National Guard. He and his wife, Maria, began pushing for the registry in 2010. “When I started, I figured I might not be alive to see it.”

Baca, who maintained fighter jets during two Iraq tours, has constrictive bronchiolitis. The airway-plugging malady is, “in certain situations, a progressive, terminal disease,” said Dr. Robert Miller, a Nashville-based pulmonologist who performed lung biopsies to diagnose the ailment in Baca plus about 65 other troops and veterans.

A former half-marathoner who once jogged along the irrigation canals near his Albuquerque home, Baca no longer has the energy to wash his truck or tend his garden. He’s created a bucket list. His days, he said, “are numbered.”

But five times weekly, Baca dons his Air Force uniform and drives to Kirtland Air Force Base. That duty preserves his cherished link to national service. The diagnosis has forced him into light duty -– computer work. And that change, he admits, is “hard to accept” for a man who once lived “at 100 miles per hour.” Some mornings, he must will himself out of bed.
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Afghanistan Burn Pits

Burn Pits

Iraq Burn Pits

UPDATE
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Soldier's family blames death on burn pits
By St. John Barned-Smith
July 3, 2014


Elizabeth Thomas says her husband, David, "was my soulmate." He died June 27 of lung cancer at age 47.

The cough started during David Thomas' last deployment with the U.S. Army.

"We thought maybe he had a cold," said his wife, Elizabeth Thomas.

After months battling what he thought was a chronic dry cough, he saw a doctor, who told him he had stage IV lung cancer, which already had metastasized to his brain. Thomas came to believe he'd contracted the cancer after being exposed to toxins from burn pits while serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On Friday, Thomas will bury her husband at the Houston National Cemetery, less than two weeks after a federal online registry opened for veterans to document adverse health effects they believe they suffered due to exposure to smoke from the burn pits. The registry, Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry, is a database experts hope will provide more information about how veterans' service in the Middle East affected their health.
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