letter printed yesterday(I was in the hospital) re:Balad Burning pits

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.thedailylight.com/articles/2010/07/01/opinion/doc4c2b5fd3381ab984898261.txt

LETTER: ‘Safety of our troops’
Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 10:31 AM CDT
To the Editor,

I have reported several times in past letters about the effects of the burning pits of Balad Air Base in Iraq. The American Lung Association has issued a strong recommendation today for the military to discontinue the use of open-air trash burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan because they are a dangerous health risk. Hundreds of soldiers who’ve been exposed to the burn pits say inhaling the toxic smoke has inflicted them with severe breathing problems and even cancer.

According to the Department of the Air Force — The “fix should not be years, but more in the order of months,” Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, an environmental engineer, wrote in a December 2006 memo while stationed at Balad. “In my professional opinion, there is an acute health hazard for individuals,” Curtis wrote. “Burn pits may have been an acceptable practice in the past, however, today’s solid waste contain materials that were not present in the past.”

Despite this,there has been little effort to close these burning pits, largely because of their association with KBR. An excellent resource assembled by my friend Larry Scott at VAwatchdog.org offers information on this subject — beginning with the report by the Air Force in 2006. At this website, you can read both the investigations and actions by the Bush and Obama Administrations. (http://www.vawatchdog.org/iraqwartoxins.htm)

As a grateful nation, we owe our troops and veterans the protection and health care to all our troops exposed to known hazards — and amendment of said hazards. When an issue has been continuing for five years with no resolution, that’s just one more example of using our troops and discarding them in a war with no end. Please contact your representatives and request they encourage a stop to this inhumanity. Don’t wait decades like this nation has done with Vietnam and Gulf War veterans. We owe them more than that.

[w8liftinglady]

1. well,it received 28 "4"s-highest level.no commen ts,except mine.

oh well.