Burn pits, NPR reports<\/a>, are “acres-wide mounds of waste near bases” containing “everything from batteries to vehicle scraps to amputated body parts.” These refuse piles, once set aflame with jet fuel, can burn for 24 hours a day. They expose our troops and other personnel to deadly toxic fumes.<\/p>\n Banning books is bad enough. But there\u2019s a bigger issue here: Why does the Pentagon expose our soldiers to deadly poisons and then pretend it hasn\u2019t happened?<\/p>\n Wikipedia<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hickman\u2019s Burn Pits<\/em> exposes a link between military service near burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan and serious maladies, including everything from respiratory illnesses to rare brain cancers. Indeed, Hickman says<\/a>, Vice President Joe Biden\u2019s son Beau died of one of these rare brain cancers after serving in Iraq.<\/p>\n The Pentagon\u2019s ban comes despite the fact that the book is an Amazon bestseller<\/a> and has been reviewed favorably in media around the world. So it seems like a sure bet that the brass doesn\u2019t intend to change its policy of exposing our soldiers to these deadly toxins. By officially sticking their heads in the sand, they\u2019re hoping the problem will go away.<\/p>\n The problem won\u2019t go away, though. Agent Orange didn\u2019t go away after Vietnam. Gulf War Syndrome didn\u2019t go away after Desert Storm. And now brave men and women who wanted nothing more than to serve their country are dying prematurely.<\/p>\n The effects on families are devastating. Just ask Joe Biden.<\/p>\n Or ask Tammy McCracken. Her husband David was one of my best friends. We were nearly inseparable since the age of 15.<\/p>\n David\u2019s father was a highly decorated hero from World War II. David wanted nothing more than to follow in his dad\u2019s footsteps. All through high school he talked only about joining the army. He was commissioned as a lieutenant after college and eventually rose to the rank of full colonel.<\/p>\n David had a degree in environmental engineering, so the army assigned him to manage garbage collection in Iraq early in the war. Our friends and I used to jokingly call him the “Garbage King of Iraq.”<\/p>\n None of us knew that the Pentagon\u2019s policy of burning garbage \u2014 all of it, no matter what it is \u2014 was going to kill our friend.<\/p>\n But it did. In 2011, David developed a very rare form of brain cancer. He was diagnosed only days after running a marathon. Eight months later, he was dead.<\/p>\n He was just 47.<\/p>\n The burn pits were operated largely by KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton \u2014 the military contractor once helmed by Dick Cheney. It was KBR that decided to burn the garbage, with Pentagon approval. Instead of burying the garbage, KBR just bulldozed it into pits and set it on fire.<\/p>\n An attorney has filed a class action suit<\/a> against KBR on behalf of veterans who believe they were sickened by the burn pits. Hundreds have come forward. And nearly 60,000 people<\/a> may have been affected.<\/p>\n The Defense Department has to stand up for our soldiers and do the right thing. First, it needs to put out those burn pits. Second, it must acknowledge that the pits are causing these illnesses, as already confirmed by medical experts<\/a>. Finally, it must take responsibility for healing the veterans affected.<\/p>\n Now\u2019s not the time to bury the truth. It\u2019s time to help our soldiers.<\/p>\n The post Torching the Truth<\/a> appeared first on OtherWords<\/a>.<\/p>\n This piece was reprinted from Other Words<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" America\u2019s military adventures \u2014 and, just as often, its misadventures \u2014 have inspired thousands upon thousands of books. But the military isn\u2019t just in the business of inspiring books: Sometimes it bans them, too. The Pentagon recently announced that it was refusing to carry a new book by journalist (and veteran) Joseph Hickman in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-230770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Burn_Pits_U.S._military_base_Pentagon_abuse\"](\"http:\/\/otherwords.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Defense.gov_News_Photo_080310-F-5957S-013-600x398.jpg\")
<\/p>\n