From 9/11 to burn pits, we must deal with long-term effects of toxic exposure

Two days after 9/11 my buddy and I took a bus from our hometown in Clifton, N.J., and went into Manhattan. We wandered around the city and made our way south to what would later be called Ground Zero.

There were three things from that day that are seared into my memory. The first was the families of victims at the Manhattan Armory, carrying pictures of loved ones begging people to help them find their missing family and friends. The second was the smell. It was a combination of smoke, concrete, chemicals and batteries. The third was how bad it felt to breathe. I was a smoker at the time and told my buddy when we were making our way home that I felt like I just smoked a carton of cigarettes.

Years later, in Iraq, I had the ignominious duty of burning everything that was trash every single night. We burned everything to the point that it made zero sense. I was told that we didn’t want our trash to be sifted through by the enemy, so we had to burn everything. Plastic bottles, computers, batteries, paper, and all trash. When you dared ask if it was necessary or safe, you got chewed out.

In 2011, I was at the VA in San Diego to ask about a bump in my throat. The doctors found a lump on my thyroid. I asked if it had anything to do with my exposure to burn pits. They laughed at me and said no.

A couple of years later, the lump had doubled in size and had to be removed, along with half my thyroid. They had to conduct a sleep test before I could do surgery and found I had sleep apnea. I asked again if this and the growth........

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