CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Just after their daughter’s first birthday, Todd and Erin Lowell went to Mexico on holiday. Todd, an Army master sergeant, complained about his chest hurting, but he and his wife didn’t think much of it.
Months later, while training, Todd fell and started having back pain. An otherwise healthy man, he’d fractured a few ribs.
“So, a couple weeks later, his PA was doing some additional tests on him. And he was like, ‘Well, you know, you probably got some lung damage when you fractured your ribs,’ and he treated him for walking pneumonia. And the cough was still there. And it wasn’t getting any better,” Erin said.
Todd was deployed a few months later, and the cough still had not gotten better. When he returned home, his doctor sent him for more tests. A pathologist thought it might have been a fungal infection. But that diagnosis quickly became stage IV lung cancer. He was only 39.
The cancer had spread into the bone around Todd’s lungs, which was why he’d broken his ribs, and he had spots on his liver. Just over a year after he developed that cough, only 14 months after the initial diagnosis, he died on May 23, 2012, at age 40.
Master Sgt. Todd never smoked a day in his life, which is why the lung cancer never made sense to him, his colleagues, his doctors, or his wife Erin.
But he had been at K2.
K2 veterans coming forward
K2, or Karshi-Khanabad, an Army airbase in Uzbekistan that’s been the common denominator in cancers and other mysterious illnesses, has heavily affected several veterans and their families in the Clarksville and Fort Campbell area.
The majority of the soldiers deployed to K2 were from Fort Campbell, and 5th Group has had a higher incidence of cancer than regular Army battalions that were deployed to other bases.
One study concluded that veterans who were at K2 are five times – that’s 500% – more likely to develop cancer, and of the 10,100-plus service members who were at K2, at least 75% will develop an illness related to exposure.
Todd was the recipient of numerous honors from the military, and he dedicated 22 years of his life to service. Erin said Todd was a remarkable person who never made a big deal out of anything – especially when he was diagnosed with cancer.
“He was very reserved and kept to himself and his family, and had the biggest heart. He would do anything for us or even a complete stranger. He was very intelligent. And again he was just one that would never really take credit for what he did,” Erin said.
“He’s the perfect example of that fit human being who should never have been stricken down with something like this,” said veteran Christopher Spence, who was among the first soldiers at K2 after the 9/11 attacks. Spence and Todd worked together in 5th Special Forces Group.
They also worked with Jim Jay, who was with the Air Force and flew MC-130s supporting special operations missions. Both Spence and Jay now live in the Clarksville area.
Setting up camp at K2
Spence was sent over to build the base itself, and with his unit he helped ready the airfield for missions and for other groups to be deployed there.
From the beginning, the K2 site was difficult.
“We landed in the middle of night. We handed our passports to an Uzbek security guard, who stamped them, said ‘Welcome to Uzbekistan.’ … We slept on the ground that night,” Spence said.
The next morning, Spence and his 5th Group comrades got to work setting up the base from guidance they’d received from JSOC, or Joint Special Operations Command. They built tents, set up an airfield, and built showers and outhouses.
But any amount of construction and building they did was immediately wiped out by to torrential rainstorms.
Spence said the rain got so bad during the first month of deployment at K2, the unit had to use the plastic cartons from water bottle shipments as an impromptu walkway through the mud.
“We lived in kind of a big bowl,” Jay said. “And what I mean by that is that they had these large berms of dirt that were up around. So, it’s almost like they made it into a lake without water except for when it rained.
“They had pallets or whatever underneath the tents, but it still doesn’t help when the water is too high, and there was some of the tents where the water got up to the cot level.”
And it didn’t help that the soil, which had to be displaced and dug into to create these buildings and protective berms, was tainted with 392 toxic contaminants identified by the Department of Defense. The rain just made it more obvious.
“In some areas, you could see like an oil sheen on the water. And you’re like, well, that must’ve been underneath. You know, because oil will float,” Jay said.
Expectation of risk
For both men, learning of their exposure to these toxins and contaminants wasn’t necessarily a shock, but nonetheless disappointing.
“We found out that where we stored our life equipment, which is the helmet that you put on your face, your mask … they had tested positive for chemical agents, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s just great,'” said Jay.
Recently declassified documents show the Department of Defense knew that K2 was home to a prior Soviet Union air base and missile storage facility, and that toxins had been released into the soil following an explosion.
Both Spence and Jay feel that their expectation of risk was taken advantage of, both by those in charge of overseeing the mission, and by the DoD.
“You expect to get shot in the battlefield, not die five years after you get home from something you had no idea you contracted,” Spence said.
Spence draws similarities between K2 and Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome.
“We didn’t know what we were doing until it was too late; we thought we were doing the right thing for the greater good,” Spence said. “Instead of doing the cause and effect, we didn’t do that, so now we’re dealing with our rash decisions. We should have tested the site first, and then made amendments. But we didn’t.”
Lucky ones
Fortunately for Spence, he hasn’t come down with any health symptoms from being at K2. He calls himself lucky compared to his friend Todd.
Jay continues to deal with skin issues.
“I ended up having some kind of cyst on my back that I went and saw the flight surgeon about,” Jay said. “They had community showers and stuff, and the guys from the gym were like, ‘You need to go see the flight surgeon. That thing is looking worse and worse.'”
The cyst was popped days later by the flight surgeon, but Jay still has cysts from time to time.
“I have to go back to the doctor and see my neurologist about all of these physical things. I have these big ol’ bumps on the inside of my arm and I don’t know what that is,” Jay said.
Both have friends who were at K2 who have died from cancers and other illnesses with no apparent cause aside from environmental exposure overseas.
They count themselves lucky.
“That’s how we usually view the world: If it’s sucking for someone else worse, we must be doing pretty good,” Spence said.
For more
This is Part 2 in a series on K2 veterans. See Part 1: K2 Army base blamed for cancer outbreak in veterans, including Congressman Mark Green
Were you or a loved one at K2? We want to hear your story. Email us at news@clarksvillenow.com.