CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – On Thursday, the national Defense funding bill was amended with a proposal from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, that will finally take national steps to address the health concerns of K2 veterans.
The K2 Veterans Toxic Exposure Accountability Act will be included as part of the Senate’s $740.5 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021. The Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, on which Blackburn serves, signed off on the addition this afternoon.
“To get this study in the NDAA, which we are signing the conference report on it today, but to get this is very helpful to these men and women who are both still in service or are veterans, and to bring this attention, is really wonderful,” the senator told Clarksville Now early Thursday.
The full Senate is excepted to vote on the NDAA next week.
K2 goes to Washington
Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, known as K2, in eastern Uzbekistan was central to the US Army invasion of Afghanistan during the years following the events of 9/11.
In the past year, attention has focused on the base and its identification as the common denominator in a cluster of cancers and other chronic illnesses now endured by veterans at a rate five times their counterparts who deployed elsewhere.
On how she heard about K2, Blackburn said, “I heard about it from individuals who have served with the 5th (Special Forces) Group or the 160th (Special Operations Aviation Regiment) and from individuals there at Fort Campbell.”
One of those individuals was Rep. Mark Green, R-Clarksville, who as a K2 veteran himself has a vested interest in the cause and sponsored the companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
Rep. Green was the originating legislator who brought K2 to the floor, and introduced his bill in the House of Representatives on Feb. 25 of this year. Sen. Blackburn introduced her bill into the Senate on Aug. 4.
“He is also a cancer survivor, and I was really so pleased he picked up this legislation to carry it in the House,” the senator said.
What now?
The amendment calls for the VA and Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct a 180-day study on the exposure and resulting illnesses and conditions of service members who were at K2. The original plan was a two-year study, so the new 180-day timeline will significantly expedite benefits for the veterans.
“The point is to get this study in process, and this will allow us to pull more veterans and active duty into the realm to know the exposure. This will also allow us to get more information on types of exposure. So we will continue, step by step, to push this through, to make certain that the treatment and care for these veterans, and the attention and answers that their families want, that that is properly addressed,” Blackburn said.
Green has expressed frustration over the VA’s necessity of a study first and benefits for these veterans later, but today, he’s honored to have signed the final version of the bill that will go before the president.
“I’m proud that my legislation on K2 veteran toxic exposure made it into the bill. It’s a partial step forward. I will continue to fight for a strong military and to ensure our warriors and their families are cared for when they return. It’s been an honor to serve on the Conference Committee,” Green tells Clarksville Now.
Blackburn said a solution to the timeliness issue is coming in other upcoming bills.
“We have the Toxic Exposure in the American Military Act, and that is (Sen.) Tom Tillis’ bill, and that would reform how all veterans that are exposed to all toxic substances, regardless of time and place, receive their healthcare and benefits from the VA,” the senator said.
Blackburn is cosponsoring that bill.
Mark T. Jackson, the legislative director for K2 advocacy group Stronghold Freedom Foundation, says the NDAA addition is great, but he remains cautiously optimistic.
“Based on the current political situation, I find it hard to imagine the outgoing president to sign anything. I hold out hope that even as a lame duck, he’ll want to fund the military and to have a fully-funded government to boot. But so far, 2020 hasn’t pulled any punches, so I’m wincing already,” Jackson said.
K2 in Clarksville
One K2 veteran, Everett Moorefield of Clarksville, served as a contractor with the 160th based out of Fort Campbell. He served with Green during the initial years of the war in the Middle East.
“I remember from day one I complained about the smell inside of this hard aircraft surface, or bunker,” Moorefield told Clarksville Now. “It stunk, it was a God-awful smell, and particularly in the corner where I lived. I didn’t want to be the guy that complained all the time. I just wanted to deal with it.”
In 2005, a year after his last deployment to K2, Moorefield’s gall bladder had rotted, and it required emergency surgery to remove. He recounts the surgeon telling him, “I’ve done hundreds if not thousands of these surgeries, but I’ve never seen a gall bladder like yours.”
That was just the start. Moorefield dealt with mild seizures that put an end to his career as an air-crewman. He lost his sense of smell and taste, which he’s still dealing with, and he’s lost any feeling in his hands.
In 2016, he was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer, for which he’s in remission. Like Green, Moorefield had a genetic test done that showed his cancer was not hereditary.
Foul denial
Despite denial from both the VA and the DoD about the hazards at K2, Moorefield remembers an incident that foreshadowed the health problems he’d deal with years later. A fellow 160th member gave him a health form in either 2004 or 2005.
“I remember him coming in and giving me the initial form, and he said, ‘Hey man, you might want to keep this for your medical records, just in case something happens,'” Moorefield said.
The form detailed contaminants found in the air when the DoD conducted their environmental site characterization study. At that point, he hadn’t heard about any of the environmental risks and exposures.
“When I was reading the form, the one I had was initially saying that when they did the initial air study, they found traces of nerve agent, and this and that in the air,” Moorefield said.
Unfortunately, during Clarksville flood in 2010, Moorefield lost the form along with other documents related to his exposures. This made his appeal to get benefits and healthcare from the VA that much harder.
Around the time of his cancer diagnosis, he called folks at the 160th to see if they could find the form, and send it to him so he could appeal to the VA. They sent him the form, but it was an updated version that claimed all the readings from the first air study were false positives.
His claim was denied.
“At a minimum, I’m really happy that (K2) is starting to get the attention it deserves,” Moorefield said. “Because it’s foul.”