WASHINGTON — Comedian Jon Stewart and troops sickened by uranium left a meeting at the Department of Veterans Affairs on Friday angry that they were once again told they would have to wait to see whether the VA would link their illnesses to the toxic base where they were deployed shortly after 9/11.
The denied claims were supposed to have been addressed by the PACT Act, a major veterans relief bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2022 and which he says is one of his biggest accomplishments in office. For many veterans, it has made access to health care much easier.
But the bill left out exposure to uranium that still affects some of the first troops deployed in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Just weeks after the attacks, special operations forces were sent to Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, or K2, a heavily contaminated former Soviet base that was a strategic location for launching operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But K2 was a former chemical weapons site and was covered in yellow uranium dust that rose into the air and spread across the base when the military built an earthen embankment to protect it. Radiation levels were up to 40,000 times higher than would have been found naturally, according to a nuclear fusion expert who has reviewed the data.
Twenty years later, troops who served there are still fighting to have the Department of Veterans Affairs recognize illnesses caused by radiation exposure. Many of them have died young.
The fact that the VA continues to tell K2 veterans it has not yet decided whether to cover their illnesses has infuriated Stewart, who is a staunch defender of all 9/11 first responders.
Stewart and the veterans were at the VA this spring to make their case and were told that the VA was working with the Pentagon to identify what radiation was at the base. Friday’s meeting was with VA Secretary Denis McDonough, which had raised hopes for a resolution. But they heard something else.
“The secretary said today that he has the legal authority to make the change, to make sure that K2 veterans are presumptively covered,” Stewart said. But McDonough told them they were still waiting for additional information. “I think ‘reject’ is the correct term for what happened.”
In a statement, VA spokesman Terrence Hayes said there are more than 300 conditions already covered by the PACT Act and the agency is working on specific illnesses caused by K2 and radiation exposure.
“We continue to urgently consider all options to further assist these veterans and survivors, and we will keep you informed every step of the way,” Hayes said.
“It was like Groundhog Day,” said Kim Brooks, whose late husband was one of the first soldiers serving at K2 to die.
Lt. Col. Tim Brooks was one of the first soldiers to deploy to K2 in 2001 and served with the 10th Mountain Division during Operation Anaconda against the Taliban in early 2002.
When his unit returned to Fort Drum, New York, in the spring of 2002, Brooks was not the same. He suffered debilitating headaches and became unexpectedly irritable, his wife said. His unit was then called into a briefing to sign paperwork about the toxins they had been exposed to, she said.
“He came home after that briefing and told me about it in our kitchen,” said Kim Brooks, who accompanied Stewart to the VA meeting. “He was incredibly upset and worried and then he became increasingly exhausted and didn’t feel or look well until he passed out.”
Kim Brooks has tried get the form Her husband signed off on his military registration but has been unsuccessful and believes it may have been removed.
Other K2 veterans who served in special operations forces also had difficulty obtaining documents from their medical records because their missions and roles were classified.
In 2003, Tim Brooks collapsed during a ceremony at Fort Drum as his unit prepared to deploy to Iraq. Doctors diagnosed him with brain cancer and he died a year later at age 36.
Kim Brooks said the fact that she still has to fight to get the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs to acknowledge uranium exposure at the base has left her “angry, dismayed and sad.” “Denial in 2003 and denial in 2024. When will they acknowledge it and take care of these men and women?”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was serving as commanding general of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum in 2004 when Brooks died there.
Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for the Pentagon, said in a statement Friday that the Defense Department is “aware of the health concerns and associated claims of veterans” who served at K2 and is “working with the Department of Veterans Affairs to find a way forward.”
The presence of uranium at the base has been known since November 2001, just a month after troops arrived there, and is documented on multiple Army maps, in memos and in Department of Veterans Affairs reports. But it was labeled in different ways — as enriched, low-level processed or depleted uranium. The base and the radiation and other contaminants there were the subject of congressional hearings in 2020.
Confusion over what type of uranium was there has been one of the obstacles to veterans receiving medical care.
But the radiation levels documented at K2 in November 2001 were so high — up to 40,000 times what would have been recorded if uranium were simply present naturally — that the specific type doesn’t matter because exposure would have been harmful, said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear fusion specialist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, who reviewed the K2 radiation data.
Exposure to uranium radiation can damage kidneys, create a risk of bone cancer and also affect pregnancies because it crosses the placenta, among other harmful effects, said Makhijani, who previously worked with “atomic veterans” who became ill from radiation after working at Bikini Atoll during nuclear weapons testing in the 1940s.
More than 15,000 soldiers were deployed to K2 between 2001 and 2005. While the VA does not have statistics on how many are sick, the veterans’ grassroots organization has contacted about 5,000 of them and more than 1,500 are reporting serious medical conditions, including cancers, kidney and bone problems, reproductive problems and birth defects.
Former Army Sgt. Mark Jackson, a K2 veteran who sought treatment for severe osteoporosis and had to have one testicle and his entire thyroid removed — none of which have been covered by the VA — said getting the VA to recognize his radiation-related illnesses involves more than just medical coverage.
“It’s recognition of the exhibition,” Jackson said.
Austin was the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force for Afghanistan when Jackson was deployed to K2. His unit used K2 to get in and out of Afghanistan on missions. It’s not lost on Jackson or Kim Brooks that Austin now leads the agency they need to finally acknowledge radiation exposure at K2.
“He was there when I was there,” Jackson said. “Hell, Austin signed my Bronze Star. I look at his signature almost every day.”
