Wednesday is the deadline for veterans to start the process of getting the first year of benefits for being exposed to toxic burn pits during their deployments.
Service members sometimes came into contact with toxic fumes from pits of burning trash at forward operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as other parts of central Asia and Africa.
Congress passed legislation called the PACT Act that went into effect in August of 2022. It provides new benefits for burn pit exposure. There is no deadline to get ongoing benefits, but veterans need to start the application process by Wednesday to get compensated for benefits that started last year.
"We have a lot [of veterans] that have what we call 'unseen wounds,'" explained Retired Command Sergeant Major Mike Stoddard, veterans benefits director at the Wounded Warrior Project. "Sometimes it takes years for some of that to come forward when you start talking about cancer or you start talking about those issues or diseases that come with the toxic exposures."
Stoddard served as an Army medic, including at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg. He said he was exposed to burn pits in Iraq and has been diagnosed with head cancer.
"If we learned anything from Vietnam and Agent Orange, we understand that 20 years is when we start to see those issues or those concerns come up, so it's critically important that we go back in and we get taken care of," Stoddard said.
Veterans can go to the Department of Veterans Affairs website or call the VA's benefits hotline at 1-800-827-1000 by Wednesday to at least signal an intent to start an application for the past year's benefits.