Atomic Veterans Dying, as VA and Supreme Court Deny Benefits

By Lindsay Potter

In August 2022, the new PACT Act (Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics) expanded eligibility for compensation to 8,000 U.S. military veterans, many suffering from cancers, who were tasked with observing nuclear weapons tests or cleaning up radioactive disaster sites. However, the VA rejected 86% of radiation-related claims filed over the last year. “They’re waiting for us to die,” said Kenneth Browneil, who was sent to Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific following 43 U.S. bomb tests conducted there between 1948 and 1958. In June, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Victor Skaar, a veteran of the 1966 disaster cleanup of Palomares, Spain, where a B-52 bomber collided with a refueling plane and dropped three H-bombs, one of which blew apart scattering seven pounds of plutonium-239 across the village. The court claimed the PACT Act is sufficient, although it recognized it does not cover Skaar. To win compensation, veterans with cancers or tumors “have to provide expert medical reviews and organ-specific radiation dose assessments” through the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, according to NBC News. But it’s “virtually impossible” to prove said U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., an atomic historian, who last month introduced a bill that would lift that burden of proof. The Pentagon recently handed out medals to atomic veterans, making clear the recognition would not accompany any federal benefits. Leo Feurt, a veteran who witnessed 28 of the 36 atomic bomb detonations in 1958 and now faces a dozen radiation-related illnesses, says “Every dang bit of it has been denied.”

— NBC News, Aug. 23; AP, June 20, 2023