Summary:
- The PACT Act's first year sees a surge in claims related to veterans' health issues caused by burn pit duty during service.
- A veteran shares his experience of suffering from migraines and sinus congestion due to burn pit duty.
- The PACT Act has been beneficial in providing support and service connection to veterans, but more awareness and outreach are needed to reach all eligible veterans.
The president has been very clear to us that this new law can be the largest expansion of VA benefits and care in the history of the VA. I say it can be and it will be if we get out and find veterans to make sure that they're aware of the benefits and the care that they now qualify for. Many veterans, like the one interviewed, have experienced health issues related to burn pit duty while serving, and this law aims to provide them with the necessary support and compensation.
Challenges of Burn Pit Duty
Myself, along with most of my unit, rotated with burn pit duty. I believe I probably had burn pit duty maybe one or two times a week. So it kind of started mid-deployment. I would say July I started having kind of excruciating migraines while we were downrange like headaches, daily migraines maybe two or three times a week and really bad sinus congestion like a lot of coughing, sneezing, getting really like a lot of pressure in our face kind of built up. A year of doing that along with battling some of the mental health pieces of it is when I finally decided to kind of reach out to the VA and see how they might be able to help because this wasn't who I was before I got in.Benefits have been phenomenal just to be able to get those certain things as a service connection. I don't really have to worry as much these days. Am I satisfied? I'm not. Until every veteran in this country knows what is available to him or to her and has come in and filed their claim, and then we've awarded that claim for him or her, I won't be satisfied, so I'm not satisfied.