FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Samuel Sandoval, one of the last remaining Navajo Code Talkers who transmitted messages in World War II using a code based on their native language, has died.
Sandoval died late Friday at a hospital in Shiprock, New Mexico, his wife, Malula told The Associated Press on Saturday. He was 98.
Hundreds of Navajos were recruited from the vast Navajo Nation to serve as Code Talkers with the U.S. Marine Corps. Only three are still alive today: Peter MacDonald, John Kinsel Sr. and Thomas H. Begay.
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The Code Talkers took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific, sending thousands of messages without error on Japanese troop movements, battlefield tactics and other communications critical to the war’s ultimate outcome. The code, based on the then-unwritten Navajo language, confounded Japanese military cryptologists and is credited with helping the U.S. win the war.
Samuel Sandoval was on Okinawa when got word from another Navajo Code Talker that the Japanese had surrendered and relayed the message to higher-ups. He had a close call on the island, which brought back painful memories that he kept to himself, Malula Sandoval said.
The Navajo men are celebrated annually on Aug. 14. Samuel Sandoval was looking forward to that date and seeing a museum built near the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock to honor the Code Talkers, she said.
“Sam always said, ‘I wanted my Navajo youngsters to learn, they need to know what we did and how this code was used and how it contributed to the world,’” she said Saturday. “That the Navajo language was powerful and always to continue carrying our legacy.”
FILE – In this Sept. 8, 2004, photo, Navajo Code Talker Samuel Sandoval of Shiprock, N.M., poses for pictures during a ceremony where the Oreland C. Joe Code Talker sculpture was unveiled at the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds in Window Rock, Ariz. (Brett Butterstein/The Daily Times via AP, File)
Sandoval was born in Nageezi near Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after attending a Methodist school where he was discouraged from speaking Navajo. He helped recruit other Navajos from the school to serve as Code Talkers, expanding on words and an alphabet that an original group of 29 Navajos created.
Sandoval served in five combat tours and was honorably discharged in 1946. The Code Talkers had orders not to discuss their roles — not during the war and not until their mission was declassified in 1968.
The roles later became an immense source of pride for Sandoval and his late brother, Merrill Sandoval, who also was a Code Talker. The two became talented speakers who always hailed their fellow Marines still in action as the heroes, not themselves, said Merrill Sandoval’s daughter, Jeannie Sandoval.
“We were kids, all growing up and we started to hear about the stories,” she said. “We were so proud of them, and there weren’t very many brothers together.”
Sandoval was curious, always reading the local newspapers, and attending community, veterans, Code Talker and legislative meetings. He enjoyed traveling and sharing what he learned, grounded in his Diné beliefs and the Navajo way of life, said one of his daughters, Karen John.
“It was engrained early in me, to be part of the community,” she said. “He was really involved in a lot, some of which I couldn’t comprehend as a kid.”
Samuel Sandoval often told his story, chronicled in a book and documentary of the same name — “Naz Bah Ei Bijei: Heart of a Warrier” — at the Cortez Cultural Center in Cortez, Colorado. He had a favorite folding chair there with vinyl padding and took coffee black, said executive director Rebecca Levy.
Levy said Sandoval’s talks drew dozens of people, some of whom had to be turned away because of space limitations.
“It was a great opportunity for people who understood how important the Navajo Code Talkers were to the outcome of the war, in our favor … to thank him in person,” Levy said.
Sandoval’s health had been declining in recent years, including a fall in which he fractured a hip, Malula Sandoval said. His last trip was to New Orleans in June where he received the American Spirit Award from the National World War II Museum, she said. MacDonald, Kinsel and Begay also were honored.
Sandoval and his wife met while he was running a substance abuse counseling clinic, and she was a secretary, she said. They were married 33 years. Sandoval raised 11 children from previous marriages and in blended families, John said.
Navajo President Jonathan Nez said Sandoval will be remembered as a loving and courageous person who defended his homeland using his sacred language.
“We are saddened by his passing, but his legacy will always live on in our hearts and minds,” Nez said in a statement.
Navajo Nation Council Speaker Seth Damon said Sandoval’s life was guided by character, courage, honor and integrity, and his impact will forever be remembered.
“May he rest among our most resilient warriors,” Damon said in a statement.
RALEIGH, N.C. — When World War II veteran George Dramis came home, he didn’t talk much about the war. If someone asked what he did there, he’d tell them the truth: He was a radio operator.
But there is much, much more to his story.
Dramis, 97, was one of the 1,100 soldiers in the U.S. Army’s 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. Referred to now as the Ghost Army, they formed in 1944 with a key job: deceive the German military as to the whereabouts of Army divisions. This was after the D-Day invasion at Normandy, as Allied forces fought to free Europe from the Nazis.
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“We would come in at night,” Dramis told The News & Observer, explaining how the Ghost Army operated.
“[An Army division] would sneak away, quietly. We would come in and fake their radio transmissions. We had huge half-tracks with tremendous speakers on them that you could hear for 15 miles. They were recorded things of actual troop movements — tanks, trucks, guys swearing, yelling ‘Get over here!’” he said.
A half-track was an armored personnel carrier. Those speakers that carried sound for 15 miles weighed 500 pounds, Dramis said, and it sounded like a real division coming in. The Ghost Army used inflatable tanks, trucks and other equipment that would appear to be camouflaged, and soldiers even wore fake division patches.
Those 1,100 troops used visual and audio deception to appear to be 15,000 troops. And as Dramis told people after the war when his work was still classified, he was indeed a radio operator. He kept the secret until 1996, when the Ghost Army’s efforts were declassified.
There are just nine veterans of the Ghost Army still living. With a bill co-sponsored by North Carolina’s U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross and signed into law by President Joe Biden in February, those men will receive a Congressional Gold Medal. Ross, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ staffer Trey Lewis were among those who attended a recent ceremony at the Waltonwood Lake Boone assisted living community in Raleigh.
One of Dramis’ modern counterparts was at the ceremony, too.
Army Col. Chris Stangle is commander of the 4th Psychological Operations Group, 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), at Fort Bragg. Stangle told Dramis that Special Operations was built off of what the Ghost Army started. Stangle told The N&O that the work Dramis did has been built upon with techniques used by what is known as PSYOP today.
Like at other ceremonies of recent years honoring World War II veterans, speakers often call them heroes, including Dramis.
“They keep talking about this hero part all the time. Well, I’m not so sure about that hero stuff,” Dramis told those gathered.
“The 18-, 19-year-old, 20-year-old guys that” — Dramis paused and took a deep breath — “maybe lasted one minute or two minutes or three minutes, and they never made it. They never got to grow up and have a life … those guys are the heroes.”
After the war, Dramis was a factory worker and eventually president of an industrial supply company before he retired in 1990, according to the Ghost Army Legacy Project. He and his late wife had four children, and Dramis’ two living sons attended the ceremony, along with two of Dramis’ grandsons.
Saturday, July 23, 2022, was also proclaimed George Dramis Day by Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin.
Dramis’ son Jim Dramis, of Raleigh, wrote in The Charlotte Observer last year about the Ghost Army Legacy Project’s years-long push to get the bill passed so his father and others would be recognized with a Congressional Gold Medal. While the medal is still being minted, ceremonies for George Dramis and other Ghost Army veterans are already being held.
I’m trying to help a fellow Veteran with their disability claim. They currently have a %, however, as a Vietnam Veteran, I am quite confident they rate more than the 30% they’ve been rated in the recent past.
This Veteran has completed and signed the required VBA-21-22A form naming me as their Personal Representative (not Registered Agent nor Attorney). I’m looking to be able to upload this and other documents on the Veteran’s behalf, however, I do not see how I can do so on any VA.GOV site.
Does anyone here have any knowledge and/or experience with this, or point me in the right direction?
HONOLULU — A U.S. defense contractor and his wife charged with fraudulently living for decades under the stolen identities of two dead infants told family they were going into the witness protection program before abruptly abandoning their house and leaving Texas about 40 years ago, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.
At some point, Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison reemerged with new names and other explanations for lives cloaked in mystery.
These undated photos provided by the United States District Court District of Hawaii show Walter Glenn Primose, also known as Bobby Edward Fort, left, and Gwynn Darle Morrison, aka Julie Lyn Montague, right. (United States District Court District of Hawaii via AP)
The couple told people they were dodging legal and financial trouble, Assistant U.S. Attorney Wayne Myers said. Primrose told someone he was a government agent who couldn’t be photographed.
Intriguing details that emerged during a bail hearing in a Honolulu court were enough to get Primrose detained without bail, but provided little clarity why the couple shed their past and whether the criminal case against them is more serious than identity theft.
Myers successfully sought to have Primrose detained because his “life has been a fraud for the last several decades,” including more than 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard where he earned a secret-level security clearance. After retiring in 2016, he used the secret clearance for his defense job.
A search of the couple’s Hawaii home turned up Polaroids of the couple wearing jackets that appear to be authentic Russian KGB uniforms, Myers said. An expert determined the snapshots were taken in the 1980s.
This combination of undated photos provided by the United States District Court District of Hawaii shows Walter Glenn Primose, left, also known as Bobby Edward Fort, and his wife Gwynn Darle Morrison, also known as Julie Lyn Montague, purportedly in KGB, the former Russian spy agency, uniforms. (United States District Court District of Hawaii via AP)
The search also yielded an invisible ink kit, documents with coded language and maps showing military bases, Myers said.
When the couple were left in a room together, they were recorded saying “things consistent with espionage,” Myers said.
“We think the defendant is obviously quite adept at impersonating other people, obtaining government ID documents, fraud, avoiding detection,” Myers said. “He may — we’re not saying for sure — but he may have some troubling foreign connections. And if he does, he might be able to use those to enlist help.”
Federal defender Craig Jerome said the government only provided “speculation and innuendo” that the couple was involved in something more nefarious than “purely white-collar nonviolent offenses.”
“If it wasn’t for the speculation that the government’s injected into these proceedings without providing any real evidence … he would certainly be released,” Jerome said.
Morrison faces a bail hearing Tuesday.
Her lawyer said the couple — regardless of their names — had lived law-abiding lives. Attorney Megan Kau told The Associated Press the couple posed for photos in the purported KGB jacket for fun.
“She wants everyone to know she’s not a spy,” Kau said. “This has all been blown way out of proportion. It’s government overreaching.”
The couple, who were arrested Friday, July 22, at their Kapolei home, are charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S., false statement in passport application and aggravated identity theft. They face up to 17 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Inside their house, investigators discovered correspondence in which an associate believed Primrose had joined the CIA or had become a terrorist, Myers said.
When they left Texas in the early 1980s and claimed they were protected witnesses, they handed over the keys to their Nacogdoches house and told family members to take anything they wanted. The house was later foreclosed on.
In 1987, Primrose took on the identity of Bobby Edward Fort, an infant who died in 1967 in Burnet, Texas. Morrison took the identity of Julie Lyn Montague, who died in 1968 at the same hospital as Fort. Primrose and Morrison, both born in 1955, were more than a decade older than the birth dates listed on their new IDs.
“The defendant and his wife reportedly told yet other associates that they needed to change their names because of legal and financial reasons,” Myers said. “And that going forward they can be contacted using their new names, Fort and Montague.”
They remarried under their assumed names in 1988, according to court records.
Morrison used her real name to open a post office box, where she told family to contact her. When her father died, her family couldn’t reach her and enlisted local law enforcement to track her down.
“Even the defendant’s family cannot find him when they need to,” Myers said.
Prosecutors feared Primrose would flee if freed. They noted in court papers that he was an avionics electrical technician in the Coast Guard and was highly skilled to communicate secretly if released.
The judge said he based his detention order on the alleged fraud “over multiple occasions spanning a long period of time.”
By 11 p.m. Friday, all the senators who had roamed the halls of Congress this week were gone from Capitol Hill.
But the veterans weren’t.
A contingent of about 15 veterans — most of whom had spent the prior 48 hours meeting with lawmakers to discuss new toxic exposure legislation — were camped out on the Senate steps even as rain began to come down steadily. More were expected to arrive after midnight.
Plans called for an around-the-clock fire watch of advocates at the Capitol to last until Monday afternoon, when the Senate is again scheduled to vote on the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, better known as the PACT Act. The goal was to emphasize — throughout the weekend — the importance of action on the issue, even if no lawmakers were present to see it.
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“We’re here to let the Senate know that we’re not going home and neither should they until they get the PACT Act done,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Legislative Service.
Veterans groups have been searching for ways to bring pressure and urgency on senators since Wednesday, when a procedural vote on the measure failed in surprising fashion.
The measure — which could expand medical options and benefits for as many as one in five veterans living in America today — passed out of the Senate in June by a comfortable bipartisan 84-14 margin.
But after it was approved with technical corrections by the House, Senate Republicans chose to block the bill, with 27 GOP members unexpectedly changing their vote from the previous month.
Reasons for the surprise opposition include lingering concerns about how some benefits spending will be classified in future budgets and anger over unrelated health care and climate change legislation announced by Senate Democrats this week.
But the veterans standing watch outside the Capitol said none of those factors justify stalling the sweeping veterans policy measure when passage appeared all but certain after years of advocacy and lobbying work.
Kristen Rouse, a board member of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and an Army veteran with three tours in Afghanistan, traveled from New York to Washington, D.C., on Friday to be part of the event.
“Veterans are sick and dying,” she said. “I may be next. I was exposed to thick constant smoke for a full year in Afghanistan. The very least I can do is show up to pull a shift on the Capitol steps with these fighters.
“We need the Senate to come back and get to work. Suffering veterans don’t get any breaks. They shouldn’t be on recess or whatever they’re doing. Veterans need help now.”
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Advocates brought coolers, camp chairs and pizza to their late-night protest shift. They sent texts to fellow veterans about the effort throughout the night and passed time by watching clips of Jon Stewart, the comedian-turned-activist who spoke at a veterans rally on Capitol Hill Thursday, skewering Republicans on social media for their opposition to the bill.
Veterans said several House lawmakers — but no senators — stopped to chat on Friday afternoon to offer support for the effort. Other passersby approached to ask about the bill and what it could mean for the veterans community.
The plan, which calls for about $300 billion in spending over the next 10 years, would establish a presumption of service connection for 23 respiratory illnesses and cancers related to the smoke from burn pits used in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would also extend Veterans Affairs medical care for those vets, from five years after service to 10 years.
It would also provide new benefits for veterans who faced radiation exposure during deployments throughout the Cold War; veterans dealing with hypertension and monoclonal gammopathy from the Vietnam War, and new Agent Orange presumptive status for veterans who served in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Guam during the 1960s and 1970s.
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Senate Democrats said they are hopeful that a deal can be reached to move ahead with the bill by Monday afternoon, when the chamber is expected to return from a weekend break for a final week of work before its month-long summer recess.
As the weekend began, the advocates on the Senate steps were hopeful that their vigil there will only last until that Monday procedural vote.
“This is a bill that should have been passed a month ago,” said Aleks Morosky, deputy director of government affairs for Wounded Warrior Project. “When it came back over to the Senate, the people that voted for it last time, they chose to vote no on it. And that is unacceptable.
“So, we’re here to get the Senate to pass this bill without any more delays.”
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
My name is Meghan Curtin and I am a doctoral student at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology at National Louis University. Part of my requirement for graduation is to conduct a research study.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects trauma has on depressive symptom severity in veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The answers you provide will be anonymous. If you are a veteran who served in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS), Operation New Dawn (OND) and Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) who speaks English and has access to an electronic device and internet access please follow the link prompt below. Veterans who served in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS), Operation New Dawn (OND) and Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) with a preexisting diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, substance dependence, diagnosed traumatic brain injury, other cognitive impairment as a result of a service related head injury, or identify as non-binary will not be eligible for this study. Your participation will include filling out questionnaires that will take about 30-40 minutes to complete. Participation is voluntary and participants are able to withdraw at any time.
Last night, veterans, family members and advocates camped out on the steps of the US Capitol.
They had been there since Thursday morning – just hours after a group of Republican lawmakers derailed a bill providing healthcare access to veterans suffering from toxic exposure to burn pits.
And they’re not going to go away.
“If the veterans during war don’t get to go home on recess or go on vacation then neither should those 25 senators,” Rosie Torres told The Independent on Friday morning from her position at the Capitol.
“We’re not going to leave until we get a yes from all those senators on Monday. We are not going anywhere until it’s done.
“We’ve been here since 8am yesterday and we were here throughout the night. No one left. No one went to take a shower. No one slept.
“Throughout the night we had members of Congress and just everyday Americans who care stopping by. We had veterans standing watch here with us, people bringing us food: Jon [Stewart] sent pizza. Senator Gillibrand brought us pizza.
“It rained… It was a sort of nice moment for veterans as there was that camaraderie together.”
While many lawmakers and Americans came and went, around 25 members of the veteran community didn’t budge from their spot all night – ironically the same number of GOP senators who “blindsided” them during Wednesday’s vote on the SFC Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act.
It’s not how Ms Torres – cofounder of Burn Pits 360 and the wife of veteran Le Roy Torres – expected to be spending this trip to Washington DC.
For more than a decade, she has travelled back and forth to the capital lobbying the US government to take the issue of burn pits seriously.
The fight was supposed to now be over.
She had gone to the capital along with other veteran community members to see what they all hoped would be the bill’s final passage before it would land on President Joe Biden’s desk.
Ms Torres was looking forward to going to the White House to see the bill that she and so many others had fought so long for to be finally signed into law.
After all, it appeared to be a done deal.
Rosie Torres (centre) with members of the veteran community and lawmakers during Thursday night’s sit in at the Capitol
(Burn Pits 360)
Back on 16 June, the Senate had voted 84 to 14 in favour of the bill – a landslide vote especially in what is an evenly divided Senate.
Due to some changes, the bill had to be sent back to the House for a final vote where it passed with a 342-88 vote on 14 July.
Landing back in the Senate with a minor technical fix, another vote was called – a vote that many believed to be largely procedural given the overwhelming support just one month earlier.
On Wednesday, the US senators cast their votes on the motion to invoke cloture on the bill, paving the way for a final vote on its passage.
The bill tanked, with a 55-42 vote – five short of the needed 60 votes needed to pass.
Only eight Republican senators voted to move it forward, with 25 who voted in favour of it just one month earlier reversing their support in the 11th hour after Senator Pat Toomey branded the bill a “slush fund”.
In an added insult, Republicans were even seen celebrating the blow to the veteran community on the Senate floor.
Footage from the roll call vote captured a group of GOP senators shaking hands on the chamber floor.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz – who famously abandoned his state to holiday in Cancun in the midst of a deadly winter storm – and Montana Senator Steve Haines even gave each other a celebratory fist-bump as Mr Haines “no” vote was read out.
John Feal, a veterans advocate and a 9/11 first responder, branded their actions “repulsive”.
Jon Stewart blasted GOP lawmakers after they blocked the burn pits bill
(EPA)
“It’s repulsive and repugnant – Ted Cruz and Steve Daines are two of the biggest colossal douchebags in Washington DC,” he told The Independent on Friday.
Jon Stewart, TV host and veterans advocate, also slammed them as “despicable” for “celebrating their victory over veterans with cancer”.
“Way to go, guys! You finally handed it to ‘big veteran with cancer.’ Well done,” he mocked them.
To Ms Torres, the moment the bill tanked was “a gut punch”.
Her husband is one of a staggering 3.4 million US servicemembers and veterans estimated to have been exposed to burn pits and airborne toxins while serving their country overseas.
Le Roy was deployed to Iraq in 2007 as a member of the Army reserve.
He began suffering respiratory issues while on deployment and was hospitalised within a matter of weeks of returning home to the US at the end of his tour.
After being medically discharged from the Army, he was diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis – a rare terminal condition caused by toxic exposure.
For years, the VA denied Le Roy’s condition was connected to his service to his country and denied him healthcare and claims for service-connected illness.
His story echoes that of thousands of veterans across the US who returned home from war with terminal illnesses from burn pits and then found themselves denied healthcare and benefits from the country that sent them there.
Between 2007 and 2020, the VA turned down a staggering 80 per cent of all disability claims mentioning burn pits.
Finally, the PACT Act would give veterans like Le Roy access to the healthcare and disability benefits that they need. The bipartisan bill presumptively links 23 cancers, respiratory illnesses and other conditions to a veterans’ exposure to burn pits while on deployment overseas.
After he voted against the bill on Wednesday, Mr Toomey insisted that he does support it but wants to add an amendment on provisional spending to address what he describes as a “budget gimmick” that he claims could lead to $400bn spending unrelated to veterans.
His comments have been slammed by Democrats, veterans and supporters who responded in full force with a highly emotional press conference on Thursday where Senator Kristen Gillibrand said that Republicans “just sentenced veterans to death” and Mr Stewart called the group of lawmakers “cowards”.
The bill’s derailing has especially sparked a fierce battle between Mr Toomey and Mr Stewart.
The popular TV host has slammed the GOP lawmaker on social media and gone on a media blitz to rail against his actions.
“No spending that is not related to veterans has been added to this bill, no last-minute budget gimmicks have been added to this bill, it is purely based on toxic exposure and healthcare to veterans,” he said on Fox News on Friday.
Mr Toomey’s office responded by accusing Mr Stewart of “launching false accusations and ad hominin attacks” against him when he is trying to “stop the PACT Act from being used as a vehicle for a $400bn spending binge totally unrelated to veterans”.
As far as Mr Feal is concerned, Mr Toomey’s comments about the bill are all “lies”.
“Anything that comes out of his mouth right now is a lie and is disingenuous,” he told The Independent.
“It’s the furthest thing from the truth. And the fact that he’s retiring at the end of the year and is doing this is proof that he is a piece of s***. Usually when members of Congress retire they do the morally right thing… this man was put up to do this and was probably offered something out of it.
Le Roy Torres was diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis and toxic brain injury from his exposure to burn pits overseas
(Burn Pits 360)
“Telling everyone this is a slush fund is a lie. Telling everyone he wasn’t offered a vote [on his amendment] is a lie. He’s unAmerican.”
Mr Feal added that it hasn’t been lost on the veteran community that several of the other 25 GOP lawmakers who changed their minds at the last minute are in fact veterans themselves.
“That’s like your buddy getting shot on the battlefield and just leaving them to die,” he said.
Though “disgusted”, Mr Feal isn’t exactly surprised by the week’s events.
As a 9/11 survivor who first lobbied the US government to pass the law that now gives first responders healthcare for illnesses and injuries sustained at Ground Zero, he’s seen it before.
“This is eerily similar to what we experienced with the 9/11 bill,” he said.
“[This week], we were caught off guard and thought we had a victory but we were bamboozled.
“But I’ve seen this before and we’re not reacting, we’re responding… we’re going to keep up the pressure until Monday when another vote is called.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that he will “give our Republican friends” another chance to pass the bill on Monday, as the clock is ticking to get it passed before the summer recess.
On 5 August, senators head off for a month-long break.
Mr Feal is confident that “it’s going to get passed” as he warns “I am not afraid to square up to a senator” when lives are on the line.
“They have Ted Cruz and Steve Daines fist bumping. We have Jon Stewart telling Americans that they stabbed veterans in the back. And we have John Feal, his sidekick, saying f*** you,” he said.
“We’re talking about human life – people are dying and when you can’t put aside your political party and think like a human being then you don’t deserve to be in office.”
But the veteran community says that even a week delay is too long for the veterans who are in need of life-saving healthcare and access to disability benefits now.
A US service member throws something into a burn pit in Iraq
(U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Julianne Showalter)
“People will die waiting for this. Someone will die this weekend,” said Mr Feal.
Mr Toomey and the other GOP lawmakers holding up the bill have “veterans’ blood on their hands”, agreed Ms Torres.
“These veterans’ blood is on their hands. Every day that he wastes and plays partisan politics, someone else dies,” she said.
“Time is of the essence. People don’t have time. Captain [Rafael] Barbosa’s wife is here – he has stage four colon cancer.
“A woman stopped by to bring us cookies yesterday who has stage four cancer related to toxic exposure. She is an Iraq War veteran and she stopped by with her husband in tears to share her story.”
Another veteran suffering from burn pits killed himself while the bill’s passage has rumbled on, she said.
Ms Torres had a strong message for Mr Toomey: “Time is of the essence – stop the delay. Your tactics are killing veterans.”
Between now and Monday’s vote, she and other members of the veteran community will continue to stage their sit-in outside the naiton’s Capitol.
Mr Stewart, Mr Feal and other advocates will drum up attention in the media.
And veteran groups will hold rallies to amplify the message and urge Americans to lobby lawmakers to act.
As Ms Torres said: “We’re letting Americans know you elected these people and this is what they’re doing to veterans.”
Plans for a $300-billion budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs in fiscal 2023 appear likely to become law after Senate appropriators backed that target in their latest spending proposal.
But when lawmakers will formally approve the funding deal remains unclear.
On Thursday, Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee released their draft budget for next year, a $1.7 trillion plan that includes about $300 billion for VA operations. That figure closely mirrors both the mark approved for veterans programs and benefits by the House Appropriations Committee last month and what was suggested by the White House earlier this year.
In a statement, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. and chair of the appropriations committee’s veterans panel, said the proposal “provides a groundbreaking investment in VA healthcare and research, and funds VA’s efforts to improve infrastructure and modernize the disability claims process.”
If approved, the budget would be about a 10% increase from fiscal 2022 levels and represent the largest spending plan in department history.
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It would also mark another year of significant growth for VA program spending, even as other federal departments have seen cuts in recent years.
In 2001, the entire VA budget — including both discretionary program spending and mandatory benefits payouts — amounted to about $45 billion. By 2013, the budget totaled $139 billion, still less than half of this year’s request.
Despite that dramatic rise, lawmakers have generally backed the growth in VA spending, and appear more in sync on the veterans spending plan than other budget proposals.
For example, Senate and House appropriators have already offered at least four different budget targets for the Defense Department for fiscal 2023, ranging from $762 billion to $847 billion.
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Chamber leaders are expected to spend the next few months negotiating a compromise on those differences. Meanwhile, the comparatively non-controversial VA spending plan is unlikely to move ahead until the entire federal budget plan is agreed upon.
The $300 billion Senate plan for VA includes $13.9 billion for mental health care (up 6% from this year), $2.7 billion for homeless assistance programs (up 24%), $911 million for gender specific health care programs (up 8%) and $183 million for substance abuse disorder programs (up 17%).
If lawmakers cannot reach a full federal spending plan before the end of the current fiscal year (Sept. 30), they will need to adopt a short-term budget extension to stave off a partial government shutdown.
If that does not happen, however, most VA programs and operations will continue even without an active budget plan because Congress approves advanced appropriations for the department annually. That will keep benefits checks, hospital services and related support programs active even if a political fight shuts down other departments.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he plans to give “our Republican friends” one more chance to vote on the burn pits bill before the Senate goes off on a one-month recess.
Mr Schumer spoke to The Independent on Capitol Hill on Thursday hours after GOP lawmakers voted to block a landmark bill that would provide much-needed healthcare and disability benefits to veterans sick and dying from toxic exposure to burn pits.
The Democrat revealed he plans to bring the vote back to the Senate floor on Monday in a last-ditch effort to get the bill passed before lawmakers head off on recess on 5 August.
“We are going to give our Republican friends another opportunity to vote on this Monday night,” he said.
He added that he will also give Senator Pat Toomey the chance to bring his amendments to the floor “and try to get the votes”.
Pennsylvania Republican Mr Toomey voted against the bill and has been complaining for weeks about it, saying that he wanted to add an amendment on provisional spending.
Following Wednesday’s vote, he claimed he was trying to address a “budget gimmick” in the bill that he said would lead to an increase in spending “on who knows what”.
His comments were slammed by Democratic Senator Jon Tester who told him veterans will die because of the delay he and his fellow GOP lawmakers are causing.
On Wednesday, the PACT Act collapsed in the US Senate when dozens of Republicans unexpectedly changed their minds and decided to vote against it.
The bill received just 55 of the needed 60 votes to pass a cloture motion on Wednesday, as just eight Republicans voted to move it forward.
The sudden refusal to support the bill that will provide healthcare to thousands of sick veterans came as a surprise as 25 of the GOP lawmakers who voted against it had voted to pass the same bill just one month earlier.
Back on 16 June, senators voted 84 to 14 in favour of the bill, in a move that was celebrated by veterans, their families and advocates who have spent years battling for the US government to take the issue of burn pits seriously.
The vote meant it seemed certain that the bill would become law in a matter of weeks.
Senator Pat Toomey has pushed back on the bill for weeks
(2022 CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)
First it was sent back to the House for a final vote on the Senate’s amendments.
There, it passed with a 342-88 vote on 14 July.
Because of a minor technical fix the House made, the Senate was required to vote on it again before it could be sent to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
But – between one month and the next – dozens of Republican senators decided that they no longer supported expanding healthcare and disability access to US servicemembers and decided to change their vote.
Now, with the Senate scheduled to go on recess in a week’s time, thousands of veterans in desperate need of healthcare and disability benefits have now been left high and dry for even longer.
Democratic lawmakers, veterans and advocates slammed the GOP lawmakers for blocking the bill in a highly emotional press conference on Thursday morning.
TV host Jon Stewart, who has been lobbying Congress to pass legislation to support veterans who are sick and dying from toxic exposure to burn pits, slammed the “lies” and “hypocrisy” from Senators Toomey and Mitch McConnell.
The TV host accused the Republicans of “abject cruelty” and said their refusal to pass the bill will cost lives.
“I’m used to the lies, I’m used to the hypocrisy, I’m used to the cowardice, I’m used to all of it, but I am not used to the cruelty,” he said.
Veterans and advocates have condemned the GOP lawmakers now stopping veterans getting healthcare
(Getty Images)
The veterans who are sick and dying don’t have that time to wait until after the recess, he said, as he branded the GOP lawmakers “cowards”.
“Now they say, ‘Well, this will get done. Maybe after we get back from our summer recess, maybe during the lame duck’ – because they’re on Senate time. Do you understand? You live around here? Senate time is ridiculous,” he said.
“These motherf***ers live to 200. They’re tortoises. They live forever and they never lose their jobs and they never lose their benefits and they never lose all those things.”
“Well, they’re not on Senate time,” he said of the veterans. “They’re on human time. They’re on cancer time.”
New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand echoed the outrage over the sudden turnaround from her GOP counterparts.
“This is total bulls***,” she shouted. “They have just sentenced veterans to death.”
When asked for his reaction to Mr Stewart’s comments, Mr Toomey replied: “That’s not worth responding to.”
His office directed The Independent to his tweet on Wednesday where he said he was trying to solve a “budget gimmick”.
“Tonight, the Senate voted to give us the chance to fix a completely unnecessary budget gimmick in the underlying text of the PACT Act. This gimmick allows $400B in spending completely unrelated to veterans care,” he said.
“We can easily fix this tonight, and there is no reason we cannot do so NOW. This simple fix would not reduce spending on veterans in the underlying bill by a single penny. It’s wrong to use a veterans bill to hide an unrelated slush fund.”
When asked for comment, Mr McConnell’s office referred The Independent to his comments on the Senate floor where he said that he supports the “substance of the bill” but that lawmakers first need to “fix the underlying accounting issue”.
“Yesterday, the Senate should have been able to clear bipartisan legislation to expand VA health benefits for millions of men and women who have served bravely in our armed forces… A bill this important and this bipartisan deserves for us to fix this accounting gimmick, and then it deserves to become law,” he said.
Under the legislation, 23 cancers, respiratory illnesses and other conditions will now be presumptively linked to a veterans’ exposure to burn pits while on deployment overseas.
This means service men and women who have returned home from serving their country and developed one of these conditions will be given automatic access to healthcare and disability benefits.
It will also fund federal research on the impact of burn pits on the nation’s troops.
An estimated 3.5 million servicemembers and veterans are estimated to have been exposed to burn pits and airborne toxins while serving the US overseas, according to the Veterans Affairs (VA).
During America’s post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, huge open-air pits were used to burn mountains of trash including food packaging, human waste and military equipment on US military bases.
Thousands of US service members returned home from deployment and developed health conditions including rare cancers, lung conditions, respiratory illnesses and toxic brain injuries caused by breathing in the toxic fumes from the pits.
But, until now, the burden of proof has always been on veterans to prove their condition is directly caused by this toxic exposure.
In September 2020, a senior VA official testified before Congress that almost 80 percent of disability claims mentioning burn pits were rejected between 2007 and 2020.
In the last six months, the president has made tackling the issue of burn pits a higher priority and repeatedly urged lawmakers in the House and Senate to pass legislation to support veterans.
During his State of the Union address in March, said that he believes his son Beau Biden may have died as a result of toxic exposure to burn pits during his deployment to Iraq.
The Kremlin warned Thursday that a possible prisoner swap with the United States involving American basketball star Brittney Griner needs to be negotiated quietly without fanfare.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Washington had offered Russia a deal that would bring home Griner and another jailed American, Marine veteran Paul Whelan. A person familiar with the matter said the U.S. government proposed trading convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for Whelan and Griner.
Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan, was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges in 2020. He and his family have vigorously asserted his innocence. The U.S. government has denounced the charges as false.
Asked about the U.S. offer, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied that prisoner swaps were typically negotiated discreetly behind the scenes.
“We know that such issues are discussed without any such release of information,” Peskov told reporters during a conference call. “Normally, the public learns about it when the agreements are already implemented.”
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He emphasized that “no agreements have been finalized” and refused to provide further details.
In a separate statement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russian and U.S. officials have conducted negotiations about possible prisoner exchanges and “there has been no concrete result yet.”
“We proceed from the assumption that interests of both parties should be taken into account during the negotiations,” Zakharova said.
Blinken’s comments marked the first time the U.S. government publicly revealed any concrete action it has taken to secure Griner’s release. The two-time Olympic gold medalist and player for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury was arrested at a Moscow airport in mid-February when inspectors found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at a news conference, Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at the State Department in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
In a sharp reversal of previous policy, Blinken said he expects to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss the proposed prisoner deal and other matters. It would be their first phone call since before Russia sent its troops into Ukraine.
Russia has for years expressed interest in the release of Bout, a Russian arms dealer once labeled the “Merchant of Death.” He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 on charges that he schemed to illegally sell millions of dollars in weapons.
Griner’s trial on drug charges started in a court outside Moscow this month, and she testified Wednesday that she didn’t know how the cartridges ended up in her bag but that she had a doctor’s recommendation to use cannabis to treat career-related pain.
The 31-year-old has pleaded guilty but said she had no criminal intent in bringing the cartridges to Russia and packed in haste for her return to play in a Russian basketball league during the WNBA’s offseason. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of transporting drugs.
On Wednesday, Griner testified that a language interpreter translated only a fraction of what was being said while she was detained at Moscow’s airport and that officials told her to sign documents, but “no one explained any of it to me.”
Griner also said that besides the poor translation, she received no explanation of her rights or access to a lawyer during the initial hours of her detention. She said she used a translation app on her phone to communicate with a customs officer.
Her arrest came at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington ahead of Russia sending troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Griner’s five months of detention have raised strong criticism among teammates and supporters in the United States.
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The Biden administration has faced political pressure to free Griner and other Americans whom the U.S. has declared to be “wrongfully detained” — a designation sharply rejected by Russian officials.
Washington has long resisted prisoner swaps out of concern that they could encourage additional hostage-taking and promote false equivalency between a wrongfully detained American and a foreign national regarded as justly convicted.
In April, however, the government struck a deal to trade U.S. Marine veteran Trevor Reed for jailed Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.
Matthew Lee and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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