Not a person that I work with on this issue in DC who served--
You'll be working with them for months.
Then one day, they'll casually mention, "Yeah, the nodules in my lungs"--
And I'm like, "What?"
People think veterans have health care for life.
-Right. -They're just like,
"I don't understand why that's a problem. They have health care." And they don't.
With veterans in particular, there's an assumption they're taken care of.
Are you seeing parallels with the 9/11 first responder--
Sure. Absolutely.
This idea, you said, came from a Daily Show episode you did, right?
-Yes. -Was it the 9/11 one?
The 9/11 one. It was for first responders who were sick.
We'd never done it.
You know, the show was always, like, either an author of a book
no one gave a shit--
Or an actress from a movie who you didn't know.
Let's be honest.
So, we-- we had them on, and they just… told their story.
Which, right, is the idea here?
Let's have the first act be sort of a road map, like a mall map.
You know, "You are here."
For whatever-- whatever issue we're dealing with.
And then that second act or whatever,
let's find the-- the stakeholders,
the voices that can give that witness testimony.
No, I like this. Let's see. This is the show.
-Yeah. That's the show. -That's it.
This is what's coming.
I think that's act one up there.
How can that not be the show?
Hello.
My name's Jon Stewart.
You may remember me from such hits as…
MTV's You Wrote It, You Watch It and Elmopalooza!
I guess that answers whether this show will be funny or not.
I've been away from television for some time,
and before we get started,
I really wanted to address the elephant in the room.
This is what I look like now.
I'm not happy about it either.
Very few people would be happy looking like an anti-smoking poster.
Thought you people liked me.
Why don't we begin tonight, slowly?
First show, let's kinda ease our way into it.
Let's try something bipartisan and noncontroversial:
veterans.
Military Appreciation Night,
presented by Pacific Premier Bank…
Thank you for your service.
We thank you for your service.
-Thank you for your service. -One, two, three, four…
The Price Is Right salutes our troops!
-I love you all! Kissy, kissy! -Yeah.
-…five, six, seven, eight… -Thank you for your service.
If you serve, you save!
Free all-you-can-eat hotcakes.
…eighteen, nineteen, twenty…
Thank you. I love you all so much.
And may God protect our troops.
Come on! We're America!
Angry Biden! We're American!
Yes, in this divided country,
the one thing that we seem to be able to agree on
is that we love the troops.
But unfortunately…
One in five US military personnel serving in combat
will suffer some form of PTSD.
One in three vets,
they say they experience underemployment.
One in six vets who served in Iraq or Afghanistan,
addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Nearly 50,000 veterans will experience homelessness each year.
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs,
17 US veterans take their own lives each day.
Yes, we love our vets.
But you know the old saying,
"If you love someone, let them go fuck themselves."
Turns out, we support our troops unless they actually need support,
a kind of performative patriotism that barely seems to register
the suffering that their sacrifice sometimes brings.
For instance, just last summer, Jake Tapper broke this story.
A serious story now that you may not have heard about:
The US military has long used burn pits to destroy all sorts of waste,
from chemicals to metals to human waste,
setting fires that churned out black smoke near military bases.
Service members have reported symptoms as serious as cancer,
which they blame on their exposure to the burn pits.
Holy shit.
Well, as-- as troop-loving Americans,
the time to rise up and defend our veterans
was probably 2008,
when this story was first breaking news.
A stunning statement from the United States military.
It says open burn pits in Iraq exposed thousands of troops to toxic chemicals.
You're probably wondering, "What exactly is a burn pit?"
Well, it turns out,
when you invade a country, they don't tell you when trash day is.
So everything that the military wants to get rid of,
from rotting food to old uniforms,
to hazardous materials, medical waste, batteries,
to ammunition, armaments, entire trucks,
nuclear waste, amputated body parts,
and the maraschino cherry:
metric tons of human feces--
Which, obviously, you don't want to pile that shit up on your base.
You just want to put it right next to your base
and then pour jet fuel on it and light it on fire.
Perhaps a visual would be helpful.
This black plume of smoke is coming from a burn pit.
And these suckers are big, sometimes as big as 10 acres.
And all of the soldiers on the base breathed in that smoke 24-7.
It got in their food, their clothes, their eyes.
They could not escape it.
And again, I cannot stress this enough.
The most powerful and lavishly funded,
technologically sophisticated military apparatus in the world
got rid of their trash the same way Jake Paul does.
Oh, God, it's already in flames.
Oh, my God!
There's gonna be a kaboom!
By the way, I'm boxing him on a pay-per-view next Saturday.
I'm urging you not to bet on me.
My-- My bones are made of dust.
Burn pits!
Burn pits.
We did that to ourselves.
And as these smoldering ashtrays of freedom burned,
they released a bouquet of poisonous carcinogens,
like benzene and dioxins,
and it has had devastating consequences for the people who served.
The diagnosis was constrictive bronchiolitis.
They diagnosed me with hypersensitivity pneumonitis
and pulmonary fibrosis.
There's a mass in his brain, and we think that it's cancerous.
And I had a form of pancreatic cancer.
I have lung cancer.
Lymphoma cancer.
It was squa-- squamous cell carcinoma.
It's not a type of cancer for a young 27-year-old guy to have.
Now, here's the fun part.
Veterans who suffered these terrible health effects
from toxic exposures to burn pits
are being denied health care and benefits from the VA.
Right now we're a quarter million dollars in debt from cancer costs.
We're bankrupt, and the VA still denies my claim,
that it's not the-- that it's not from exposures.
Over 70% of claims filed by veterans suffering from burn pit exposure
have been denied by the VA.
Which is kinda bad news for the more than 3 million service members
who have been exposed to burn pits.
And why are these toxic wounds being denied?
It's, my understanding that
we do not have, specific evidence that ties,
these kinds of, disposal facilities to, health issues.
First of all, fuck you for calling burn pits "disposal facilities."
And I'm not a body language expert, but I'm pretty sure
that guy was doing every tell possible on lying.
"Well, I, look down.
I… I shift paper.
And now I'm going to make up a ridiculous euphemism for burn pits."
What the DOD and the VA are saying is that
they just don't have the proof, the scientific evidence,
that exposure to benzene and dioxins in burning pits made soldiers sick.
And the VA and the DOD keep paying for studies to find the proof
using data provided to them by the Pentagon.
But lo and behold, those studies are inconclusive.
So, may I be of service?
Here's a classic from Pert Plus model Dan Rather.
Exposure to benzene fumes is toxic.
A widely suspected cause of blood disorders, including leukemia.
How about science from Chris Wallace
looking like Chris Pratt playing Chris Wallace?
A preliminary government study strongly suggests
that the chemical dioxin causes cancer in humans.
Or maybe you'd like some science from the EPA.
They're right down the hall from you.
They work in your building.
The health risks associated with dioxin…
…are greater than previously suspected.
Or just maybe the DOD want their science
from a memo that they wrote to their fucking selves.
Because in 2009,
the DOD issued an official internal environmental regulation
that acknowledged, quote,
"Burn pits inherently create health issues
and should be terminated as soon as practical, in order to protect
the life, health and safety of USCENTCOM and coalition personnel."
And in 2010, the VA circulated an official internal memo
telling VA medical examiners to be on the lookout
for conditions related to the exposure of these chemicals:
particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
volatile organic compounds, dioxins and furans.
We know the chemicals from burn pits are the same chemicals in Agent Orange
and the same chemicals at Ground Zero.
And we know exposure to those chemicals makes you sick.
We know.
They know.
We know they know.
And now I think they know that we know that they know.
So why is the VA denying these claims?
Well, no surprise.
The reason is money.
He was a healthy guy when he got back.
He was a healthy guy while he was out there.
But then you wanna say, "Oh, no."
If it doesn't get--
If they don't see symptoms
within the first 12 months of them coming back,
and he doesn't get a diagnosis, forget it.
They're screwed.
Because they don't see it as it's service related.
The VA's new model is, "Delay, deny, hope you die."
There's a slogan for our flag pins.
So now veterans are dying and going bankrupt
because the DOD and VA are forcing them to indisputably prove a connection
that they already internally admit exists.
And what makes it so incredibly demoralizing
is that they are holding the veterans to a standard of proof
far beyond the one our own government used to send them to war in the first place.
We cannot wait for the final proof,
the smoking gun
that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
They couldn't wait for the final proof
in their effort to protect us all from being exposed
to the terrible health effects of a toxic cloud.
We went there to find weapons of mass destruction.
And when they weren't there, we made our own.
We'll be right back.
Imagine this baking dish is a gigantic hole in the ground,
like ten acres.
First, we're gonna add our dry ingredients: old uniforms,
truck tires, plastic bags, batteries.
Then the wet ingredients: medical waste,
random trash, a bunch of piss, an absolute shit ton of human shit.
Sprinkle in some amputated body parts. Don't ask me where I got these.
And then we're gonna just add in some jet fuel.
Mix it all together, and…
Fuck!
Oh, fuck!
That's a burn pit.
Uh, if you're gonna try it at home, don't.
It is literally illegal to do this in the United States.
Thanks to the DOD for the recipe.
Like and comment for Part 2.
Welcome back to the program. Thanks for joining us.
Right now we're gonna talk to some of the people
who are actually living through what we were just talking about.
First, Captain Le Roy Torres. Served in the army for 23 years.
Cofounder of Burn Pits 360 with his wife, Rosie Torres, who also joins us.
Le Roy, Rosie, I'm gonna start with you guys.
I met you guys about three years ago.
Le Roy, can you describe your experience having been in Iraq,
what you were exposed to and what happened since?
When I first arrived there, I just noticed this stench.
A horrific stench of just, like, burning rubber.
It was this massive,
just huge hole where they were just burning all this trash.
Within about a month,
I was having respiratory issues, unexplained headaches, GI issues,
and I was actually quarantined for 72 hours.
They said it was the Iraqi crud that I was dealing with,
that eventually my system would overcome that.
"Iraqi crud." That's a medical term, I believe. Iraqi crud.
That's what the doctors call it.
And you get back then from your deployment,
and you were in the Texas, state--
-You were a Texas state trooper? -Yes.
And what happens then?
Well, I come back, and I start missing a lot of work.
Eventually, August of 2010,
I was told one morning, "You can't come back to work.
You may be contagious. You need to get yourself checked out.
There is definitely something wrong with you."
And that's when our personal journey started
with, seeking-- trying to seek specialized medical health care…
-Right. -…for my issues.
So you end up actually having to leave the state troopers.
-I was forced to, yes. -You were forced to.
Now, Rosie, Le Roy comes home.
He's clearly suffering from all these conditions.
-And you're on your own. -Right.
So you've got to become your own doctor, lawyer, advocate, everything.
Right. You know, we're juggling,
trying to figure out, like, how we move forward in our lives
because we knew that we were up against two systems:
his employer, his civilian employer,
Three. DOD, trying to, you know, force that medical retirement as well,
and then the VA.
Trying to figure out how do we file a claim
because we're gonna end up homeless on the street
if we don't figure this out quickly.
And you and I have talked about this.
All this has left you, you know, at times, in a pretty dark place.
Yes. Very dark place.
And I'll be honest. In 2016, I attempted to take my life.
But thankfully for my service dog, Hope, and my wife that I'm still here today.
And,
And I can't tell you how inspired I am by you guys.
I mean, you know, I've been banging around with this for a couple years,
but you guys have been at it for so long.
Julie, you, you know--
You worked as a-- a clinical researcher in the VA…
…but you had also suffered from the burn pits.
Yes.
So if you can't navigate that system, and you are in it,
what chances does anybody have?
It's just a really hard system to navigate,
and there's a lot of different layers and bureaucracy and red tape.
When you apply for benefits,
you have to go through rigorous testing
to sort of prove what you have and if it's service connected.
So you can be diagnosed with a cancer,
and you can still be denied and say there's no link.
The interesting thing here-- We're there.
And you can tell where the audience is-- I think people are stunned.
Because I think the thought process is, "We love our troops."
The rhetoric is, "We love the troops. We support the troops."
And troops get health care, don't they? But it's not like that.
And, Isiah, you know, you actually were on the pits.
-You were stirring these things. -Yes.
What's your experience been with this?
Absolute horror and nightmare.
Everything we had-- trash, food--
The worst was human waste.
Can I curse on here?
-No! -Oh. Well, everywhere--
-I don't know-- -Isiah!
What kind of fucking program do you think I'm running here?
So every week, each platoon got shit duty.
So all of the human waste from an entire company of grunts has to be stirred,
and it bubbles, and it's--
It's a horrible, horrible thing.
And that's one of the reasons I was retired from the army at 27 years old,
because I'm 90% disabled because I have lung scarring.
And I was a healthy kid when I went into the army.
I could run five miles like it was nothing.
Now I can barely breathe at night and have to use a breathing machine
and go through breathing treatments and all these things.
Burn pits is our generation's Agent Orange.
A lot of my friends who were young like me,
with all the burn pits we had, started getting cancer.
And the United States military and the government
doesn't give a damn about us once we're out.
Once you're out, they do not care.
And it's also, you know, to some extent, part of it is a function of--
It's such a small percentage of the country that serves.
Yes.
So those problems don't get communicated out to the general population.
And I can tell you, just from the audience's response--
And this is a very broad-based selection of Upper West Side Jews.
This is…
But it's a surprise to people.
Gina, I want to talk to you…
…because I couldn't believe how much you had to do,
as your husband was-- was sick and dying--
What-- The burden of proof is somehow on the sick veteran and his family.
Well, I didn't know that his cancer was related to burn pits or anything…
…until probably about six to eight months before he passed away.
And with the help of Rosie and Le Roy, I filled out the paperwork,
and, I mean, they didn't even--
I sent stacks of information from Memorial Sloan Kettering
because he wasn't treated at a VA facility,
because, again, I did not know it was VA-related,
and we live close enough to Memorial
that we went to the top facility for his cancer,
and they don't even know to look for this.
From March of 2003 to August of 2003, he was in Iraq.
He slept, probably from where I am
-to where the end of your rows are… -Right.
…for six months, away from a burning pit.
And they'd wake up choking in the middle of the night.
He was diagnosed at one point with hypertension.
Well, now I come to find out that that's a bit of a red flag
and should push you to go get some other tests
and to investigate a little bit further.
We had no idea.
That's the VA and the Marine Corps's responsibility.
It's their responsibility, and they're failing.
When somebody comes in and tells you that they were in the military,
and they were in a war,
there should be a toxic panel done on them.
You brought up something really, I think, crucial to this entire conversation.
Because the VA is an advocate for the veteran.
That's their charter.
But for some reason, they don't recognize toxic exposure
as an IED that goes off in your body seven years later.
And by having that denial from, service-related--
They don't have to pay out.
Rosie, you know, you've all worked to create legislation on presumption.
We presume that any veteran who has served in the Global War on Terror
has been exposed to these toxic exposures.
And these list of illnesses that we know are caused by these types of exposures
will be covered.
And I do feel that, because of the conditions that are surfacing
from inhaling such toxic chemicals, you know,
the only way to go is-- is presumption.
And if they know that you're being exposed to these things
and they don't put you through a panel--
And, Wes, I want to thank you for being patient there,
but that gets to your story.
You come back,
and you're going to doctors because you're having stomach issues.
So when I first came home from Afghanistan in 2011--
About two years after I came home,
I was experiencing frequent bowel movements,
multiple times a day.
And I was noticing blood.
And I went into the VA.
And it wasn't until 2017
when I was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.
And when you first went to the VA,
was there any sense of, say,
"Hey man, stomach issues, and you were exposed to burn pits.
Let's get you some diagnostic tests."
Or did they not even consider these kinds of things?
So, I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome,
and one of the things is,
to be diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome,
you have to have a colonoscopy to rule out everything else.
And I was never given the option of a colonoscopy.
Is there a sense that,
if they had given you that colonoscopy during that time,
we might be having a different outcome here?
I absolutely believe that had they given me a colonoscopy at that time,
that would have had a different outcome in my life.
These stories, I mean--
These are outrageous.
And it feels like it's been buried.
If another country was doing to our veterans
what we allow to be done to our veterans, we'd be at war already.
They tell you, "No man left behind."
But obviously we see it every single day,
in every war, in every generation,
from the Civil War all the way up until right now.
Veterans always pay the price.
We are always put out in the forefront,
told that our backs are going to be had
by the country and the people that we're supposedly fighting for.
And yet we have these conversations every single time.
I want this to be the last time we have this conversation.
I'm 34 years old.
I want to be the last generation to have to sit around a table
and talk about this goddamn subject.
We need a government that's going to actually put some skin in the game,
because it's really easy to beat your chest, "Rah, rah, rah,"
the drums of war.
But all too often they're followed by the bugles of taps,
because only a certain amount serve.
The people who send us don't have to go, so they don't really care about it.
And I'm very animated about this because I know over 50 people who have died.
Fifty. That is unbelievable.
From my time in service and time after. It shouldn't be like that.
And we shouldn't have this pain and burden.
We were told we were gonna be taken care of.
Why are we having this conversation?
I gotta tell you, Isiah, I would follow you most places.
I find you…
You're very compelling. If you were to say, "We're going now,"
I'll be like, "All right, let me get my bag. I'm gonna just go."
I mean, I-- I believe in you.
And it's--
What animates all of these discussions, I think, is the shock of it.
Wes, I want to give you one of the last words because, you know,
I'm always moved by individuals who are suffering in their own right
who decide to spend their energy advocating for other people.
And I want to know what drives you to continue bringing this story out.
At this point, I feel like the canary in the coal mine,
and I'm just screaming my head off about this topic
and trying to get people to listen.
But it's too late for me.
But it's not too late for the next veteran that walks down the hall of the VA
and goes into a medical appointment
and says to their doctor, "I am experiencing X, Y and Z."
That doctor then says, "Let's get you treated.
Let's get you diagnosed with the proper diagnosis
and then work on prevention."
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
At this point, it's too late for me, and I have accepted that.
But if I can prevent just one other vet and their family
from going through what I have been through,
what my family has been through…
My son is going to grow up without his dad.
My wife is going to live the rest of her life
knowing that the last five years of her spouse's life were in pain and misery.
If I can prevent just one family
from going through what I'm going through right now,
I can kneel before my maker and say, "I did a lot of bad shit in my life,
but I did one good thing,
and I advocated for those that-- that didn't know."
That couldn't do it themselves because they had--
their time had already passed.
They didn't have a voice. Now I'm their voice.
Thanks so much, Wes.
We'll be right back. Thanks, guys.
Really.
My name's Dan Brewer, lieutenant colonel, United States Army.
And I was chief of environmental in Iraq.
Things I saw that we were burning in burn pits were poisons and carcinogens
and things you ought not to be, openly burning.
Then I could see that we were burning it.
You know, I came back and talked about some of the issues and some of my concerns
and basically told to, you know, keep my opinions to myself.
There was resistance to publishing. I was told by some people…
…we're better off not to publish the regulations…
…because if we don't know what to do we can't be held accountable.
I served as chairman of the federal Research Advisory Committee
on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses…
…from 2002 to 2014.
In each major military conflict,
the number of veterans injured by toxic exposures
vastly exceeds the number injured by bombs and bullets.
Moreover, the government has consistently refused to take responsibility
for these ill veterans.
This is a serious national health issue facing our military,
and it has been dodged by the Department of Veterans Affairs for the last 50 years.
So, when you go talk to the secretary of the VA,
ideally, what could come out of this conversation when you talk to him,
like, at its best?
The short-term is obviously
presumption for the illnesses that we know are caused by exposure to these toxins.
Just immediately doing that and opening that up to--
-Walter Reed, you get world-class care… -Right.
…for wound and limb injury, and all those kinds of things.
Do the same for toxic exposure.
We asked Rosie on Zoom,
"What's the difference between presumption and not?"
And she's just flat-out said
the difference is veterans putting shotguns in their mouths.
No question.
Same question. Like, at its worst, what happens?
Boy, it's-- It's one of our number one priorities.
And we really have to address it.
And we're really hoping that the science--
You know, we're looking into it in a lot of different ways.
And we've already put asthma,
which is, as you know, an enormous issue for people.
And rhinitis.
They'll just give bullshit.
This is the problem with-- with the comedy hybrid shows.
The whole time we're talking about this,
I'm just looking at number one with an asterisk, "snake penis."
All the years of The Daily Show, I never did this.
Like went somewhere and interviewed somebody.
Thanks for having me.
I'll just start simply, which is, in your mind,
what are the biggest hurdles to counteract toxic exposures for veterans
and, more specifically, burn pit exposure?
I would like to see us stop using some of the technologies and the processes
that we've used to, you know, get rid of stuff when we're deployed.
You're saying digging a hole and burning everything in it with jet fuel
-might not be the answer… -I'm just saying--
…in a modern society?
I'm saying that that's one thing that, going forward,
I think we should get our hands around.
-Right. -This-- The second thing is,
I want to make sure that-- And I am determined to, as secretary,
ensure that we are not passively waiting for information
to help us address this problem
so that we can be in a position to get the care and the benefits
that our vets have earned.
-So-- -Why do you think that hasn't occurred?
Certainly burn pit exposure is not a surprise.
It's been 11 years.
-What more-- -Longer-- Actually longer, Jon.
-Probably longer. -Right.
Because it goes back, really, to the first Gulf War.
What information are they waiting for?
The researchers are trying to establish,
to a level of--
that's demanded by the statutes, by laws…
the certainty of the causation of these illnesses.
Soldiers are dying of these illnesses,
and they can't get their health coverage and their benefits.
So can you see that it would be difficult for them to hear,
"We're still chasing down information?"
Yeah, absolutely.
When the information seems to already exist.
These were outlawed in America in the '70s.
I don't pretend that my frustration reaches anywhere near…
-Sure. -…the veterans' frustration.
-But I am frustrated. -Sure.
Which is why I made this the first thing we did out of the box.
We have now established a presumption that
that if you have rhinitis, if you have sinusitis, if you have asthma…
…we presume those came from your time in the military,
and therefore you qualify for care and benefits.
I think veterans would all say sinusitis, rhinitis and asthma is fine…
-Not enough. -…but that's not what's killing them.
Do I think that's done? No, I don't.
And I won't stop until the presumptive lists include
well beyond that very meager list that we've established.
What gave you the-- I guess, the confidence
that the science or the information had reached the level
where you felt comfortable giving presumption,
whereas with these other-- constrictive bronchiolitis…
-Right. -…lymphomas, colon cancers…
Why do you feel like the information hasn't reached that level?
We are able to look and make the decision on these first three conditions
-based on-- -Great. What were the metrics?
-We-- I wish-- -How did-- Okay, okay.
I want to be able to answer your question. I just don't-- I haven't--
But you were satisfied that that met the statute.
I was satisfied.
Our team of clinicians, researchers told me
we can-- we can establish that these three conditions
are presumed to be caused by being,
for their military service, in these geographies during this time.
So if your science team gives you a recommendation
for these other conditions…
…then you will sign them, you will pass those through?
Not only that.
I'm asking them to go get as much science as there is on this.
Is the holdup, in your mind, money…
-No. -…or information?
So it's not money?
Jon, we are-- We've just submitted a budget for about $270 billion.
It's the second biggest budget in the federal government.
A little less than half of that is for the provision of health care.
We're not asking what the cost is.
So I'm not sure then.
If it's not money, and it's not science…
The biggest hurdle is establishing that link, that scientific link.
-And I will be damned… -Right.
…if I don't establish it.
I don't think you could say that we haven't established a link
between exposure to jet fuel
and certain cancers and autoimmune disorders. We have.
I want to make sure that…
…I also recognize that we do operate
within the context of a series of requirements.
We have not been yet able to meet the requirements.
Let's at least help people understand
what this bar that we have to reach entails.
The process and the statute requires to meet a certain degree of threshold.
-What is that threshold? -Getting to one pa--
Taking one path to that threshold is too slow.
Congress, you know, going back to the Vietnam vets and Agent Orange,
required us to work with the National Academies of Science.
From what I've seen is they've done a ton of National Academy of Science studies.
And people wave those all the time and say no link's been established.
But unfortunately, those studies all say insufficient data.
And that data is not going to be getting any better 'cause it's provided by DOD.
And if it's insufficient in 2008, it's going to be insufficient in 2020.
I believe that we-- There are rules of this process--
But why can't you define those rules?
I'm sorry. I wish I could.
-And maybe that's my weakness. -But then how do you know
when you've achieved them?
By-- Because--
Because we have a series of requirements that we have to meet
that we've been running against for years.
-What we've been doing is-- -But what are the requirements?
We've been running against them with one stream of information
that comes from the National Academies of Science.
-Right, which is paid for by the VA. -And by--
-And the information comes from DOD. -And what I'm--
And what I'm saying is, that's a mistake.
We should get the information, and we now are getting information,
from a much wider range of science.
-Doesn't that information already exist? -It does exist.
-Yeah, it does exist. -And--
I'm saying go get it and let's put it into our decision-making process.
And so I'm really trying to understand. What's the bar you're looking for?
Because to not be able to articulate that clearly really troubles me.
-I don't-- And by the way… -And--
…I don't doubt your empathy and your care.
I really don't.
That's why I'm here talking to you.
-The beauty is I don't really give a shit. -Not that it matters to you.
As you shouldn't.
So, I don't really care what you think if I'm doing a good job or not.
I care what the vets think.
We've got-- I should show you this.
Give me Isiah's fourth thing.
This is from the panel we did with some veterans.
I just want you to listen to Isiah James,
who is an infantryman who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I was a healthy kid when I went into the army.
I could run five miles like it was nothing.
Now I can barely breathe at night and have to use a breathing machine
and go through breathing treatments and all these things.
And the United States military and the government
doesn't give a damn about us once we're out.
Once you're out, they do not care.
If another country was doing to our veterans
what we allow to be done to our veterans, we'd be at war already.
You know, that's-- that's hard to hear.
Clearly you'd agree with his sentiments, I think, to some extent.
I agree with all of his sentiment.
-Each and every bit of it. -Right.
And so you're asking a very logical question,
which is, "Okay, so, do you need, like, three papers from five researchers,
or what is it?"
-Right. -And I-- I don't know the answer to that.
But if you don't know the answer, how do you know when you've found it?
-I guess I'm trying to figure out-- -Well, because--
As the executive, you could do this in the stroke of a pen.
-And… -I-- I wish I could, but I can't.
You know, I've asked for that. I've asked.
My point is,
I still can't understand what this bar is that you talk about that's a statute.
-I wish-- I wish-- -If I look at the statute--
I wish it were like a puzzle.
I keep asking the same series of questions.
-Right. -Okay, so, like, we got all these pieces.
Just tell me where to put 'em,
then let's figure out which piece we're missing.
-And then we'll build that. -Right.
You know, I'm looking at all the options available to me,
especially on the-- as I said to you earlier,
the most difficult cases.
Not even guys just like Isiah,
who's clearly, paid a huge price.
And I'm trying to figure out,
how do we get him into our care in a timely way?
And then we can figure out the benefits later.
This delay is killing people.
I mean, I think it's-- I don't-- That's not hyperbole.
This is about taking care of a problem that we caused
through our negligence
to our own servicepeople.
I think you're trying to get me to rebut that notion.
-And I'm telling you… -No, I'm not.
-…I'm not rebutting that notion. -I understand that.
-And-- -I'm trying to get you to…
I-I-- Honestly, I think I'm trying to get you to say,
"The system can't tolerate it right now.
We need to expand that system and make changes to that system,
and that takes money, and this is what I need from Congress."
I don't believe that to be the case.
Would we be better served by beginning a process of implementation
with auditing on the back end of it?
Because, you know, I look at the 9/11 program, right?
It puts people in a preventative screening program.
It gives them treatment for these toxic exposures, from experts.
It's a program that very clearly can be scaled up.
Why not announce a five-year implementation program
as opposed to an individual-disease-to-disease…
I mean, why take the tack you're taking and not that one?
What I'm doing right now,
I believe that that helped us, in the first instance,
-establish the presumption… -Right.
…that these three conditions are service connected.
And I am hopeful--
And I will push the system to establish that condition--
that presumption for other conditions.
And I think I can only get more by this process that I've put in place
and by putting pressure on our experts, who I think are the best in the world.
In that process, is there anything that you need to help expedite that?
I really want vets to file their claims.
We can actually draw some conclusions
about the experience of people there as a cohort.
-Jon-- -Last question, then I'll let you go.
-Last question. -Okay.
If you're satisfied that the process will never provide you that cohort study,
-that perfect double blind… -Yeah. Yeah.
…is there an expedited process of presumption
that you would be satisfied to move forward with?
You know, I-- I'm-- I'm,
I guess what I'd say is, I'm-- I'm trying this process now.
If it's impossible and we still end up in this position
where we can't get the vets, in a timely way, what they need in terms of care,
then I would definitely look at anything.
-Thank you. Much appreciated. Thanks. -Okay. Thanks, man.
You know him for his award-winning documentaries
on the Civil War,
baseball
and jazz.
Hi, I'm Ken Burns.
This is Ken Burns Presents
Ken's Burn.
These burns are so hot they'll blow your balls off.
The government's treatment of vets is so bad,
it makes my friend Werner Herzog's film Meeting Gorbachev
look like his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
Third-degree burn.
That was Ken Burns's burn.
Well, folks, that was our very first program.
Thank you for watching.
But my guess is you didn't.
You're probably just going to look at aggregated clips of it
somewhere on YouTube,
where you pirate Ted Lasso.
You don't even know how to get Apple TV, do you?
You don't even know.
It's just a subscription service.
You hit the Apple thing.
It says a thing. You click off "I agree."
Don't read it. Just say you agree.
By the way, we have a podcast.
We're on the Internet and an array of other platforms
I can't remember the names of.
But you can keep up with Burn Pits 360 and all the others working in this space
to get veterans the health care and benefits they've earned.
Thanks very much, and we'll see you next time.
You guys have been in news for a very long time.
Like, we sort of come from a slightly different world.
I'm already cringing, like, "Oh, God."
When, like--
When people see this, I'm gonna go to the Comedy Cellar, you know, table.
And they're all gonna be like, "Ooh, look, Mother Teresa just came in."
It's just gonna be a fucking nightmare.