{"id":111591,"date":"2009-06-15T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2009\/06\/15\/burn-pits-have-ailing-troops-seeing-red\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T12:28:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T12:28:00","slug":"burn-pits-have-ailing-troops-seeing-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/burn-pits\/2009\/06\/15\/burn-pits-have-ailing-troops-seeing-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Burn pits have ailing troops seeing red"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: In 2008, Military Times reporter Kelly Kennedy published an expansive story looking at thousands of U.S. servicemembers who may have been sickened by the toxic smoke coming out of waste pits at Joint Base Balad in Iraq. The story \u2014 the first talking about \u201c<\/i>burn pit<\/i><\/a>\u201d injuries from overseas war zones \u2014 and her subsequent work over the next year has served as the backbone for journalistic work since then looking at toxic exposure injuries from the post-9\/11 wars. As the White House and Congress refocus on the issue of burn pit illnesses, <\/i>Military Times<\/i><\/a> is republishing those early stories to help show what officials knew, what changes have occurred since those early revelations and \u2014 perhaps most importantly \u2014 what hasn\u2019t changed.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few months at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, Army Staff Sgt. Danielle Nienajadlo lost her appetite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she breathed the heavy black smoke that settled around her living area, she started to feel nauseated. She began coughing and blowing out black sputum. She felt tired and had problems breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day, she went to the motor pool to work\u2014right next to an enormous burn pit that spewed the hazy residue of the 240 tons of trash fed into it each day: 90,000 plastic water bottles, petroleum products, Styrofoam cups from the dining facility, cooking oil, unexploded ordnance and even medical waste from the base hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One morning, after a sleepless night of hot sweats and fever, Nienajadlo went to the emergency room and begged doctors to draw her blood. Almost immediately, they determined she had leukemia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know I got it there,\u201d she said in November, explaining that the disease attacked her lungs. After a full course of chemotherapy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., her cancer went into remission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nienajadlo talked to Military Times after seeing a story in the paper about the possible harmful effects of the burn pit at Balad<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want anyone else to go through this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 20, the 32-year-old mother of three died while waiting for a bone marrow transplant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistics gathered by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center seem to indicate something is up. While a direct correlation to the burn pits can\u2019t be made, the data show that respiratory problems are rising in the ranks<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while leukemia and lymphoma rates have stayed fairly stable, neoplasms\u2014tumors\u2014have nearly doubled since 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of 400 service members who have contacted Disabled American Veterans<\/a> to say they\u2019ve become ill since returning from deployment\u2014part of the generally young, normally healthy military demographic\u2014almost 70 have cancer, while the rest have frequent headaches and respiratory problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really think the respiratory issues are the link,\u201d said attorney Elizabeth Burke, of Burke O\u2019Neill LLC. Her firm is representing 190 people in 34 class-action lawsuits against KBR, the Pentagon contractor that operated many of the larger burn pits in the war zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Just don\u2019t feel right\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Army 1st Sgt. Lynette Streitfield was at Balad, the largest U.S. base in Iraq, for three weeks before she had her first-ever asthma attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat just scared the bejeezus out of me,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve never had breathing problems before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t