THE KILLER IS INVISIBLE
Push to get war vets help following toxic exposure to burn pits overseas
WASHINGTON — Gina Cancelino believes her husband was killed by an enemy he never knew he encountered while serving in Iraq, and only learned about shortly before he died, 14 years into his NYPD career.
The widow from Seaford, L.I., doesn’t want untold numbers of military families to suffer that same fate, and came to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday with actor and activist Jon Stewart to rally support with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) for a bill that would help ease that suffering.
Joe Cancelino died in 2018 at the age of 50, after a 2½ -year battle with a rare testicular cancer and other ailments, but it wasn’t until near the end that the Cancelinos learned toxic exposure to burn pits overseas is something the Veterans Administration has worried about for years.
The VA believes at least 3.5 million members of the military have been exposed to the poisonous fumes in America’s global wars on terror, and maintains a registry the Cancelinos didn’t knew existed.
“We did not know. We were not made aware,” Cancelino, 45, told the Daily News ahead of a news conference with Gillibrand, Stewart and other advocates.
“Maybe if we found it earlier, we were monitoring, self-monitoring, knowing there were hazards, maybe, maybe he gets saved,” Cancelino said. “So now I can’t save him. But now, maybe I can help somebody else.”
Even had she and Joe known, the military and VA have been notoriously difficult for sick and dying veterans to deal with if their war injuries were caused by the smoke their own forces created. To date, only about 20% of vets with toxic illnesses get approved for help.
Cancelino was recently turned down for benefits to help her two daughters because she can’t prove the cancer was connected to Joe Cancelino’s 2004 tour in Nasariya, Iraq, when he lived and slept near a burn pit for months.
The military creates hundreds of pits to burn almost everything from plastics and broken equipment to medical refuse and human waste, all of which they usually set on fire with jet fuel, creating toxin-laden clouds all too reminiscent of the poisons released from the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Stewart condemned the Byzantine system that leaves veterans and their families pleading in despair for help that doesn’t come.
“Damn. For those that have fought and defended and serve this country — for them to come home and have to fight against the very government that they volunteered to defend is immoral. It’s unconscionable, and it’s easily remedied,” Stewart said.
Gillibrand rolled out the bipartisan legislation with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that would guarantee war fighters who served in certain hotspots like Iraq and Afghanistan would get care and benefits in a timely way.
Instead of having to wade through a lengthy claims process only to be rejected, former warriors
would merely have to show they were based in a conflict zone to be eligible for coverage of about a dozen different illnesses, from damaged lungs to cancer.
“This isn’t just a failure of responsibility, it’s a dereliction of our duty,” said Gillibrand, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“We tell these men and women who go to war for us, who stand tall for our values, who sacrificed everything for this country, that when you come home, we have your back,” said the junior U.S. senator from New York. “Well, we don’t. We make them beg for the health care they are owed.”
Gina Cancelino feels like she’s in a maze, with nothing at the end. She gets a reduced pension from the NYPD to help maintain a home and care for her 7-year-old and 14-year-old daughters, but hasn’t gotten a clear picture from the VA of what her kids might be eligible for. One thing she’d like is the help paying for college promised to kids of warfighters.
“It would be nice to know that my kids got something,” she said. “He would feel good to know, ‘Hey, I was able to give my kids some money for college. I’m not there. But I was able to help with that.’ And maybe they feel it from him.”
The bill’s fate is uncertain, and there are other measures other lawmakers are aiming at the problem, but Gillibrand and Rubio’s bill would likely be the most expensive, costing more than the $100 billion that Senate staffers think a less robust bill backed by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) would cost.
Gillibrand said congressional numbers crunchers haven’t yet estimated a cost for her measure but Rubio argued that cost is the last concern Congress should be worried about.
“Sen. Gillibrand has pointed out, to those who argue about the money — then don’t write checks that you don’t have funds in the account for,” Rubio said. “Because this is the price of sending men and women to dangerous places to do dangerous things in uncertain environments. And I hope that we will act.”
Stewart and 9/11 advocate John Feal, who took up the cause of veterans with Stewart, met with Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-Mont.) before the news conference to press the case.