Jon Stewart lends his 9/11 advocacy to help GIs exposed to burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan
Former Daily Show host embraces cause pushed by a South Texas couple who seek benefits for veterans affected by toxic burn pits while serving overseas.
John C. MoritzAUSTIN — Comedian Jon Stewart, a passionate advocate for the first responders made sick after they charged in the Twin Towers on 9/11, is using his influence to help a South Texas couple's efforts to call attention to the plight of war veterans suffering from exposure to toxic burn pits.
"Now more than ever, we need to focus our support on the post-9/11 war veterans suffering from the debilitating effects of the massive toxic burn pits they were exposed to during service overseas," the former host of Comedy Central's Daily Show says in a public service announcement for BurnPits360. "The effects have been horrific."
The nonprofit organization was started by Le Roy and Rosie Torres of Robstown after Le Roy, an Army Reserve captain, returned home from Iraq suffering from constrictive bronchiolitis, a life-threatening and non-reversible lung disease. The former trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety in 2007-08 served on Joint Base Balad, which operated one of the largest burn pits in the war zone.
Some 250 tons of trash — including munitions, chemicals, medical waste, petroleum-based products and even amputated body parts — were incinerated every day around the clock.
BurnPits360 is seeking to have illnesses associated with the exposure to the toxins covered by the federal government. Legislation to achieve that has been filed but has not been acted on.
Rose Torres said she reached out to Stewart after his moving congressional testimony in June is credited with prompting action on the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, which provides aide to the first responders in the 2001 terrorist attack in in New York, at the Pentagon and crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
"We are so honored that he is lending his voice to what we are doing," Torres said.
In the video, Stewart says as many as 3.5 million service members may have been exposed to burn pits in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks.
Among the ailments are lung disease, cancers and toxic brain injuries, he says.
"Many of them very similar to what the 9/11 first responders faced, many of them dying as a result of these complications," Stewart says in the video.
Le Roy Torres, who served 23 years in military, said in a 2017 interview that while Congress and federal bureaucracy plod along, countless veterans continue to suffer and die as a result of their exposure to the burn pits.
Suffering veterans, Stewart said. "are long overdue" from receiving help from the federal government.
You deserve more than the country's gratitude for your service," he tells affected veterans in the video. "You deserve full medical benefits to help with your illness."
John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.
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