Petition To: VA Sec. Denis Richard McDonough

CC: President Biden & Congressional VA Committee Leaders

Subject: We Petition the VA Secretary to Publish EMERGENCY Action ADDING Panama, Okinawa, Ft. Ord & Ft. McClellan to VA List of CONTAMINATED HERBICIDE, PFAS & Other Military Poisons.

Proposed Regulation - AR10-Proposed Rule-Adjudication Regulations for Disability or Death Benefit Claims Related to Exposure to Certain Herbicide Agents - Note: Comment Period on VA-2024-VBA-0006-0001 Closed 4-12-24 With Nearly 1,000 Comments.

Dear Sir:

The proposed VA regulation expands the list of locations where military members and their families lived, e.g. nations and forts.

But the proposed regulation does not add Panama, Okinawa, Fort Ord in CA and Fort McClellan in AL where the Department previously received many comments and additionally with the 1,000 or more comments on the current proposed regs that will have been submitted by midnight tonight.

This is a grave error. Thousands of veterans, maybe tens of thousands have been poisoned by chemicals at the above 4 locations. That has been proven. Just take a couple of minutes to skim this spread sheet provided which provides a brief case history of nearly 1,250 veterans, partners, their children and community members who worked or lived around that Fort. It is one set of proof the Department has long had.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/305872653630891/

At the below link you will find a petition signed by 27,000 people on the health damages caused by living at Ft. Ord that was sent to your office, the President and Congress in 2021 and NO Responses Were Ever Received.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/305872653630891/

We are sure you agree this is NOT how our America government should respond.

Many of us who have signed this petition are veterans. All veterans when drafted or volunteering for military service understand that we may be killed or injured by that service.

BUT NONE OF US KNEW WE MAY DIE TORTUROUS DEATHS AND POSSIBLY HAVE OUR FAMILY MEMBERS DIE SUCH DEATHS BECAUSE WE WERE POISONED BY CHEMICALS USED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

We do not wish such death on you Mr. Secretary nor your family.

Thus we request you take these actions:

1. Demand the Department of Defense report to you on the hazardous chemicals on all bases world wide.

2. Use your Department's emergency rule making authority and add to the VA list of contaminated bases and countries at these four locations: Panama, Okinawa, Fort Ord and Fort McClellan "as eligible for a presumption of exposure." It is likely you staff have more than enough justification.

3. Do a nationwide call for all veterans who were stationed at these locations to contact the VA and apply for an individual healthcare review. Based upon those reviews start processing those with the diseases the hazardous, poisonous, or carcinogenic chemicals are known to cause and are know to have contaminated these locations.

Of course you and your Department can ignore this request.

Such action is politically unsafe for veterans in the political environment we are in. As you will remember the Wait Time illegality at the Phoenix, AZ helped cause the large scale Congressional efforts to privatize the healthcare 7.3 million veterans receive via the Choice Act and the MISSION Act.

The Phoenix VA situation has caused irreparable damage to the top quality care vets receive at the VA.

The present situation of proven Department of Defense contamination of an unknow number of the more than 1,000 bases across the world with hazardous chemicals and the deaths and terminal illnesses of unknown number of veterans and family members across America is a "time bomb" of very bad publicity neither the VA or the administration may be able to withstand.

It is best, when considering the contaminated bases problem from many different angles, to use your emergency regulatory authority to add the requested 4 locations to the final VA federal regulation.

On behalf of the below signers we thank you for your expeditious, urgent and forceful handling of this request. The lives of many Americas who have faith in America doing right will be better if you make the right decision.