Sick Desert Storm vets denied benefits

[IndianaGreen]

Sick Desert Storm vets denied benefits

Posted: Nov 11, 2009 4:53 PM EST
Updated: Nov 11, 2009 5:13 PM EST

Chapman/13 Investigates

Indianapolis - Their contributions have gone unrecognized, despite top secret missions and battle time service. Now, sick and dying, these men and women are being refused Veterans Affairs benefits because of a military technicality.

Prepping for the "sandbox," Air Force Reservists ready a C141 transport plane for a mission to the Persian Gulf. They are responsible for transporting precious cargo into war zones, both troops and their loaded equipment.

In January 1991, they helped drop 500,000 US troops into the desert to take Iraqi forces by storm.

Lt. Colonel Steve Avery of Indianapolis was one of their pilots.

"My crew was one of the first in Desert Storm. We flew a special elite group in and air dropped them during the beginning of the war," Avery explained.

He and fellow crew members from the 707th Air Squadron out of Charleston, South Carolina, also shuttled out scud missiles, spent nuclear tank shells covered in uranium dust, and who knows what else?

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=11487219

[unhappycamper]

1. The depleted uranium is what got them. n/t