19th Century Labor Rights with a 21st Century Military

Introduction

Justice Brandeis once said “[p]ublicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants[.]”1 Ironic that the patron saint of privacy laws2 would be such an outspoken supporter of transparency. Through the early twentieth century until today, transparency has been an effective shortcut to accountability, leveraging public opinion to pressure politicians to take bold steps propelling America forward. At the turn of the twentieth century, labor rights were a pipe dream. Children were being worked to death, unions were seen as a criminal enterprise conspiring to harm their employers, and employees had to muster the financial resources to drag their employers and their well-paid attorneys into court to seek remedies for injuries incurred in the course of their job. Workers were left to the mercy of their employer, while the companies reaped huge financial benefits from their exploited workforce with scant accountability for the harm induced through their workers’ labor. Through the twentieth century the United States has had a profound shift in the social, political, and legal perception of worker rights. In the current day, American workers are supported by a robust network of federal and state agencies acting on their behalf to ensure employers are keeping their workers safe. However, the American service member, for all their status as heroes and patriots in our modern society, are left without any benefit from these labor right advancements and continue to work under conditions unseen since the turn of the twentieth century. This vast disparity in worker rights, between citizen and soldier, is a product of decades of judicial, legislative, and executive actions specifically targeted to strip or prevent active-duty service members from availing themselves of the same labor protections afforded every American. To offset those harms and maintain retention and recruitment goals, the military offers substantial benefits to entice potential recruits to join and coax service members to stay. However, those benefits cost American taxpayers billions of dollars per year. Perhaps if military service was less oppressive, military benefits wouldn’t need to be so lucrative.

Part I Early American Labor Law

The labor laws Americans benefit from today looked radically different in early America, or simply did not exist at all. In the late 19th Century one out of every six children aged ten to fifteen were employed.3 These children weren’t working in the benign and quintessential youth employment we know today like lemonade stands and paper delivery routes. Rather, these jobs were dangerous, often including factory work, mills, mining, and other industrial jobs with significant risk for injury or long-term disease or disorder.4 Moreover, these child laborers were exposed to harrowing abuses and coercion to induce them to perform these dangerous tasks, with employers often beating young boys to drive them back into ore mines, or pouring cold water on them to startle them awake to continue working past exhaustion.5 This abusive work model also detracted from child education opportunities at the earliest of ages, where mothers would bring their children to textile mills and have the youngest children that were incapable of tasks acting as “helpers” for their older siblings.6

In addition to the lack of protections for child labor, workers generally lacked many of the protections we see in American society today. In the early 19th century in multiple state jurisdictions, workers were prosecuted for conspiracy at the behest of their employer. These prosecutions centered around workers collaborating to advocate for an increase in wages, workplace safety, reasonable hours, etc. Many courts held that such discussions were unlawful conspiracies under common law and, in some instances, a direct violation of state statutes.7 Even the concept of workman’s compensation didn’t exist in the early twentieth century. Workers, at best, had to sue under the common law principle of negligence, often having to overcome affirmative defenses made by their employer. Similar suits by Federal employees were barred under the doctrine of sovereign immunity inherited from English common law.8

Income inequality at the turn of the twentieth century was a powerful engine to suppress labor rights. Income inequality was a profound social issue with 18% of American income going to the richest 1% of Americans.9 With many of the richest Americans still benefiting from 400 years of slavery which was abolished only 50 years prior.10 In essence, slave owners that built their wealth on a foundation of oppression wielded significant power and influence due to their accumulated wealth; and that power was used to suppress labor movements and abuse workers and children.

Part II – Labor Rights Advancements of the 20th Century

In 1908, as a reaction to the backlash of the 1900 census showing two million children were working, the National Child Labor Committee sent a photographer across the nation to photograph children working in harsh conditions.11 These photographs highlighted the harsh working conditions and abuses child laborers endured, acting as a catalyst for the first child labor law, the Keating-Owen Act that was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court holding that the act was beyond the authority of Congress the regulate interstate commerce.12 Later, after a shift in Supreme Court jurisprudence related to the regulation of interstate commerce, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, ushering in the first successful regulation of child labor.13 While the Fair Labor Standards Act did limit the minimum working age, it also created a federal minimum wage and maximum working hours per week.14 Eventually, child labor laws would evolve to our present rules which, among other protections, preclude minors under the age of 18 from driving heavy trucks on public roads in the course of business,15 bar the performance of roofing work of any kind,16 and bar performing dangerous tasks related to wood working and forestry.17 The granular protections afforded children today vastly surpass the restrictions in the 1930s and demonstrate a paradigm shift in child labor protections compared to the complete lack of protections at the turn of the twentieth century.

Also in the 1930s, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 authorized collective bargaining and created the National Labor Board.18 Two years later, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act requiring businesses to bargain in good faith with employee unions.19 This created a structure for collective bargaining and requiring employers to engage in good faith driving workplace safety protections over decades in the twentieth century. In the steel industry, workplace fatalities were slashed from 44.1 per million man-hours in 1910, to just 11.7 per million man-hours in 1939.20 Coal mining work injury rates showed a similar decrease from 1926 through 1970.21 Collective bargaining provided employees with leverage to force employers to increase workplace safety protections.

In 1911, Wisconsin was the first state to enact a worker’s compensation law. Many states followed suit, with Mississippi being the final state to create a worker’s compensation law in 1948.22 Worker’s compensation was another pressure on employers to create robust safety programs, as worker injuries were now a financial liability. The worker’s compensation system streamlined the process compared to the previous model requiring workers to sue for negligence, with the associated hurdles for cost of representation and fees often creating a disparity in financial and legal resources between the employee and employer.

In 1946 Congress affirmatively waived a portion of federal sovereign immunity through the passage of the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946 (FTCA).23 The FTCA created a pathway to compensate individuals who had suffered personal injury, death, or property loss or damage caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of the federal government.24 This created a mechanism to hold the federal government accountable for the harms suffered to Americans at the hands of government employees. The elements of an FTCA must show that: 1) someone was injured or property damaged by a federal employee, 2) the employee was acting within the scope of their official duties, 3) the employee was acting negligently or wrongfully, and 4) that the act was the proximate cause of the injury or damage in the complaint.

In 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) was passed by Congress for the purpose of “assur[ing] safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women[.]”25 OSHA created federal oversight of workplace safety across the United States in addition to state mandated safety practices. Since OSHA’s enactment worker deaths have been slashed from 38 per day in 1970, to just 13 per day in 2020.26

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed by Congress in 1990 providing protections in many areas and industries for disabled Americans.27 Title I of the ADA requires “equal employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities.”28

Part III – American Service members and Labor Rights

All military branches allow 17-year-old children to enlist in the military with parental consent.29 After enlisting, there are no restrictions on which jobs are available to minor service members.30 This means minors serving in the military can be firefighters, infantry, heavy equipment operators, convoy truck drivers, construction workers including roofing, and other dangerous occupations.31 Some of these military occupations involve the risk of being killed or having to kill as a course of business, while others are inherently dangerous due to the nature of the tasks associated with those military occupations.

Under 10 U.S.C. §976 active-duty service members are prohibited from forming, organizing, participating in or recognizing a military union.32 This prevents active-duty service members to avail themselves of the leverage that was used in the twentieth century to affect positive safety measures evidenced supra.

In 1980, just ten years after the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order (EO) 12196. EO 12196 applied OSHA oversight and the associated protections to federal employees. However, a specific carve out was made for service members with the EO stating that the “order applies to all agencies of the Executive Branch except military personnel and uniquely military equipment, systems, and operations.”33

In the 1950 case Feres v. United States, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide a servicemember’s right to a claim under the FTCA, combining three lower court cases involving death or injury of service members.34 In the named case, Army Lieutenant Rudolph Feres died in a barracks fire owned by the Army that had a defective heating system and no fire prevention or warning system.35 The second case, Jefferson v. United States, involved an Army service member who underwent surgery by an Army surgeon who negligently left a thirty-inch by eighteen-inch towel in Jefferson’s abdomen. The towel was discovered in a subsequent operation eight months later.36 The final case combined into the Feres Supreme Court case, Griggs v. United States, involved a service member killed by negligent medical treatment by Army Surgeons.37 The Feres Court held that the United States “is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to servicemen where the injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service” (emphasis added). 38 This bar to federal suits for negligence is referred to as the Feres Doctrine.

Military members are also barred from bringing suit under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, codified in 42 U.S.C. §1983.39 Section 1983 protections were extended in cases of federal employee constitutional violations against citizens through the case Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents in 1971.40 In the 1983 case Chappell v. Wallace, Navy personnel brought suit under §1983 against their superior officers alleging the officers used race in determining duty status, positions, performance evaluations, and imposing penalties. The Supreme Court held that:

Enlisted military personnel may not maintain a suit to recover damages from a superior officer for alleged constitutional violations . . . The need for unhesitating and decisive action by military officers and equally disciplined responses by enlisted personnel would be undermined by a judicially created remedy exposing officers to personal liability at the hands of those they are charged to command.

The Sixth and Eleventh Circuits have extended the Chappell bar against service member claims of constitutional violations to the American Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act.41 No other circuits have addressed the issue of whether service members can file suits for disability discrimination, but it is unlikely any will in the near future.42

In sum active duty service members have no limitations of dangerous occupations for minors serving in the military, service members cannot engage in collective bargaining to increase their quality of life and work safety, service members are not protected by federal OSHA regulations, service members cannot sue the government if they are treated with negligence, and service members cannot sue the government under 42 U.S.C. §1983 for constitutional violations, to include discrimination based on disabilities. This has created a model that forecloses the most effective means to hold the military accountable. That lack of accountability has created significant harm to thousands of service members.

Part IV – The Effects of a Lack of Accountability

In 2009, 19-year-old Colton Read was having routine gallbladder surgery at his home station in Northern California. During the surgery his aortic artery was damaged. Rather than fly Colton 20 minutes to the nationally renowned43 UC Davis Medical Center, the military surgeons instead attempted to repair the arterial tear even though neither surgeon was a vascular surgeon.44 Due to the prolonged lack of blood flow to Colton Read’s legs during the aortic damage and subsequent negligent repair, the tissue in Colton Read’s legs died and required both legs to be amputated. In 2012 Colton Read sued the United States, however the District Court found, and the 5th Circuit affirmed, that “Airman Read was on active-duty status at the time of the injury” and “he was injured at a military installation.”45 Colton received a medical retirement because the Air Force determined that he was unfit to serve because of the amputation of his legs. The maximum disability Colton Read can receive from the VA in 2022 is $4,319.06 which includes $185.21 the VA pays above the normal disability schedule because Colton Read’s wife has to help Colton Read with many daily tasks.46 Due to Chappell, Colton Read could not have sued the Department of Defense (DOD) for disability discrimination for his amputated legs caused by DOD negligence.

In the mid-1960s military branches began using a new firefighting chemical to combat aircraft blazes. The official name was per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances but have been colloquially referred to as PFAS. A Navy study found that the new chemical was efficient in suffocating high temperature blazes in aviation environments.47 In 1973 the Air Force commissioned a report to study the toxicity of PFAS and found it to be toxic. Over the next eighteen years eight DOD studies found PFAS were toxic in every living organism they tested.48 However, the Air Force is only just now “taking steps” to guard against future impacts by “replacing legacy” PFAS stockpiles.49 Under the Feres Doctrine, even though the military knew PFAS were toxic in the 1970s and continued using them for 50 years, exposing thousands of military members to PFAS, service members can’t sue for the negligent exposure.

After the United States began combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, those operations and the associated support agencies, equipment, and personnel created a significant waste footprint. To solve this conundrum, the military dug giant holes in the military installations in the Middle East and burned every piece of trash created for the next twenty years.50 There was no apparent concern for the makeup of the trash, nor the placement of the burn pits in relation to personnel, nor was adequate personal protective equipment provided.51 Service members stricken ill after their tours in both locations were regularly denied Veterans Affairs (VA) disability compensation because they were unable to prove the burn pits were the source of their cancers and reduced lung function. In 2022, after significant pressure from media and veteran advocates,52 Congress passed the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (PACT Act) giving presumptive causation for service members exposed to burn pits who later develop certain cancers or disorders.53 The PACT Act contained no provision compelling the DOD not to use burn pits in a similar fashion in the future, nor did it contain verbiage allowing for similar presumptions if the DOD used similar burn pits in the future.

From 2001 until 2005 a former Soviet air base in Uzbekistan named Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, or K2, was used by the United States to launch operations into Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror. The Soviet military used K2 to store chemical weapons and enriched uranium, among other hazardous waste. A 2015 Army study found service members that had been deployed to K2 had a 500% increase in certain types of cancers.54 A 2002 assessment recommended not to dig “into the soil contaminated with jet fuel[.]” However, those specific areas were where personnel tents were erected and the service members slept every night.55 There is not a similar presumption of toxic exposure at K2 for military service members like there is for the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2019, Air Force aircraft maintenance technicians stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi began experiencing significant health effects and higher rates of cancer. Workers claimed that insufficient protective equipment and a lack of respirators caused them to be exposed to hazardous chemicals through their work activities.56 Since 2010 the work centers at issue failed to meet OSHA safety standards for similar operations in the civilian sector. Specifically, worker exposure to hexavalent chromium, lead, strontium chromate, and methylene chloride.57 While some of these workers were civilians and could sue, active-duty military members could not under the Feres Doctrine.

Ironically, even though a service member injured through negligence of any other military member cannot sue the government for negligence, the government does enjoy protections for injuries sustained to a servicemember by the service member’s own negligence. Military services can perform a Line of Duty Determination. According to Air Force regulations, service members who are injured through their own willful or gross neglect will not receive disability compensation, and their medical costs will not be paid for any injuries incurred from that neglect.58 This means that if two 17 year old military members are sitting in the compartment of heavy equipment that neither has been properly trained on, and the 17 year old driver acts with negligence, the passenger cannot sue the military for negligently allowing the untrained 17 year old to drive; however the 17 year old driver will not receive disability compensation for any injuries sustained and will be required to pay their own medical bills. Outside of the military neither of these minors would be allowed to be in the compartment of the heavy equipment under federal child labor laws, and certainly any employer allowing a minor to operate such equipment without proper training would be liable for their negligence, not so for the military.

Part V – Solutions and Barriers

A. Transparency

At the turn of the twentieth century, the National Child Labor Committee sent a photographer to document the abuses and maltreatment of American child laborers. The theory was, that to elicit change, Americans must see the dire effects of child labor on American children. That publicity of the abuse would compel action to create a change in our country. That publicity worked. However, service members aren’t so lucky. Many of the service branches have regulations to restrict the speech of service members.59 Moreover, service members that are whistleblowers experience substantial career impacts and are afforded little protections, even from service Inspectors General.60 In addition to all of the speech restrictions service members experience, military Public Affairs agencies monitor social media, internet forums, and any other medium where negative press can be shared about military culture or experiences. Military Public Affairs then engages in counter messaging to mitigate the exposure to negative messaging.61 This creates a lopsided perception of the military experience to the American public, hiding abuses and amplifying military service as a noble sacrifice; while suicides among service members continue to grow, outstripping combat deaths. From 2006 until April 2021 the DOD had 2,729 deaths related to combat, and 4,612 deaths by suicide.62 Efforts to glean more data on service member suicides was met with barriers by the DOD citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption for personnel privacy to requests for broad metadata.63

The general public does not have access to information about service member working conditions, service members can’t discuss it candidly on a public forum, disclosing their maltreatment to government regulators results in career ending retaliation, and requests for data are rejected with the military acting as arbiter and beneficiary of their own administrative proceedings.

B. Legislative action

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2020 created a pathway for service members to file claims for personal injury or death against certain military treatment facilities.64 However, these claims are not in federal court, rather they are made to the services and appealed to the DOD Defense Health Agency (DHA). As of October 2022, only 11 claims have been settled by DHA representing a 2% approval rate.65

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2023 requires the DOD Secretary to study rates of suicide by career field and rank from the start of the Global War on Terror until the most recent data and present the findings to each chamber’s Armed Services Committee.66 Such information may shine light on which career fields are experiencing significant stress, but without media attention and the resulting oversight not much will improve for these career fields.

C. Creating a Financial Interest in the Treatment of Service Members

As of this writing, the DOD and the VA have separate budgets within the federal budget. In 2022 the DOD budget was $703B with personnel costs accounting for $162B. The VA budget in 2022 was $269B with disability compensation accounting for $148B. Essentially, the VA budget acts as a negligence slush fund for the DOD, without impacting the DOD’s budget because Americans don’t view them as the combined expense of the military and their maltreatment of servicemembers. If the budgets were combined into a singular budget, the DOD bottom line would be impacted by the cost of disabilities incurred through military service. This would create an incentive for the DOD to adjust their treatment of service members to create more budgetary room for operations, contingency, modernization, and personnel. Realistically this is an impractical solution, because Congress lacks the political will, and Americans lack the necessary understanding of the harms levied upon service members by their own country to pressure their representative to make such a drastic change to DOD and VA funding.

Conclusion

It’s unclear how many of these policies would need to change to increase our service members’ quality of life and afford adequate workplace safety protections. Nor is it clear what the actual cost of such policies would be. However, it is known that the DOD and VA combined budgets for 2023 exceed one-trillion-dollars and if history is any indication, the cost of abusing our service members will continue to increase these budgets into the future. Perhaps a little sunlight on these abuses will be the disinfectant the military needs to change.

1 See Brandeis and the History of Transparency, found at https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/05/26/brandeis-and-the-history-of-transparency/

2 See Matt Davis, Louis Brandeis: The patron saint of privacy laws (June 2020), found at https://www.osano.com/articles/louis-brandeis

3 See Dina Mishra, Child Labor As Involuntary Servitude: The Failure of Congress to Legislate Against Child Labor Pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment in the Early Twentieth Century, 63 Rutgers L. Rev. 59 (2010) at 61

4 See Julie Novkov, Historicizing the Figure of the Child in Legal Discourse: The Battle over the Regulation of Child Labor, 44 Am. J. Legal Hist. 369 (2000) at 388

5 Id. at 1

6 See History of child labor in the United States—part 1: little children working, found at https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/history-of-child-labor-in-the-united-states-part-1.htm

7 See Edwin E. Witte, Early American Labor Cases, 35 Yale L. J. 825

8 See Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490, 506 (D.C. Cir. 1983)

9 See Matthew Johnston, A History of Income Inequality in the United States, (May 20, 2022) found at https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110215/brief-history-income-inequality-united-states.asp

10 See Nathan Nunn, Slavery, Inequality, and Economic Development in the Americas: An Examination of the Engerman-Sokloff Hypothesis in: Helpman E Institutions and Economic Performance (2008) 148-180

11 See Keating-Owen Child Labor Act found at https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/keating-owen-child-labor-act

12 See Hammer v. Dagenhart 247 U.S. 251 (1918)

13 Id. at 9

14 See Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, found at https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/fair-labor-standards-act-1938-5567/fulltext

15 See 29 CFR. §570.52

16 See New Youth Employment Regulations Issued for Roofing, found at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/CL_Roofing.pdf

17 See 29 CFR §570.54

18 See National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, found at https://catalog.archives.gov/id/10482196

19 See Labor Unions During the Great Depression and New Deal, found at https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/labor-unions-during-great-depression-and-new-deal/

20 See History of Workplace Safety in the United States, 1880-1970, found at https://eh.net/encyclopedia/history-of-workplace-safety-in-the-united-states-1880-1970-2/#:~:text=A%20century%20ago%20in%201900,on%20the%20job%20each%20year

21 Id.

22 See Worker’s Compensation History, found at https://www.thehartford.com/workers-compensation/history

23 See generally 28 U.S.C. §1346

24 See 28 U.S.C. §§2671-2680

25 See OSH Act of 1970, found at https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/oshact/completeoshact

26 See Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Commonly Used Statistics, found at https://www.osha.gov/data/commonstats#:~:text=OSHA%20is%20Making%20a%20Difference&text=Worker%20deaths%20in%20America%20are,2.7%20per%20100%20in%202020

27 See generally 29 CFR

28 See 29 CFR §1630.1(a)

29 See Join the Military, found at https://www.usa.gov/join-military#:~:text=You%20must%20be%20at%20least,Marines%3A%2028

30 See generally Eligibility and Requirements, found at https://www.goarmy.com/how-to-join/requirements.html

31 See generally Find Your Career in the U.S. Army, found at https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/career-match/browse-jobs.html

32 See 10 U.S.C. §976
33 See Executive Order 12196, §1-101, found at https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12196.html

34 See Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950)

35 Id. at 136

36 Id. at 137

37 Id.

38 Id. at 146

39 42 U.S.C. §1983 states: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

40 See Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971)
41 See Coffman v. Michigan, 120 F.3d 57, 59 (6th Cir. 1997); see also Doe v. Garrett, 903 F.2d 1455, 1460-61 (11th Cir. 1990)

42 See generally Diabetes Discrimination and the Department of Defense, found at https://diabetes.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/Diabetes%20Discrimination%20and%20the%20Department%20of%20Defense.pdf

43 See Recognition, found at https://health.ucdavis.edu/medicalcenter/quality/recognition.html#:~:text=UC%20Davis%20Medical%20Center%20ranked,survey%20published%20in%20July%202022

44 See Chris Vaughn, Former Beale airman sues over losing legs in botched surgery, found at https://www.appeal-democrat.com/former-beale-airman-sues-over-losing-legs-in-botched-surgery/article_9a3fe92d-8626-53e4-b545-39006d2e879b.html

45 See Colton J. Read, et ux. v. United States, 536 F.App’x 470 (5th Cir) (quoting USDC No. 5:12-CV-910)

46 See 2023 Veterans disability compensation rates, found at https://www.va.gov/disability/compensation-rates/veteran-rates/
47 See Method of Extinguishing Liquid Hydrocarbon Fires, found at https://static.ewg.org/reports/2019/pfas-dod-timeline/1963_Navy-Patent.pdf?_ga=2.200189742.1482432460.1671402080-948242456.1671402080

48 See generally Jared Hayes, Scott Faber, For decades, the department of defense knew firefighting foams with ‘forever chemicals’ were dangerous but continued their use, found at https://www.ewg.org/research/decades-department-defense-knew-firefighting-foams-forever-chemicals-were-dangerous

49 See Air Force Response to PFAS, found at https://www.afcec.af.mil/WhatWeDo/Environment/Perfluorinated-Compounds/

50 Types of waste burned included: trash, plastics, wood, metal, paints, solvents, munitions, and medical and human waste, and used jet fuel containing benzene as an accelerant.

51 See Military Burn Pits and Cancer Risk, found at https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/chemicals/burn-pits.html#:~:text=Burn%20pits%20are%20large%20areas,burned%20in%20the%20open%20air

52 On July 28th, 2022 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol comedian and veteran advocate Jon Stewart stated in no uncertain terms his contempt for Congress’s inaction for the maltreatment of service members, saying “America’s heroes, who fought in our wars, outside sweatin’ their asses off, with oxygen, battling all kinds of ailments, while these mother fuckers sit in the air conditioning walled off, from any of it” and ending with the declaration “If this is America first, America is fucked.”

53 See S.3373, found at https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3373/text
54 See Karshi-Khanabad: Hazardous Exposures and Effects on U.S. Service members, found at https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/karshi-khanabad-hazardous-exposures-and-effects-on-us-service members#:~:text=In%20a%202015%20study%20cited,who%20deployed%20to%20South%20Korea

55 See Toxic Exposure at Karshi-Khanabad (K2), found at https://www.dav.org/wp-content/uploads/K2-Exposure-2021.pdf

56 See ‘They didn’t care about us’ Documents: Keesler AFB workers exposed to dangerous chemicals, found at https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2019/08/22/documents-keesler-air-force-workers-were-exposed-dangerous-chemicals-biloxi-cancer-roger-wicker/2076378001/

57 Id.

58 See Air Force Instruction 36-2910, found at https://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/af_a1/publication/dafi36-2910/dafi36-2910.pdf
59 See Air Force Instruction 35-107 (March 2017) found at: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afi35-107.pdf; see also Army Regulation 600-20, Navy Social Media Handbook (2019)

60 See Chris McGhee, Smoke Doesn’t Always Mean Fire I-VII, found at http://www.20yearsdone.com/2018/11/smoke-doesnt-always-mean-fire-part-vii.html; see also John Q. Public, PSA for Airmen: The Inspector General Does Not Exist to Help You, found at https://jqpublicblog.com/psa-the-inspector-general-is-not-there-to-help-you/; John M. Donnelly, Pentagon harbors culture of revenge against whistleblowers, found at https://rollcall.com/2019/02/25/pentagon-harbors-culture-of-revenge-against-whistleblowers/

61 See Air Force Instruction 35-101 para 1.1.2, found at https://irp.fas.org/doddir/usaf/afi35-101.pdf

62 See DMDC Defense Casualty Analysis System report provided to CRS, April 6, 2021.

63 See Chris McGhee, Protecting Governmental or Servicemember Privacy Interests: Government’s invocation of a FOIA (b)(6) Exemption to the government’s benefit on behalf of deceased servicememebrs without their family’s knowledge, consent or request, On Watch (Summer 2022)

64 See 32 CFR Part 45
65 See Patricia Kime, Military Approving 2% of Medical Malpractice Claims Filed by Service Members, found at https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/26/military-approving-2-of-medical-malpractice-claims-filed-service-members.html

66 See 2023 National Defense Authorization Act §599