BEACON – Rich Gerbeth, Jr. of Wappingers Fall, commander of VFW Post 5913, served in Iraq and witnessed burn pits filled with plastic and garbage, one at the least the size of a football field where bulldozers pushed refuse into vast fires.
“We knew even then this was no good even for breathing in or being around, but there is nothing we could do with all this garbage,” he said. “It was pretty disgusting.”
Gerbeth was a guest Tuesday when Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, (D, NY-18), spoke at American Legion Post 413 in Beacon about the recently passed PACT Act, which will help vets cut through the red tape seeking eligibility and care for not just exposure to burn pits but also at other bases where personnel were exposed to toxic materials. The care will be modeled on that given to Vietnam-era vets exposed to Agent Orange.
“In a nutshell what Honoring Our Heroes PACT Act does is simply says if you have any one of 23 respiratory conditions or cancers, you can be presumed automatically to be eligible for disabled benefits and care you need from our VA system,” said Maloney. “And that’s a big deal. That’s it. It’s really about taking care of people who took care of us.”
And now Gerbeth worries about his own health after being exposed to the toxins fuming out of the burn pits in Iraq. “I do,” he said. “I have already two guys from my company, which consists of about 300 men, pass away from cancers and we don’t know why they had it.”
