By Brian Bowling
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, July 21, 2010

UK troops join former US Guards in ‘toxic’ exposure lawsuit against KBR

By Rajini Vaidyanathan
Reporter, BBC Radio 4’s PM

Sodium dichromate has been linked a range of illnesses

Seven former British soldiers are suing an American defence firm, accusing it of exposing them to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in Iraq.

The men were providing security at a water plant near Basra where sodium dichromate was discovered.

They claim that its operator, Kellog Brown and Root (KBR), failed to protect them from the substance.

The men join 98 US soldiers suing KBR. It denies the allegations, saying necessary precautions were taken.

“If I’d have known what I now know, I would not have gone on that site and I would not have made my men operate on that site,” says Andy Tosh.

The former regiment sergeant served in several combat zones but it is his time in Iraq in 2003 which has left him worried for his future.

“I’m used to risking my life or defending the right cause if you want to call it that. But again that’s against things you would expect.

“You join the military to do a job, not to get exposed to a toxic chemical through a contractor,” he adds.

The lawsuit he and his former colleagues have joined relates to the time they spent providing security at the Qarmat Ali water plant, which was pumping water to nearby oil wells.

‘Rashes and nosebleeds’

The plant was run by the defence contractor KBR, a company which until 2007 was part of the Halliburton oil corporation.

When the men began working on the site in May 2003 they noticed a reddish orange powder, some of it in bags, some of it in the drains and in the sand.

Former Sergeant Andy Tosh developed nosebleeds and other illnesses

Initially they thought little of it, but Sgt Tosh says he became concerned when he and some of his team developed rashes, nosebleeds, and breathing problems after coming into contact with the substance.

“In August I had a severe rash on my forearms and hands. I’ve operated all over the world, from South America to the Arctic, I’ve never had any rash like that before,” he says.

“I was that concerned that I did go and see the station medical officer in Basra.”

A few months after the men arrived, notices started to appear around the plant, explaining that the coloured powder was in fact a highly toxic substance – sodium dichromate, the same chemical which was brought to attention in the film Erin Brockovich.

“At the time the warning signs went out around a pump room where this sodium dichromate had been stored in bags previously, and then they said that the orange powder…was actually sodium dichromate.

“Later on, they moved us from where we were operating, but not very far, only 100 metres away from the site.

“Once the warning signs went up, we never saw any US national guards again, we were told that there was nothing to worry about, it’s all fine.”

Sgt Tosh says he believes the US guards left in fear for their safety.

During the time he remained on the site he says he saw KBR workers there, many of them wearing protective clothing.

Chemical exposure?

Sodium dichromate is a highly carcinogenic substance, used as an anti-corrosive.

Medical experts say it can cause nosebleeds, damage to the septum, breathing problems and even in some cases lung cancer.

In the 36-page lawsuit, the soliders claim that KBR “disregarded and downplayed” the dangers of being exposed to the chemical.

In response, KBR says the sodium dichromate was left at Qarmat Ali by Iraqi workers under Saddam Hussein’s regime and that it took action to make the site safe.

It adds that it notified the US Army Corps of Engineers of the presence of the substance and its dangers.

A statement from KBR goes on to say: “Air sample tests performed by the US Army Center for Health Promotion Preventative Medicine and the British Military and KBR showed no dangerous levels of airborne chromium hexalvelant.”

The defence contractor further contends that no medical data support the claims that soldiers and KBR workers suffered from nosebleeds and respiratory problems caused by sodium dichromate.

This is something almost 100 soliders in the United States dispute.

Ninety-eight former members of the US military are already suing KBR, claiming they have contracted serious illnesses from their time at the plant.

“I have a laundry list of health problems,” explains Larry Roberta, who served with the Oregon National guard.

“I only have 60% lung capacity, I have very low testosterone, I have two types of inhalers, I can’t walk a block with passing over.

“To me there’s no doubt the cause is sodium dichromate. That was the turning point exactly, that was when my health went like a car over a cliff.”

Mr Roberta says the orange dust was everywhere at the plant, and he even ended up eating it when it landed on his food.

“It’s just a real horrible, disgusting taste. It’s a real heavy metal taste. It’s like if you were to run outside and lick the lampost.”

Side-effects

The issue of chemical exposure at the Qarmat Ali water plant has been the subject of a number of hearings in the US Senate.

Dr Herman Gibb, an expert on sodium dichromate who gave evidence to those hearings, says it can take years for the side-effects of the chemical to manifest.

And that is the concern among the British troops who have filed the lawsuit.

“We just want our day in court,” explains John Gledhill, from Retford in Nottinghamshire.

“I want to know we can get some medical screening because there have been numerous national guardsmen over in America who were at the water treatment plant at the same time as us who’ve got symptoms.

I’ve got no symptoms at the minute, but it’s a carcinogenic compound so we don’t know what the future holds.”

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence says it takes “very seriously” any suggestion that troops may have been exposed to levels of sodium dichromate in Iraq in 2003.

But it goes on: “This was examined at the time and there was no cause for alarm…the results of sampling showed that levels of sodium dichromate were significantly below UK government and US Army guidance levels and should not have had any effect on the patrolling guard force.

“Should any new evidence come to light, we will obviously consider it.”

The ex-servicemen on the lawsuit are also calling for an enquiry into the matter at Westminster.

“It’s a bit of a silent risk,” says Jim Garth. “It’s something we knew nothing about.”

“Granted it wasn’t a British installation, but we were tasked with guarding this installation by our superiors – and it looks like this could be a killer as well as the other things in a war zone that can kill you.”

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Original BBC Report

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Houston Chronicle Website

By MARY FLOOD | Houston Chronicle

More than 50 Indiana National Guardsmen have filed a lawsuit in Houston claiming KBR failed to warn them about exposure to carcinogenic chemicals at an Iraqi water facility they were guarding.

An Indiana judge tossed out the same lawsuit over cancer-causing hexavalent chromium at the Basra-area water plant, saying that Midwestern court did not have jurisdiction over the Houston-based company.

Houston lawyer Mike Doyle, who has also filed cases in Oregon and West Virginia for other soldiers claiming exposure to the chemicals,said “KBR management absolutely knew that soldiers were being exposed and management absolutely did not share the information so they could protect themselves.”

KBR has denied that they kept any contamination secret and said there is no known illness connected to the facility.

The lawsuit filed last week alleges the guardsmen from Tell City, Ind., and others working at the site were subjected to “months and months of unprotected, unknowing, direct exposure to one of the most potent carcinogens and mutagenic substances known to man.”

“The Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen were repeatedly told that there was no danger on site, even after KBR managers knew that blood testing of American civilians exposed on site confirmed elevated chromium levels,” the suit alleges.

KBR was hired to get the Iraqi water plant working through a no-bid U.S. government contract in 2003 as part of Operation Restore Iraqi Oil.

The dangerous hexavalent chromium was part of a chemical compound called sodium dichromate used by Iraqis as an anti-corrosive for clearing pipes. The soldiers who are suing, along with some family members, were guarding the facility while KBR civilians worked on restoring it.

Congress held hearings on the question of the chemical exposure at this Iraqi plant in June 2008.

Doyle said one soldier’s death has been directly linked to exposure to the orange dust with the carcinogen and others are sick with related respiratory illnesses, many have related rashes or other problems and all have higher risks of getting cancer.

Mark Lowes, KBR’s vice president of litigation, said any contamination KBR found at the site was properly reported.

“Based on testing by both the military and KBR we believe there was no hazardous exposure, and there has been no documented illness related to the facility. More importantly, our Statement of Work with the Army obligated them to provide us with a facility that was free from ‘all environmental and war hazards,’ ” Lowes said.

Lowes said some KBR employees also went into arbitration over possible chemical exposure at the Qarmat Ali water facility and that “resulted in a finding of no illness and no liability to the employees.”

For full article at the Houston Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — After their lawsuit was dismissed in Indiana, attorneys for a group of National Guard soldiers have refiled it in Texas.

The lawsuit against a defense contractor claims the company knew of the presence of a deadly toxin at a site the soldiers were guarding in Iraq but waited before telling anyone.

The lawsuit against KBR was filed Tuesday in a federal court in Houston.

Brought by a group of attorneys led by Houston-based Mike Doyle, the lawsuit was dismissed in February by a federal judge in Indiana. The judge ruled the court lacks “personal jurisdiction” to take up the matter and did not consider the merits of the lawsuit.

The soldiers, about 140 from Indiana, say they were exposed to sodium dichromate, an anti-corrosive that was likely dusted across the wind-swept desert near Basra when Iraqis cut open storage containers as they fled the site at the beginning of the 2003 American-led invasion.

Known carcinogen

The soldiers were guarding Qar-mat Ali, a plant being operated by Houston-based KBR where water was pumped underground to boost oil production.

Sodium dichromate contains hexavalent chromium, a known human carcinogen. Exposure to the toxin, experts say, can cause nosebleeds and severe respiratory problems, as well as heightened risks of cancer, and kidney and liver diseases.

The soldiers’ lawyers charge that KBR was aware of the risk but kept it secret. KBR has said it collected air samples that showed low levels of the chemical. Doyle’s team also is representing soldiers in cases pending in Oregon and West Virginia.

One of the exposed soldiers, Lt. Col. James Gentry, 52, of Mitchell, Ind., died in November. Gentry, a nonsmoker, was diagnosed in 2006 with a rare form of lung cancer. Military doctors say it most likely was caused by the exposure.

“Only the good Lord knows what happened at that site,” said Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, Indiana’s top-ranking National Guard general, at the funeral of Gentry, who commanded the group including soldiers from a battalion based in Jasper, Ind., and Tell City, Ind.

Another soldier, David Moore, 42, of Dubois, Ind., died in 2008.

For Full Article

Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian | U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden watches as Larry Roberta, an Oregon veteran who suffers breathing and stomach problems from exposure to hexavalent chromium, coughs during a news conference in Portland. "There was no way to get away from it,'' Roberta said. "Our job was to watch KBR's back and make sure they were OK."

Veterans exposed to cancer-causing hexavalent chromium in Iraq — including nearly 300 Oregon soldiers — should be treated as if they’d hit a roadside bomb and receive lifelong medical care and Purple Hearts, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday.

Ten Oregon Army National Guard veterans who were exposed to the chemical while protecting war contractor KBR’s employees stood with the Oregon Democrat a news conference to acknowledge their “invisible wounds” and to hold the contractor accountable. When one veteran began to cough violently and struggled for breath at the podium, Wyden’s alarm turned to outrage.

“Precautions should have been taken and they were not, that is inexcusable,” Wyden said. “That soldiers have become critically ill and suffer respiratory diseases and skin rashes that, again, is inexcusable.”

The soldiers served at Qarmat Ali, a water treatment plant where fleeing loyalists of Saddam Hussein spilled a corrosion fighter containing hexavalent chromium, which is so toxic that an amount the size of a grain of salt greatly increases the risk of lung, stomach and brain cancer. The Oregonian exposed the widespread health problems in a series of stories last year, which alerted the soldiers to danger.

The men are among 21 soldiers in Oregon, and dozens in other states suing KBR in federal court. Soldiers say they were never told of any danger and were told that their bloody noses and other symptoms were allergies to desert sand. KBR maintains it was not responsible for the chemical at the water treatment plant, that it posted signs warning that the anti-corrosive was toxic and points fingers at Army engineers.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee passed a bill to extend health care to the Qarmat Ali veterans, but only until 2012. Wyden wants to amend and extend that coverage for life before a final vote. He said he is also taking up the fight headed by retiring Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. and Evan Bayh, D-Ind. Dorgan led 19 hearings into waste, fraud and abuse by war contractors. At one hearing, former KBR employees at Qarmat Ali, themselves suffering lung and skin problems, told senators that soldiers were exposed. Bayh was the first to raise alarm about Oregon soldiers when he noted that Indiana troops followed Oregon troops at Qarmat Ali in 2003.

Please go here for full article

A recent lawsuit brought by a group of Indiana National Guardsman spotlights a controversial legal doctrine that prevents soldiers on active duty from seeking compensation for injuries sustained in war zones.

The guardsman allege that a mission to help clean up a water treatment plant in southern Iraq left them with what they say are potentially fatal illnesses.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Indiana, the Guardsmen allege that oil company KBR Inc. “disregarded and downplayed” the fact that the site at Qarmat Ali was coated with the hazardous chemical sodium dichromate. They were exposed, they say, to the chemical that is used as an industrial anti-corrosive agent to protect pipes.

As a result, the soldiers suffered “unprotected, unknowing, direct exposure to one of the most potent carcinogens and mutagenic substances known to man,” alleges the suit, which seeks monetary compensation for health problems the soldiers say they have suffered.

KBR has said in court filings that it was carrying out the duties in its contract. It says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was obligated to provide it with an environmentally safe area for its work. Besides, the company says, Army medical tests have shown no soldiers were harmed. The company also says that once the chemical was discovered, the company worked to make the area safe.

A spokesman for the U.S. Army says it cannot comment on the suit because it is pending.

The suit and similar ones filed separately against KBR highlight the challenges of soldiers seeking compensation from the courts for war-zone incidents. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as the “Feres doctrine” bars soldiers in active duty from filing suits against the federal government. The military gives soldiers free medical treatment and stipends in some instances, the reasoning goes, so they are duly compensated for whatever befalls them on the battlefield.

Many of the suits that stem from actions on the battlefield are directed at third parties, specifically contractors whom the military increasingly rely on. But contractors too are immune from suits if they can successfully prove they have lived up to the specifications in their government contracts.

As a general rule, third parties have been successful in warding off big rewards from battlefield litigation. For instance, U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War who said they suffered from symptoms related to the usage of Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant the military used in the war, sued the chemical companies that manufactured it. Suits seeking-class action status were first filed in the late 1970s and settled after about six years of legal wrangling. Under the settlement, only a handful of litigants were eligible for relatively meager compensation.

(WHAS11) – Indiana National Guard troops gathered to say goodbye to one of their commanding officers on Tuesday, Lt. Colonel Jim Gentry. Gentry believed his terminal cancer was directly related to his service in Iraq and even after death the 52-year-old Indiana National Guard commander is continuing a fight for his troops through a lawsuit.

Veterans from several wars held the stars and stripes as members of Jim Gentry’s family, both by blood and by military arrived for a final, formal goodbye.

“He was the type of person that loved the challenge, loved soldiers, loved to work with soldiers,” said Major General Dan Colglazier, a retired member of the Indiana National Guard.
Inside the chapel, were many of Jim Gentry’s soldiers, their patches for the infantry and for Indiana worn proudly on their sleeves.

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Larry Roberta’s every breath is a painful reminder of his time in Iraq. He can’t walk a block without gasping for air. His chest hurts, his migraines sometimes persist for days and he needs pills to help him sleep.

James Gentry came home with rashes, ear troubles and a shortness of breath. Later, things got much worse: He developed lung cancer, which spread to his spine, ribs and one of his thighs; he must often use a cane, and no longer rides his beloved Harley.

David Moore’s postwar life turned into a harrowing medical mystery: nosebleeds and labored breathing that made it impossible to work, much less speak. His desperate search for answers ended last year when he died of lung disease at age 42.

What these three men — one sick, one dying, one dead — had in common is they were National Guard soldiers on the same stretch of wind-swept desert in Iraq during the early months of the war in 2003.

These soldiers and hundreds of other Guard members from Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia were protecting workers hired by a subsidiary of the giant contractor, KBR Inc., to rebuild an Iraqi water treatment plant. The area, as it turned out, was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a potent, sometimes deadly chemical linked to cancer and other devastating diseases.

No one disputes that. But that’s where agreement ends.

Among the issues now rippling from the courthouse to Capitol Hill are whether the chemical made people sick, when KBR knew it was there and how the company responded. But the debate is more than about this one case; it has raised broader questions about private contractors and health risks in war zones.

Questions, says Sen. Evan Bayh, who plans to hold hearings on the issues, such as these: “How should we treat exposure to potentially hazardous chemicals as a threat to our soldiers? How seriously should that threat be taken? What is the role of private contractors? What about the potential conflict between their profit motives and taking all steps necessary to protect our soldiers?

“This case,” says the Indiana Democrat, “has brought to light the need for systemic reform.”

KBR denies responsibility

For now, dozens of National Guard veterans have sued KBR and two subsidiaries, accusing them of minimizing and concealing the chemical’s dangers, then downplaying nosebleeds and breathing problems as nothing more than sand allergies or a reaction to desert air.

KBR denies any wrongdoing. In a statement, the company said it actually found the chemical at the Qarmat Ali plant, restricted access, cleaned it up and “did not knowingly harm troops.”

Ten civilians hired by a KBR subsidiary made similar claims in an arbitration resolved privately in June. (The workers’ contract prevented them from filing suit.) This isn’t the first claim that toxins have harmed soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; there have been allegations involving lead, depleted uranium and sarin gas.

This also isn’t the first challenge to KBR, whose billions of dollars of war-related contracts have been the subject of congressional scrutiny and numerous legal claims.

Among them are lawsuits recently filed against KBR and Halliburton Co. — KBR’s parent company until 2007 — that assert open-air pits used to burn refuse in Iraq and Afghanistan caused respiratory illnesses, tumors and death. (KBR says it is reviewing the charges. Halliburton maintains it was improperly named and expects to be dismissed from the case.) Earlier this year, several members of Congress asked Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to investigate potential burn pit hazards. He replied that his agency is conducting a health study of 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and noted the VA “has learned important lessons from previous military conflicts” as it deals with environmental exposure questions.

Some veterans advocates say the military is more attuned to health risks than it was in Vietnam and the Gulf War, but still falls short.

“I’m a realist — things are going to get burned, things are going to be blown up,” says Tom Tarantino, an Iraq war veteran and policy associate at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “But I think the DoD [Department of Defense] could do a better job at tracking what people are exposed to. If there’s a big pit outside your base, you need to know what’s going on and do tests … so if people start getting sick, they won’t spend years trying to figure out what’s wrong with them.”

This isn’t a natural fit, he concedes, since the Defense Department “is a war-fighting agency, not an environmental protection agency. But I think there’s a lack of information out there.”

This case stems from the chaotic start of the war in 2003 when a KBR subsidiary was hired to restart the plant, which had been looted of equipment, wiring, even metal roofing and siding. The Iraqis had used hexavalent chromium to prevent pipe corrosion at the plant, which produced industrial water used in oil production.

It’s the same chemical linked to poisonings in California in a case made famous in the movie “Erin Brockovich.”

Hexavalent chromium — a toxic component of sodium dichromate — can cause severe liver and kidney damage, and studies have linked it to leukemia as well as bone, stomach, brain and other cancers, according to an expert who provided a deposition for the civilian workers.

The chemical “is one of the most potent carcinogens know to man” and it can “enter every cell of the body and potentially produce widespread injury to every major organ in the body,” said Max Costa, chairman of New York University’s Department of Environmental Medicine.

KBR, however, says studies show only that industrial workers exposed to the chemical for more than two years have an increased risk of cancer — and in this case, soldiers were at the plant just days or months.

The company also notes air quality studies concluded the Indiana National Guard soldiers were not exposed to high levels of hexavalent chromium. But Costa says those tests were done when the wind was not blowing.

Both soldiers and former workers say there were days when strong gusts kicked up ripped-open bags of the chemical, creating a yellow-orange haze that coated everything from their hair to their boots.

“I was spitting blood, and I was not the only one doing that,” recalls Danny Langford, who worked for the KBR subsidiary. “The wind was blowing 30, 40 miles an hour. You could just hardly see where you were going. I pulled my shirt over my nose and there would be blood on it. I also saw the soldiers. They had blood splotches on their masks.”

Roberta, a 44-year-old former Oregon National Guard member, remembers a strange metallic taste and dust everywhere. He sat on a bag of the chemical, unaware it was dangerous.

“This orange crud blew up in your face, your eyes and on our food,” he says. “I tried to wash my chicken patty off with my canteen. I started to get sick to my stomach right away.”

Roberta had coughing spells and agonizing chest pains, he says, that “went all the way through my back. Whenever I breathed, the pain got more sharp. … Every day I went there, I had something weird going on.”

Russell Kimberling, a former Indiana National Guard captain, had severe sinus troubles that forced his evacuation to Germany. After returning, he became alarmed one August day in 2003 while escorting some officials to the plant in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

“I jumped out of the truck and I turned around and they [KBR staff] had full chemical gear on,” he says. “I looked at some of my soldiers and said, ‘This can’t be very good.’ ”

“They could have told us to put chemical suits on,” Kimberling adds. “There are so many things that could have been done.”

Were warnings ignored?

Ed Blacke, hired as plant health, safety and environmental coordinator, says he became worried after workers started having breathing problems and a former colleague sent him an internal KBR memo outlining the chemical’s dangers. Blacke says when he complained at a meeting, he was labeled a troublemaker and resigned under pressure.

“Normally when you take over a job, you have a briefing — this is what’s out there, here’s what you need for protective equipment,” says Blacke, who testified at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing last year. “There was nothing, nothing at all.”

Blacke and Langford were among those whose civil claims were resolved in arbitration.

Kimberling is among nearly 50 current or former Guardsmen — most from Indiana, a smaller number from Oregon — who have sued. Some soldiers who were part of the West Virginia Army National Guard are expected to follow soon.

Mike Doyle, the Houston lawyer representing the soldiers and civilians, maintains KBR knew as early as May 2003 the chemical was there, but didn’t close the site until that September.

“Once they [KBR] found out about it, they didn’t tell anybody and they did everything to conceal it,” he contends. “You have [KBR] managers in Houston, in Kuwait City who knew about this. Their staff was getting reports and soldiers and civilians who were in the field were told, ‘No big deal. There’s nothing to worry about.’ ”

The lawsuit cites minutes of an August 2003 KBR meeting that mentions “serious health problems at the water treatment plant” and notes “almost 60 percent of the people now exhibit the symptoms.”

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, KBR chairman William P. Utt discussed numerous issues and suggested the company be given some latitude with its military contracts.

“We think there ought to be some consideration given in many of these claims to the same protections the government has from these suits that exist,” he said.

He also said KBR has been unfairly targeted in war zones.

“People think there’s an opportunity here in Iraq, let’s paint it on KBR, then we’ll worry about making the facts precise or correct later,” Utt said.

As for the water plant, KBR says once it learned of the chemical, it took precautions to protect workers, notified the Army Corps of Engineers and led the cleanup. It says the Corps previously deemed the area safe.

KBR also points to Army tests of 137 Indiana National Guard soldiers that showed no medical problems that could be linked to exposure, as well as a military board review that found it unlikely anyone would suffer long-term medical consequences.

But Bayh and Doyle say those tests were done too late to be valid, and note that soil tests were taken after the contaminated area was covered with asphalt and gravel.

Doyle also disagrees with KBR’s contention that workers weren’t there long enough — weeks or months — to have elevated cancer risks.

It can take a long time for symptoms of illness to surface — five to 10 years or more for cancer. But some of those who say they were exposed are ill already.

Gentry, a retired lieutenant colonel who commanded the Indiana National Guard unit, is in the late stages of lung cancer, which has spread to other parts of his body, according to his friend, Christopher Lee.

Gentry hasn’t sued, but in a December deposition he recalled complaining to his superiors after his soldiers were told by KBR workers the orangish sand was a cancer-causing chemical. He said it was “very disappointing” that KBR managers didn’t share that information.

“I’m dying because of it,” he said.

While acknowledging he wasn’t 100 percent certain that’s why he has cancer, Gentry — who served a second tour in Iraq — said his doctor “believes the most probable cause was my exposure to this chemical.”

KBR’s actions, he said, had put “my men at risk that is unnecessary.”

Guard contacting soldiers

The Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon guard have sent hundreds of letters to soldiers notifying them of possible contamination and urging them to seek medical attention. The Oregon National Guard also set up a Facebook page and reports about 15 soldiers have reported medical symptoms.

Bayh has introduced a bill calling for a special medical registry that would require the Department of Defense to notify all military members of exposure to potential toxins — and provide comprehensive medical care. (It would be limited to those serving after Sept. 11, 2001.) A similar notification measure was approved Thursday in the U.S. House, an amendment to the defense authorization bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, an Oregon lawmaker.

All these measures come too late for 1st Sgt. David Moore, who served with Gentry.

He thought his persistent cough in Iraq would stop when he returned home. Instead, breathing became difficult; he eventually needed a chair in the shower because he could no longer stand, says his brother, Steve.

Moore had nosebleeds, too, and boil-like rashes behind his ears and on his back, arms and legs. He went from doctor to doctor. “None of them could ever figure out what it was,” his brother says.

By late 2007, the one-time construction worker — who had been “strong as an ox,” and ran 3½ miles every other day — couldn’t even venture outside, Steve Moore says. But he didn’t give up.

“He was always upbeat,” his brother says. “He said, ‘They’ll figure it out, they’ll figure it out.’ He thought that until the last time I talked to him. You could see the fear in his eyes. They had him on 100 percent oxygen and he still couldn’t breathe. He requested to be put on a ventilator so they could figure it out.”

Moore died in February 2008. The cause was lung disease. His death was ruled service-related. His brother believes it was hexavalent chromium.

Roberta, the former Oregon guardsman who needed stomach surgery after his return, still has physical and emotional problems: Post-traumatic stress. Mood swings. Nose polyps. Chest pains. Migraines that can keep him bedridden for days.

He takes two inhalers — he can’t walk a block without them — and high blood pressure medicine every day and testosterone shots every two weeks.

“I have 100 percent disability,” he says. “I’ve got a long laundry list of things that happened to me while I was there. If you add it all up, I’d be almost 200 percent disabled.”

Roberta recently testified before Oregon lawmakers, urging them to set aside money for guard members who develop cancer from exposure to the chemical.

His wife, Michelle, says her husband’s illness has dramatically changed his outlook.

“He has no ambitions for life anymore,” she says. “At his age, that makes me very sad. I worry about him every day.”

Kimberling, the former Indiana guardsman, struggles as well.

The father of two young children — he’s a pharmaceutical salesman in Louisville, Ky. — says he hasn’t been able to get life insurance because his possible exposure is mentioned on his medical records.

Sometimes, he says, it’s hard to sort out his real aches from his fears.

“I feel like I’m a 38-year-old in a 60-year-old’s body,” he says. “There are a lot of things that seem to be going south a lot quicker than they should. Sinus problems … pain in my joints that I’ve never felt before.

“I’m not sure if it’s the anxiety of finding out about it or not. I kind of know and feel it’s just a matter of time before it catches up with me.”

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Kimberly Hefling in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.