John E Bugay Jr1428 Lower Bull Run Road • West Mifflin, PA 15122412-908-0618 (mobile) • johnbugay@gmail.com •johnbugay.wordpress.com

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Iraq War Veteran (2003) and mother of six now undergoes treatment for rare leukemia: is exposure to benzene in war-zone “burn pits” to blame?

PITTSBURGH, PA (August 15, 2011) – A Pittsburgh-area veteran of the Iraq War is undergoing treatment for chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), a rare cancer of the blood that she believes may have been caused by radiation or chemical exposures she received during her service in a “weapons intelligence” unit, as part of one of the first waves of U.S. troops into Iraq in April and May 2003.

Bethany Bugay (née Airel) served as a medic for the 203rd MI BN, headquartered in the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Aberdeen, MD, a weapons intelligence unit whose job it was to locate and catalogue any of the WMDs that were expected to be found in Iraq.

A housewife and mother of five children at the time of the 9/11/2001 terror attacks, she had previously served in the Army from 1980-1985, and she believed that she could best serve her country and help her family financially by re-enlisting in the Army Reserve, which she did in March 2002. After undergoing training as a medic in the fall of 2002, she was “involuntarily transferred” to the 203 rd, and by early February of that year, she had relocated to Aberdeen to begin training for war in Iraq.

Hand-picked as a part of an advance team and sent to Iraq to prepare for living arrangements and temporary medical care facilities, she established a medical clinic in desert conditions, first at the Tallil air base in south central Iraq, then at the Baghdad International Airport, where she provided medical treatment to more than 200 Soldiers in the unit, as well as to mobile foreign allies, and to Special Forces units that supported the 203rd’s exploitation missions.

As one of the first to move into a newly occupied war zone, things weren’t easy at all. In fact, the unit did not have any of its equipment for the first month it was in Iraq. In a letter dated Mother’s Day, May 11, 2003, published on the World Net Daily website that year, she noted, after she had been in Iraq for nearly two weeks, that:

All of our equipment is still in the States. And even more crazy is, not only is everything that we need still in the States, but the gear and life support needs are all coming by boat. Meaning that it will be another month or so before any of that stuff gets here. Meanwhile, we’ll have about 150 people or so here without vehicles, gear, tents, or computers and equipment. I can’t understand why we’d have everyone move to Iraq and not be able to do any work.

The fact that equipment arrived late was confirmed by her commanding officer in a 2005 article in a Military Intelligence Journal. He said: “B Company arrived in Kuwait without their organic equipment, which was coming by sea.”

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Mrs. Bugay noted that one of the pieces of equipment that only showed up “just before we left” was the Geiger counter, used to measure radiation. “We were there to find weapons of mass destruction, and we didn’t have anything. We walked into places where we had no idea what we were walking into. We were around armaments all the time.”

She was also exposed to benzene, a known human carcinogen through military-directed trash-burning activities. In a letter dated May 14 (also published at WND.com), she wrote about this activity:

One of the most amazing duties to come is the sh-- burning detail. We really have to pull out the barrel under the[latrine] seat and mix (stir) diesel fuel in the barrel of excrement and light it on fire. We also burn all garbage. Nothing is saved from being burned up. I think all garbage burning smells worse than the sh-- burning.

Burning diesel fuel causes the chemical benzene to be released, and benzene is a known human carcinogen.

Mrs. Bugay was awarded the Army Commendation Medal, and her official “discharge from active duty” form notes that she completed the “Field Sanitation Course” in March 2003.

In recent months, Sens. Charles Schumer, D-NY and Bill Nelson, D-FL, have sparred with the Defense Department over a failure of the military to provide respirators for troops deployed near trash burn pits. The senators cited a new study suggesting that troops who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are eight times more likely to develop respiratory illness than veterans who deployed elsewhere.

Recently, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Tim Wymore of St. Charles, one of several hundred veterans across the country who have filed suits contending that dangerous toxins from open-air burn pits operated on U.S. military installations in Iraq and Afghanistan made them sick, was declared “permanently disabled” by the Veterans Administration, making his family eligible for many benefits, including medical insurance.

At the insistence of President Obama, the Department of Veterans Affairs has sponsored the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine to conduct a study on the long-term health effects from burn pit exposure. As of May 2011, the duration of the project was extended, with an expected publication in Fall 2011.

CMML more typically affects men rather than women, at a median age ofmore than 70 years old. Mrs. Bugay is currently 50. She is on a regimen of Vidaza, a form of chemotherapy, in preparation for a “bone marrow transplant”, which offers approximately a 40-50% hope of a cure for CMML.

Links in this article:

Army mom: “I must be crazy”Published June 25, 2003, World Net Dailyhttp://www.wnd.com/?pageId=19455#ixzz1UiXfiw6c

Mommy's back from IraqPublished October 5, 2003, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, by John Bugayhttp://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03278/228302-109.stm

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Vets: Burn pits are killing usPublished January 15, 2010 Salt Lake Tribune, By Matthew D. LaPlantehttp://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_14182242

The 203d MI Battalion in operation Iraqi FreedomOriginally published in the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, Jan-March 2005, by Daniel R. Arnoldhttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBS/is_1_31/ai_n15875098/

Senators Question Delay in Burn Pit Safety MeasuresPublished in Stars and Stripes, May 19, 2011, By Leo Shane IIIhttp://www.military.com/news/article/May-2011/senators-question-delay-in-burn-pit-safety-measures.html

Troops near burn pits to get masks, respiratorsPublished in ArmyTimes, February 11, 2011, By Rick Maze, Staff writerhttp://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/02/military-burn-pit-masks-respirators-021011w/

Ailing veteran gets long-delayed recognitionPublished in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 4, 2010, by Phillip O’Connorhttp://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_4fd95da1-cbca-5c74-9d3b-a1db26206bc9.html

Long-term Health Consequences of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and AfghanistanNational Academies of Science, Institute of Medicine (Study # IOM-BSP-09-03)http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=49191

Benzene as a known carcinogenAmerican Cancer Societyhttp://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/OtherCarcinogens/IntheWorkplace/benzene

Philips Petroleum Company, Diesel Fuel MSDS“Hazardous Decomposition Products: The use of hydrocarbon fuels in an area without adequate ventilation may result in hazardous levels of combustion products (e.g., oxides of carbon, sulfur and nitrogen, benzene and other hydrocarbons) and/or dangerously low oxygen levels.” http://www.petrocard.com/Products/MSDS-ULS.pdf

American Cancer Society: Chronic Myelomonocitic Leukemiahttp://www.cancer.org/Cancer/Leukemia-ChronicMyelomonocyticCMML/DetailedGuide/index

Photos follow:

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Bethany Bugay in March 2003, May 2003

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Bethany Bugay, 2011, with daughter Bethany (left) and Danielle (right)

Bethany Bugay in Iraq, 2003

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