Biden recalls his son, Beau, while speaking of 'burn pits'

President Biden describes how Beau Biden — who died from brain cancer — was exposed to toxic smoke from "burn pits" that incinerated wastes of war on bases in in Iraq and Afghanistan where U.S. troops were quartered.

Video Transcript

JOE BIDEN: And our troops in Iraq have faced-- in Afghanistan-- have face many dangers, one being stationed at bases breathing in toxic smoke from burn pits.

[APPLAUSE]

Many of you have been there. I've been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan over 40 times. These burn pits that incinerate waste-- the waste of war, medical and hazardous material, jet fuel, and so much more-- and they come home, many of the world's fittest and best-trained warriors in the world-- never the same-- headaches, numbness, dizziness, a cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin. I know.

- You put them there, 13 of them.

JOE BIDEN: One of those soldiers was my son, Major Beau Biden. I don't know for sure if the burn pit that he lived near, that his hooch was near in Iraq and earlier than that, in Kosovo, is the cause of his brain cancer and the disease of so many other troops, but I am committed to find out everything we can-- committed.