President Biden's signature caps Texas couple's 13-year battle for burn pit exposure help

When Le Roy and Rosie Torres first tried to bring attention to life-threatening sicknesses that debilitated countless veterans of the post-9/11 wars because of exposure to toxic burn pits, the Texas couple were stonewalled by the Department of Veterans Affairs and couldn't persuade Texas lawmakers to pass even the most modest related legislation.

But on Wednesday, the chronically ill former Army Reserve captain and his wife who made burn pit awareness their life's crusade were among the first people at a crowded White House ceremony to shake President Joe Biden's hand after he signed into law perhaps the most significant piece of legislation for military veterans since the Vietnam War era.

"It's personal and very emotional because our family sacrificed for 13 years not to help ourselves, but help other service men and women who have defended our nation," Rosie Torres said in a phone interview from Washington before the ceremony in the White House's East Room. "It's been an honor to have done what we did as a family and for the mission God gave us to do."

Le Roy and Rosie Torres' burn pit advocacy

Le Roy Torres, who was a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper during much of his 23-year military career, was deployed in 2007-08 to Joint Base Balad in Iraq, where he lived, worked, ate and slept within breathing distance of a 10-acre pit that incinerated discarded ammunition, petroleum products, paints, human waste and amputated body parts, and that belched black smoke 24 hours every day.

After returning home to the South Texas city of Robstown, he suffered debilitating headaches and chronic shortness of breath that made him physically unable to perform the strenuous duties required of a DPS trooper. The illness that he and other soldiers called the "Iraqi crud" actually took hold during his deployment when he began coughing up what he called a gray mucus.

More:How Le Roy and Rosie Torres became advocates for vets suffering from burn put exposure

Le Roy Torres was certain the illness — diagnosed as constrictive bronchiolitis, a life-threatening and irreversible lung disease — was caused by burn pit exposure. Although Air Force Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, a former bioenvironmental flight commander for Joint Base Balad, warned of the health effects of burn pit exposure in a 2006 memo, the Department of Veterans Affairs even a decade later said it was premature to make such a link — even as tens of thousands of once-deployed service members were suffering ailments similar to that of Le Roy Torres.

“In my professional opinion, there is an acute health hazard for individuals," Curtis wrote in his memo. "There is also the possibility for chronic health hazards associated with the smoke.”

Even as the bureaucracy slow-walked the issue, Rosie and Le Roy Torres did not. They formed an organization where veterans could trade stories and share burn pit information. They asked Congress to establish a formal burn pit registry so that whenever the VA did recognize the relationship between exposure and illnesses, veterans would have a road map to seek benefits.

'One truly sacred obligation'

In time, comedian Jon Stewart would bring the same zeal to champion the cause of burn pit victims that he unleashed in his efforts to get government help for 9/11 first responders. But the big break came in March when Biden in his first State of the Union address urged Congress to take up the legislation, called the PACT Act, that he signed on Wednesday.

"As a nation, we have many obligations ... but only one truly sacred obligation: equip those we send into harm's way," Biden said during his remarks at the White House signing ceremony, where he invoked the memory of his son, Beau, who as a major in the National Guard was exposed to burn pits in Iraq and died of brain cancer in 2015. "We care for them and their families when they come home."

The $280 billion PACT Act, a rare measure that enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress, was delayed and almost derailed in late July when a group of Republican senators mounted an 11th-hour effort to strip out what they called a "budget gimmick" that they said might unleash a torrent of unrelated federal spending. Amid howls of protests outside the U.S. Capitol that were joined by Rosie Torres and led largely by Stewart, the objecting senators reversed course and voted the next week to send it to Biden.

The president acknowledged them both by name in his remarks.

"So many of you here today remind us that we have fought for this for so many years," Biden said. "Veterans, surviving family members, advocates like Rosie Torres and Jon Stewart," adding, "We owe you big, man."

A setback transformed into a victory

Rosie Torres was among dozens of PACT Act supporters who for nearly a week remained outside the Capitol, where they attracted the attention of national print and broadcast media outlets. Le Roy Torres was too ill to stand vigil, Rosie Torres said, but he made himself available to reporters by phone or via streaming interviews to push for the bill's passage.

Rosie Torres said that despite the discomfort of traveling, her husband was determined to attend the White House ceremony.

"He made a promise to our kids and to our grandson that we would never give up," Rosie Torres said of her husband. "And, Le Roy, that's who he's always been — as a state trooper and as a captain in the Army, but, most importantly, an amazing father and grandfather."

Two of the couple's three grown children also attended the White House ceremony. Their son, Kenny, an Army sergeant stationed at Fort Hood, was unable to attend because he was on active duty.

What the PACT Act does for burn pit-exposed veterans

According to a fact sheet supplied by the White House, the PACT Act will expand access to health care through the VA for veterans who were exposed during their military service. For those who served in combat in the post-9/11 wars, the bill extends the time they have to enroll in VA health care from five to 10 years after being discharged.

The law also removes the requirement for qualifying veterans and their survivors to prove their illness is connected to their military service if they are diagnosed with one of 23 specific conditions, including 11 respiratory-related conditions. Other covered illnesses are forms of cancer, including reproductive cancers, melanoma, pancreatic cancer, kidney cancer and brain cancers such as glioblastoma. "Survivors of veterans who died due to one of these conditions may now also be eligible for benefits," the fact sheet states.

"The PACT Act requires that veterans enrolled in VA health care be screened regularly for toxic exposure related concerns," the White House document says. "This new law also requires VA to establish an outreach program for veterans regarding toxic exposure related benefits and supports, and to require additional toxic exposure related education and training for VA personnel."

Preparing for the White House visit, Rosie Torres said she and her husband were flooded with emotions and memories, some of them tinged with gratitude and sadness because of all the burn pit-exposed veterans who did not live to see the bill become law.

"This was always for them," Rosie Torres said. "For the fallen. For the Gold Star families."

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: New law caps Texas couple's 13-year battle for burn pit exposure help