Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week said he would conduct a review on supporting a bill that would give veterans — predominantly from the U.S. Air Force — the same benefits civilians have been receiving for exposure to radiation at a Nevada test site that has seen more than 900 atomic bomb tests.
At a May 12 hearing of the House Appropriations Committee, Hegseth thanked Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nevada) for pushing legislation to override the Catch 22-type rules that have blocked veterans from getting the benefits received by Department of Energy civilians who also worked at the Nevada Test and Training Center (NTTR) north of Las Vegas.
“You have the authority to provide the [Veterans Affairs] with documents they need today to get those veterans the help they need,” Lee told Hegseth.
“Thank you for what you’re doing for those folks,” but “it’s not a situation I have all the facts on,” Hegseth told Lee, adding that he wanted an internal review before giving an endorsement. Hegseth also sought to assure Lee that he wasn’t stalling.
“I’m not talking about a full review, I’m just talking about a familiarization” on the issues that have blocked the NTTR veterans from receiving benefits and compensation under the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, or PACT Act.
At the same hearing, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said he would press to lift the bureaucratic restrictions blocking the VA from granting benefits to service members who were stationed at the NTTR.
“You bet, Ma’am,” Caine told Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) when she asked whether he agreed that DOD personnel deserved “the same presumption of radiation exposure as DOE (Department of Energy) employees who worked alongside them.”
The issue for affected veterans, meanwhile, has remained that the VA requires documentation proving personnel actually served at the NTTR before they can be eligible for benefits.
That proof, however, cannot be released due to its classification under Cold War regulations, said former Air Force Sgt. Dave Crete, who previously served at the NTTR.
Crete said he founded The Invisible Enemy advocacy group with the sole purpose of getting previously denied health care benefits and compensation to “those who served on the range.”
The government acknowledges that the site is contaminated, but only for Energy Department workers who “get lifetime medical and compensation up to $400,000,” Crete said in a phone interview.
“That hasn’t happened for us,” he told Military Times. “The first thing that has to happen is to acknowledge that we were there.”
To attain that confirmation, Sens. Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto have sponsored the bipartisan Forgotten Veterans Act — Fighting for the Overlooked Recognition of Groups Operating in Toxic Test Environments in Nevada.
“It is unconscionable that one U.S. government agency (DOE) deems portions of the range as contaminated and their personnel exposed, while another U.S. government agency (DOD) does not,” Rosen said in a statement.
Currently, the NTTR consists of nearly three million acres of restricted land that includes the highly secret Area 51 site. The area makes up “the largest contiguous air and ground space available for military (training) operations in the free world,” according to a Nellis Air Force Base release.
The first atmospheric atomic bomb test at what would become the NTTR occurred on Jan. 27, 1951, during the “duck-and-cover” era, when schools nationwide would conduct air raid drills to guard against a potential Soviet attack.
The first atom bomb test would be followed by 927 others — 100 of them above ground. The last test in Nevada was underground and occurred on Sept. 23, 1992.