Lewis County Herald - Serving Hohenwald, Lewis County Tennessee Since 1898

Lewis County Veterans Service Officer Ritchie Brewer is “getting more and more veterans coming in from Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks are now about two decades ago.

Now, as troops are coming home, federal spending on military family housing should be increased from $155 million this year to $550 million in the next fiscal year, according to U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Franklin. He represents Lewis County.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan was set to be done by September 11 this year. Gulf War II continues. After Gulf War I, returning troops lived in tents at Fort Benning, Ga., said Lawrence County Veterans Officer Donnie Morris, who was there then.

Green, Tennessee’s 7th District Congressman, has reports of mold, “pest infestation” and structural instability at Fort Campbell housing near Clarksville. July 29, Green’s office reported the House of Representatives was ready to endorse his demand that the Defense Department make better barracks a priority.

Green said “43% of on-base family housing is substandard.”

At the county veterans service office, Brewer said he’s not getting complaints about military housing.

The big issue for his office is “service connected disabilities” from active duty, Brewer said. It’s mainly the “presumptive illnesses” as a result of exposure to the poison Agent Orange during the War in Vietnam, he said. In Florida, Jacksonville Naval Base personnel “hand sprayed it” to kill weeds, he continued, noting Agent Orange, Blue Water Navy Veterans and health threat research.

Aeriel spraying of Vietnamese jungles with poison was to clear land by defoliation, “but you have a drift of the spray that comes over” to ships off shore, Brewer said. “You also have the [spray] planes that come in that may have it on them [and contact sailors] when they do the maintenance on them.” Residue of the poison could be on airplane wings and the fuselage.

“There’s quite a few,” he said of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. That includes sailors on ships off the shores of Vietnam, Brewer said. “If you came within 10 nautical miles of the coast of Vietnam, then your ship is automatically [presumed] for Agent Orange. It’s ‘presumptive’ that you were in contact with it.”

Brewer emphasized: Agent Orange is not a disease or disability. It’s carcinogenic; prompting “other disabilities that come along with it.” They include diabetes, cancers, and ischemic heart. “Things like that are presumptive illnesses that are being associated with Agent Orange.”

Recently Parkinson’s disease was declared such a presumptive illness.

Lewis County’s Veterans Service Office serves 768 veterans, Brewer said, turning to a recent report. “We lost about 100 veterans in a year.” Disease linked to Agent Orange was “the biggest cause of death” among those 100 who died in the last 12 months, Brewer said.

Approximately, 15-16 out of every hundred people here are veterans.

“We have one World War II veteran,” he said. “We have a few Korean War veterans, but there are not as many claims from them.”

Why?

“There wasn’t any Agent Orange sprayed over there,” Brewer said. “We still have claims for hearing loss … but no major claims that are health-wise claims.”

Brewer processes claims for knee injury. Fort Campbell is where the 101st Airborne Division is based. He serves a veteran who fell nearly 100 feet because his parachute didn’t open. “Needless to say, he had a claim.”

The National Guard unit in Lewis County “served over there” in the war on terror, he said. “Now they’re starting to see some of the effects of being overseas that could possibly be a disability that the Army doesn’t even know about yet.”

Brewer said, “Our Guard troops are starting to come out now and look for, and are trying to find, some answers. That’s probably one of the biggest things we’ve got going on right now.”

He anticipates an influx of soldiers visiting his office. “Yes. We’ve had three to come in this week,” he said July 30.