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Burn Pits

Introduction

The military has been relying heavily on the use of burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan to get rid of waste material. Such activities have for long remained unnoticed as they were regarded as being harmless. That was to quite some time. However, this changed in recent years. The change came along when it was being noticed that soldiers on return from combat zones were suffering from various lung ailments and other problems such as cancer. It did not take too much of research to realize that the problem was emancipating from the burn pits. These problems were resulting in intense sufferings for the soldiers. The fact is that this problem was unknown to the military men and women employed in the war zones. Hence, they took little precautionary steps to save themselves from this problem. It is highly likely that the problems of most troops will only be known in the future and with time. Medical research has pointed out that the fumes emancipating from burn pits pose a huge danger to the health of people. Apart from various lung diseases they cause the destruction of the most needed T-cells. These cells are necessary as they play an important part in the immune system. In case, these cells are depleted, the individual will be prone to various other medical ailments. Thousands of military men and women have been deployed in such regions; therefore, the exact losses are yet to be accounted. It is most likely that the losses that have been suffer will bear a high cost with many of these problems will continue to rise in the future (Lamberth, pp 1-2).

A very gloom aspect of all these developments has been the government itself for these soldiers. The government and the pentagon have for years maintained a criminal silence over what was going on in these burn pits. Despite knowing the threats arising from such burn pits, they continued to allow its usage. However, there lies that burn pits posed no problem have now been exposed through a memo that was discovered. According to the estimates of CENTCOM, Afghanistan had 251 burning pits, while Iraq had 22. Though the military relied heavily on these burn its, yet it took no steps as late as 2009 to warn its soldiers of the dangers. Now this new problem has arisen and it may prove to be more dangerous than the problem of PTSD.

Thesis statement

The negative impact of the burn pits have risen to a very dangerous level on account of these dangers having been hidden from the military men and women for a very long time, and the pentagon and American government have been complicit, as they despite being aware of the high risks, continued to maintain a criminal silence and focused on lies to keep the issue silent rather than take practical steps and efforts to reduce the risk for its soldiers or the environment.

Discussion

For almost a decade after the war commenced in Afghanistan ...