Veterans have been camping out on the Capitol steps after GOP blocks burn pit bill
60 veterans groups and comedian Jon Stewart — have spent days protesting after Senate Republicans blocked a bill for veterans exposed to burn pits.
WASHINGTON — Jen Burch, 35, a retired staff sergeant in the Air Force, looks strong and healthy from the outside. She says that inside, however, she’s suffering from ailments that she believes are related to her service during the Afghanistan war more than a decade ago.
While they were in Kandahar, Burch and her fellow service members were exposed to “burn pits, incinerators and poo ponds,” she said. When she left, she battled pneumonia and bronchitis. And in the years since then, she has been “in and out of ERs” and has struggled with intense migraine headaches and shortness of breath whenever she climbs a flight of stairs.
“I actually ended up trying to take my life because I just can’t handle it anymore. I just go crazy in my head,” Burch said at a rally Monday outside the U.S. Capitol.
Jon Stewart during a rally to call on the Senate to pass the PACT Act on Aug. 1, 2022.Frank Thorp V / NBC NewsBurch, a Washington native, is one of dozens of military veterans who spent the weekend protesting Republicans' blockade of a bill that would provide lifesaving benefits for veterans exposed to so-called burn pits and other toxic phenomena.
The veterans camped out on the steps outside the Senate all weekend, braving the heat, the humidity and occasional thunderstorms and sleeping on the hard concrete stairs. Burch said she wanted to camp there, too, but she began feeling intense pain.
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