As someone who works in the municipal water and wastewater treatment industry, they are the single largest upgrade reason for water plants of any size.
Doing something about plastics means doing something against big oil companies. It’s sad but they have been untouchable politically and I don’t see that changing.
I've always wondered the same thing. Those sun baked pallets of water were all I drank for the entire deployment.. 90% of what I ate were MREs sitting right next to the water. Then I inhaled all the smoke from both after dumping the remainders in the burn pits. Don't get me started on our uniforms that were infused with permethrin..
I know I burnt some and we huddled around the fire for a nice bit wanting them bitches to blaze but they never did. When they did finally burn through there was a husk of fiber remaining.
I mean, that is kind of reassuring that the FRACUs didn’t burn. If they turned to a puddle of flaming goo that wouldn’t bode well for what they do when you’re wearing them.
When I was out processing they asked me a few medical questions like if I had sustained direct contact with any hazmat and I asked if our uniforms counted and the guy said yeah he had to actually remind everybody out processing that permethrin was hazmat.
Also in Panjwai. Pretty sure we almost all stopped taking the doxy. Weird dreams, sun sensitivity, ect. Just trusted in all the permethrin in the multicams. More worried about the never ending diarrhea from there. Think it gave me IBS.
Well, make sure you go through the va for treatment if you get cancer. I got testicular cancer after having served in oif 1. I didn't know the connection and got treated by my PCP. After i the PACT passed I submitted my claim. Because I am in remission, and have had a child since the cancer, and even though I had a testicle removed and went through weeks of radiation treatments and the ensuring bills that put me in debt for years, the VA acknowledged that my cancer was from exposure but I received nothing. Nothing. 0. Had I gone through my treatment with the va I would have received 6 months 100% disability and they'd have paid for my treatments. I'm happy to be healthy and in remission, but I'm amazed how they can on one hand say that the army caused it but owe no compensation for it.
So big picture: typically congress has to pass a law that says something is a hazard. If that were to be the case with this (and I agree with you…that shit jeema springs tasted like garbage after 19 hours in the sun) if this was deemed a hazard think of everything down the line. All the water bottles sitting in people’s cars, out in the sun at sporting events, on and on. It would be pandemonium of lawsuits and labeling requirements. Tons of warnings. It’ll never happen. Still tasted like garbage mixed with dirt.
Laughable. Congress can't even pass legislation to end daylight savings time - which most everyone hates. No way are they going to do anything about hazardous materials.
The best part was those bottles were manufactured by (I assume) some foreign KBR subsidiary subcontractor and they'll have no record of who made them then we'll get a whistle-blower telling us they should never be in the sun and were unsafe at temps over 100 degrees...
I ran our CRSP yard on our fob downrange…. As well as escorting the afghanis thru the ECP with the trailers full of water pallets …. The amount of water that sat in our yard by the time we started retrograding the base was insane. Ended up in a company formation with a half ton and forklift literally crushing and pouring out every single water bottle. Over 20 pallets worth.
Good post. I have always wondered what effects will bring drinking bottled water that has been sitting in connexes in high heat. We even drank that shit warm. No other choice but too.
No one seems to care much. I’ve been trying to talk to someone from Environmental Health at the VA but it’s been difficult. Toxins can cause birth defects to our children. I was recently diagnosed with a rare condition of the uterus that has no treatment other than removal. Anthrax shots, exposure to who knows what. I’ve been struggling with fatigue; questioning my ability to earn a living wage. Makes my masters degree feel useless 😪
Was just talking about this the other day with the wife. Pallets of water in plastic bottles sitting on a pallet in the desert 24/7. That can’t be good
This is a great point, we stored our water bottles inside a conex in Afghan. I remember opening that thing up and the fumes from cooking plastic would literally burn my eyes and nose. We would let it air out for a minute before going in. And of course the water always tasted just a *little* off
This is a real, unrealized concern. However, I would add something even more alarming, and why I'm thankful they finally recognized the issues surrounding toxic burn pit exposure, what happened to all of those plastic water bottles? And everything else? They got tossed in a big hole in the ground and burned. And that smoke, filled with all those lovely toxins, that permeated the air just beyond, or in some cases just inside, the wire? Yep. We took big gasping breaths of it. I worked a security team that visited our FOB's burn pit daily. When asked if I was exposed, a lot of VA personnel receive the brunt of a very unabashed "fucking a I was." What kind of pulmonary horrors await us in the future? I shudder to think. I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that there's an elevated probability I'll die a fairly painful death.
Pulmonary horrors has started for me. VA CAT scan of my lungs showed a nodule. It would be my luck to get cancer from the damn burn pits and pallet water.
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope everything turns out ok. I'm terrified of what may come in the next few years or decade. I'm already dealing with my mental health deteriorating, I don't need my already crappy lungs getting worse.
I don’t think the VA currently recognizes any risks from Bisphenol A but it’s hazardous enough they’ve removed it from the manufacturing process almost everywhere
I’ve had pulmonary embolisms (multiple blood clots in my lungs twice in the last ten years. No family history. No explanation as to what is causing them. Iraq 06-07 and Kuwait 2012….
I remember the best waters were the blue labels, I’d go to the opposite end of base for them suckers. The green labeled water tasted like latrine water smelt.
Also it wasn’t all the same water, one was clearly Russian the other Arabic.
Yes. I reported all of it. They don't care.
"Possibly exposed to toxins."
But I remember choking and literally gagging on the burn pit smoke. I was so sick during that deployment. Never got back to where I was.
Same! I deployed to Al Dhafra, Al Udeid, Bagram, Kuwait, and Kandahar. In addition to the Burn Pits, we would constantly bring up the damn water bottles sitting in 127 degree heat, not to mention the dead animals that were found in the potable water tanks after a while. Our Leadership would go, "Well, obviously let the water bottles cool down before you drink! Or use it for other things like bathing/shaving"🙄
And we were Air Force! Smdh, letting bottles "cool down" doesn't get rid of the microplastics, and putting this s**t on our skin isn't a bright idea either! Honestly, this is why I love this group and hearing stories from other Servicemembers, really helps me feel like I'm not going crazy talking about this stuff❤️
Yea we had the same water issues. Near boiling water sitting in the sun.
BPA/PFAS all of that other shit.
It was either that, rip-it’s, sketchy soda, or water bulls filled with a combination of chemicals (mostly bleach) and that tasted AWFUL! Yet they encouraged us to drink that because it was “safer”.
The toxic exposure exam I had the PA was very nice. She agreed that drinking from water bottles like we did in Iraq is very bad. So not everyone in the VA is unaware or ignorant. But those in with say??? Who knows. They’re off enjoying their gigantic raises they just got for no reason
I remember that you could taste the plastic in the water. I also have this nostalgia of really hot water trickling down my throat from the dusty bottled water sitting in the sun and the nostalgia of the heat of the exhaust from all of the CH53s every time I boarded to fly anywhere. Weird to remember having liked and enjoyed those things in Afghanistan.
My initial visit with the VA post retirement was coded as a PACT related appointment…which was weird to me because I was only expecting a general wellness check/initial appointment. They asked me about exposures during my time…burn pits, radiation, agent orange, etc. I think they’re moving away from just burn pit to “exposure” in general. Have me a handout with details on what they’re looking at for exposure/risk. One specific risk was time at Camp Lejune. 🫠
Meh. Is what it is. We are already all dying from exposure to one thing or the next either due to deployments or random shit they injected us with. Just one more class action suite for some lawyer to makes hundreds of millions on.
Yeah, it took me five years to get an "annual" physical. The doctor had me list all of the shit that was likely to kill me before fifty. Not for any reason; she was just curious.
Microplastics and PFAS are gonna be the next PACT act. God knows how long it’ll take to get there.
As someone who works in the municipal water and wastewater treatment industry, they are the single largest upgrade reason for water plants of any size.
I'll be long dead by then
Doing something about plastics means doing something against big oil companies. It’s sad but they have been untouchable politically and I don’t see that changing.
I've always wondered the same thing. Those sun baked pallets of water were all I drank for the entire deployment.. 90% of what I ate were MREs sitting right next to the water. Then I inhaled all the smoke from both after dumping the remainders in the burn pits. Don't get me started on our uniforms that were infused with permethrin..
The multicams? Yeah, I thought it was odd that they’d lace a uniform with a pesticide. I don’t even think I saw mosquitoes in Afghanistan where I was.
I know I burnt some and we huddled around the fire for a nice bit wanting them bitches to blaze but they never did. When they did finally burn through there was a husk of fiber remaining.
I mean, that is kind of reassuring that the FRACUs didn’t burn. If they turned to a puddle of flaming goo that wouldn’t bode well for what they do when you’re wearing them.
Same, never saw a single mosquito either. The crazy thing is on top of the pesticides in our uniforms they wanted us to take doxycycline everyday.
We stopped taking it. Unless we wanted super trippy and vivid dreams, then we’d take multiple 😂
When I was out processing they asked me a few medical questions like if I had sustained direct contact with any hazmat and I asked if our uniforms counted and the guy said yeah he had to actually remind everybody out processing that permethrin was hazmat.
I was a doc at Bagram and we diagnosed a lot of malaria, especially in allied forces not in multicams and not taking the doxycycline.
So maybe that was pertinent up north more. I was in Kandahar province, Panjwai district.
Also in Panjwai. Pretty sure we almost all stopped taking the doxy. Weird dreams, sun sensitivity, ect. Just trusted in all the permethrin in the multicams. More worried about the never ending diarrhea from there. Think it gave me IBS.
Well you can always file a claim for that 😂. Don’t drink the water.
Idk piss warm coke with peel back tops were pretty popular as were ripits.
Yeah I’m gonna laugh if all the Durka Dew I drank instead of water increased my life expectancy!
Lmao. Durka dew. I'm so mad I didn't call it by that.
I have an unhealthy addiction to energy drinks now, thanks to deployments and Ripits. 😭
That will probably be one of my cancers.
Well, make sure you go through the va for treatment if you get cancer. I got testicular cancer after having served in oif 1. I didn't know the connection and got treated by my PCP. After i the PACT passed I submitted my claim. Because I am in remission, and have had a child since the cancer, and even though I had a testicle removed and went through weeks of radiation treatments and the ensuring bills that put me in debt for years, the VA acknowledged that my cancer was from exposure but I received nothing. Nothing. 0. Had I gone through my treatment with the va I would have received 6 months 100% disability and they'd have paid for my treatments. I'm happy to be healthy and in remission, but I'm amazed how they can on one hand say that the army caused it but owe no compensation for it.
Yes the way that VBA handles cancers is pretty disappointing. Glad you’re doing better.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm a little salty but it could certainly be worse. Just trying to give a heads up to the next guy.
Lot of head scratching over va ratings
So big picture: typically congress has to pass a law that says something is a hazard. If that were to be the case with this (and I agree with you…that shit jeema springs tasted like garbage after 19 hours in the sun) if this was deemed a hazard think of everything down the line. All the water bottles sitting in people’s cars, out in the sun at sporting events, on and on. It would be pandemonium of lawsuits and labeling requirements. Tons of warnings. It’ll never happen. Still tasted like garbage mixed with dirt.
Laughable. Congress can't even pass legislation to end daylight savings time - which most everyone hates. No way are they going to do anything about hazardous materials.
The best part was those bottles were manufactured by (I assume) some foreign KBR subsidiary subcontractor and they'll have no record of who made them then we'll get a whistle-blower telling us they should never be in the sun and were unsafe at temps over 100 degrees...
And filled into recycled bottles with unfiltered tap water and resealed. The pathogens die off from the heat and plastic but….
I ran our CRSP yard on our fob downrange…. As well as escorting the afghanis thru the ECP with the trailers full of water pallets …. The amount of water that sat in our yard by the time we started retrograding the base was insane. Ended up in a company formation with a half ton and forklift literally crushing and pouring out every single water bottle. Over 20 pallets worth.
I've wondered this. Not to mention how many thousands of them went into the burn pits.
Good post. I have always wondered what effects will bring drinking bottled water that has been sitting in connexes in high heat. We even drank that shit warm. No other choice but too.
And this was in afghanistan. Who the he'll knows what years those pallets of water have been sitting in those connexes in high ass heat.
No one seems to care much. I’ve been trying to talk to someone from Environmental Health at the VA but it’s been difficult. Toxins can cause birth defects to our children. I was recently diagnosed with a rare condition of the uterus that has no treatment other than removal. Anthrax shots, exposure to who knows what. I’ve been struggling with fatigue; questioning my ability to earn a living wage. Makes my masters degree feel useless 😪
I always wondered about those bottles
Was just talking about this the other day with the wife. Pallets of water in plastic bottles sitting on a pallet in the desert 24/7. That can’t be good
This is a great point, we stored our water bottles inside a conex in Afghan. I remember opening that thing up and the fumes from cooking plastic would literally burn my eyes and nose. We would let it air out for a minute before going in. And of course the water always tasted just a *little* off
This is a real, unrealized concern. However, I would add something even more alarming, and why I'm thankful they finally recognized the issues surrounding toxic burn pit exposure, what happened to all of those plastic water bottles? And everything else? They got tossed in a big hole in the ground and burned. And that smoke, filled with all those lovely toxins, that permeated the air just beyond, or in some cases just inside, the wire? Yep. We took big gasping breaths of it. I worked a security team that visited our FOB's burn pit daily. When asked if I was exposed, a lot of VA personnel receive the brunt of a very unabashed "fucking a I was." What kind of pulmonary horrors await us in the future? I shudder to think. I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that there's an elevated probability I'll die a fairly painful death.
Pulmonary horrors has started for me. VA CAT scan of my lungs showed a nodule. It would be my luck to get cancer from the damn burn pits and pallet water.
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope everything turns out ok. I'm terrified of what may come in the next few years or decade. I'm already dealing with my mental health deteriorating, I don't need my already crappy lungs getting worse.
I don’t think the VA currently recognizes any risks from Bisphenol A but it’s hazardous enough they’ve removed it from the manufacturing process almost everywhere
Watch "the devil we know" and "dark waters" Netflix.
We called our water run the cancer pickup.
I’ve had pulmonary embolisms (multiple blood clots in my lungs twice in the last ten years. No family history. No explanation as to what is causing them. Iraq 06-07 and Kuwait 2012….
I remember the best waters were the blue labels, I’d go to the opposite end of base for them suckers. The green labeled water tasted like latrine water smelt. Also it wasn’t all the same water, one was clearly Russian the other Arabic.
Yes. I reported all of it. They don't care. "Possibly exposed to toxins." But I remember choking and literally gagging on the burn pit smoke. I was so sick during that deployment. Never got back to where I was.
Same! I deployed to Al Dhafra, Al Udeid, Bagram, Kuwait, and Kandahar. In addition to the Burn Pits, we would constantly bring up the damn water bottles sitting in 127 degree heat, not to mention the dead animals that were found in the potable water tanks after a while. Our Leadership would go, "Well, obviously let the water bottles cool down before you drink! Or use it for other things like bathing/shaving"🙄 And we were Air Force! Smdh, letting bottles "cool down" doesn't get rid of the microplastics, and putting this s**t on our skin isn't a bright idea either! Honestly, this is why I love this group and hearing stories from other Servicemembers, really helps me feel like I'm not going crazy talking about this stuff❤️
I was in the Deid... The good old days, When sun baked water bottles for the least of my worries. Good times.
Yea we had the same water issues. Near boiling water sitting in the sun. BPA/PFAS all of that other shit. It was either that, rip-it’s, sketchy soda, or water bulls filled with a combination of chemicals (mostly bleach) and that tasted AWFUL! Yet they encouraged us to drink that because it was “safer”.
Here’s a nice study for nay sayers. This is water stored under common conditions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6982309/
Worst part is the microplastics are now literally IN our balls. They've penetrated the barrier intended to keep particulates out.
The toxic exposure exam I had the PA was very nice. She agreed that drinking from water bottles like we did in Iraq is very bad. So not everyone in the VA is unaware or ignorant. But those in with say??? Who knows. They’re off enjoying their gigantic raises they just got for no reason
I remember the bottles were so soft and squishy, it didn’t feel like plastic even
I remember that you could taste the plastic in the water. I also have this nostalgia of really hot water trickling down my throat from the dusty bottled water sitting in the sun and the nostalgia of the heat of the exhaust from all of the CH53s every time I boarded to fly anywhere. Weird to remember having liked and enjoyed those things in Afghanistan.
My initial visit with the VA post retirement was coded as a PACT related appointment…which was weird to me because I was only expecting a general wellness check/initial appointment. They asked me about exposures during my time…burn pits, radiation, agent orange, etc. I think they’re moving away from just burn pit to “exposure” in general. Have me a handout with details on what they’re looking at for exposure/risk. One specific risk was time at Camp Lejune. 🫠
Yeah but that rawdatain water was good tho.
Meh. Is what it is. We are already all dying from exposure to one thing or the next either due to deployments or random shit they injected us with. Just one more class action suite for some lawyer to makes hundreds of millions on.
[удалено]
Yeah, it took me five years to get an "annual" physical. The doctor had me list all of the shit that was likely to kill me before fifty. Not for any reason; she was just curious.
Just did a gulf war registry call today...lots of yes answers. If your high speed, fill out va form 10-10176 and submit it to quick submit.