Nine Months - USAF Still Ignores Freedom of Information Act

It has been nine months now, since the C-123 Veterans Association submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to officials at Wright-Patterson AFB which was approved September 16, 2012. Nine months, plenty of time for officials to meet their legal requirement to provide the unclassified materials we need and which the law says we're entitled to have. Nine months that the officials in Dayton have failed to meet their responsibilities.

1947 Husdon - same vintage as Fairchild C-123 "Provider"

Requested: everything used by the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine to complete their May 2012 Consultative Letter addressing C-123 Agent Orange contamination and veteran exposure. Consider carefully...the C-123 first flew in 1947. We're not talking about some exotic, classified, need-to-know black ops project...HEY...this airplane is 65 years old! What could they be worried about with something the same age as the '47 Hudson?

Nine months. Months in which our aircrews, maintenance and aerial port veterans have submitted disability claims to the Department of Veterans Affairs, yet nine months without the ability we need to challenge (or use) materials the Air Force gathered focusing on the C-123 Agent Orange contamination fiasco.

Nine months. Plenty of time for the Air Force to gather materials and release them, especially because

one of the objectives of the USAF Consultative Letter was to place in one location all relevant materials addressing C-123 Agent Orange issues. So everything was unusually easy to gather, the Air Force report having been released in May 2012.

The last word we got when visiting the base FOIA shop was that the base JAG officials were considering how much they'd be able to withhold from release. "Withhold?" Hold back anything related to this 65 year-old airplane, retired into the Davis-Monthan AFB boneyard thirty years ago!

So what could make otherwise good FOIA officers and base officials opt to disregard the law in such a fashion. We can only speculate. Possibilities/wild guesses:
1. obvious errors in the May 2012 Consultative Letter which the USAF wants to cover up
2. improper command influence in the assessment of Agent Orange issues
3. concerns about revelation of errors in judgement once C-123 contamination was made known in 1994 and the Air Force failure to notify affected veterans
4. unknown issues which could be addressed in the documents being requested
5. lack of consensus among report staff
6. something else?

Hard to know what's going on with such an amazingly inept handling of a minor FOIA request, but something's going on at Wright-Pat!  Something is going on, as they try to hide something about this old airplane, which went aloft for its maiden flight in 1947...look at that 1947 Hudson photo above to realize how ridiculous the military is over this issue!

VA Turned Down Agent Orange Claim by C-123K Flyer - IN ERROR

The late Lieutenant Colonel Tim Olmstead submitted a clam 
(C 28 107 548, dated 23 Aug 07) to the VA for service connection for diabetes, an Agent Orange-presumptive illness, based on his service flying with the 731st TAS at Westover and our C-123K/UC-123K aircraft which he stated were used for spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam and which had AO residue left on them.


The VA denied his claim. Citing the fact that he didn't serve in Vietnam, theVA's Board of Veterans' Appeals turned Tim down because he failed to provide evidence that the aircraft were contaminated. The finding reads 

"while these planes may be of the type that were used in Vietnam to dispense Agent Orange from 192 to 1971, there is no evidence that any of the airplanes on which the veteran flew dispensed Agent Orange in Vietnam or that there was any residual Agent Orange on the aircraft the veteran served on. Further, the veteran has not submitted any evidence substantiating his contention that there was any Agent Orange material on the aircraft he served on. His assertion, standing along, is not sufficient to show he had actual exposure to Agent Orange years after it was used in Vietnam."

Gosh, that's reasonable enough. No wonder Tim's claim and appeal were denied. He couldn't prove he was exposed to Agent Orange. But why not?


Easy. Because the VA and the Air Force stacked the deck against Tim, keeping from him the precise information cited above which he needed to prove his case.  Back in 1996 a JAG officer in the Air Force Office of Environmental Law, considering the dioxin information that "Patches" at the Air Force Museum and other aircraft then stored as surplus at Davis-Monthan AFB's Boneyard, "should be kept in official channels only"...and that means keeping the information from reaching veterans like Tim to have the evidence needed to claim well-earned VA benefits. With the Air Force itself taking an active testing role in determining that there was indeed Agent Orange residue and toxicity in the C-123K fleet, including the eleven spray aircraft from the 731st and then keeping that information "in official channels only", Tim and other veterans like him faced an impossible challenge. The Air Force had the proof. The Air Force kept that proof from Tim, and denied him his well-earned veteran's benefits. It wasn't a simple matter of Tim not finding proof available somewhere, or that proof actually not existing. It was hidden.
Here, the Air Force took active measures to hide information from veterans like Tim so they wouldn't know the details of their exposure. Active measures to hide the information to protect veterans' health. Active measures to hide information to qualify for receiving medical care from the VA. These bad acts on the part of the misguided personnel who tried to hide the C-123K dioxin toxicity mean that the VA should, at every possible occasion, grant the benefit of the doubt to each C-123 crewmember, ACM, aerial porter, maintainer and air evac veteran seeking service connection. 


From this writer's perspective, Tim is obviously due a reconsideration of his case due to the Government's misconduct in  restricting availability of essential medical information, and Tim's award should be backdated not just to the date of his claim submission, but to the date his disease is likely to have been diagnosed under Nehmer. Further, Stephen I. Cohn, Veterans Law Judge, Board of Veterans Appeals and James Terry who is Chair of the VA Board of Appeals, should inquire as to why the Air Force via their misconduct and unethical behavior, did not notify aircrews of their exposure once it was officially known. They should ask why the Air Force allowed its veterans to struggle to put together VA claims but withheld the evidence veterans needed receive the benefits the very tests  Air Force proved them eligible for! Amazing! 


What say you, Judge Cohn. What say you, Judge James Terry? What evidence do you allow the government (although not the honorable gentleman representing the VA before you that day...I'm certain he was not at fault)  to withhold at the expense of veterans who come before you seeking justice?

Open Letter - Request for Help from Institute of Medicine Agent Orange Committee

To the Members of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences,

To: Doctor Richard Fenske, Chair and (in turn) Dr Erin Bell, Dr Scott Burchiel, Dr Janice Chambers, Dr Naihua Duan, Dr Peter Gann, Dr Mark Goldberg, Dr Nancy Kerkvliet, Dr Stephen Kritchevsky, Dr Michele Marcus, Dr Linda McCauley, Dr Alvaro Puga, Dr Jeremy Shefner and Dr Hollie Swanson

Dear Members of the Committee,

On behalf of Colonel Arch Battesta, Colonel Ken Wheeler, Colonel Joseph Curley, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Bailey, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Karpinski, Lieutenant Colonel John Harris, Chief Master Sergeant Charles Fusco, Major Al Harrington, Major Gale Harrington, Brigadier General Mike Walker, Major Stephen Clancey, Master Sergeant Steve Caraker, Master Sergeant George Gadbois, the late Master Sergeant Bob Boyd, Colonel Dee Holiday, Lieutenant Colonel Gail Sorenson and her late husband Lieutenant Colonel Art Sorenson, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Kosakoski, our families and an estimated 500 others similarly situated,

We seek the emergency assistance from the Committee in the form of your recommendation to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense that the dioxin-contaminated aircraft we flew be designated Agent Orange-contaminated sites. Each of the aircraft we seek to have so designated can be identified by historical records, contamination surveys and physical presence of Agent Orange spray apparatus. Agent Orange toxins remained in each of these aircraft until they were destroyed in 2010.

In 1972 the Air Force Reserve began flying the C-123K/UC-123K “Provider” aircraft previously used for Agent Orange spray missions in Vietnam. Dioxin contamination persisted on these aircraft, at least eleven of which were assigned to the squadrons we flew with. Numerous tests by the Air Force in 1993 and later established the harmful levels of dioxin contamination remaining on the surplus aircraft, all then retired after ten years of our use flying missions worldwide. Military concern about the established contamination led the decontamination by destruction of the remaining aircraft by melting them into scrap metal ingots. Air Force and GSA testimony before a federal judge on a 2000 private lawsuit had the aircraft described as “extremely hazardous”, “extremely contaminated” and “extremely dangerous.”

Veterans who flew the Provider during the years we did not suspect its contamination later turned to the Department of the Air Force to help identify the aircrews and maintenance personnel so they could be notified of their likely exposure to dioxin, but the Air Force responded they lacked the ability to identify the personnel involved. Earlier, for some reason, The Air Force Judge Advocate General responsible for the Office of Environmental Law (and her supervisor) recommended restricting information about the aircraft contamination to "within official channels," perhaps appropriately concerned with the reaction of exposed aircrews. 

Speaking personally, this writer would have been concerned, but if I'd been alerted in 1996 when this JAG officer's recommendation was made, I would perhaps have better responded before my cancer, heart attack, heart surgery, diabetes and peripheral neuropathy surfaced in a two month period sixteen years later. I had surgeries for acute peripheral neuropathy, an Agent Orange-presumptive illness, in 1975 and 1976, following my assignment to fly the C-123K.UC-123K starting in 1974. Certainly, what health precautions I would have taken should have been my decision to make, not her decision to keep me from knowing about.

Our group of veterans submitted the several Air Force test results to the Oregon Health Sciences University with the question…"does the dioxin contamination shown on the aircraft tests equate to exposure to dioxin by the aircrews and maintenance workers assigned to those aircraft between 1972-1982?"  The OSHU responded “Most Likely”.

Anecdotal sworn testimony from experienced maintenance workers in the 901st OMS establishes the intense effort after Vietnam to scrape the remaining Agent Orange residue from the aircraft, especially the sub-belly and wing interior sections, with DOD advice being that the residue was harmless and remove the residue and reduce the foul odors to scrape the residue with putty knives, then wash with Dawn dish soap and rinse thoroughly. Yet still, twenty and thirty years after the last Agent Orange spray missions, the aircraft tested in the Air Force words “extremely hazardous”, "extremely dangerous" and "heavily contaminated."

We earnestly seek the Committee’s immediate help. There is no controversy regarding the Air Force’s own tests establishing the presence of harmful levels of contaminants on our airplanes, and there is no controversy regarding eleven of our squadron’s 26 aircraft having been used for Agent Orange spray missions. The OSHU concludes that our exposure while flying and maintaining these toxic aircraft was “most likely” to have occurred. There is no hypothetical situation here...no question about whether we could have been exposed hundreds of miles out at sea or thousands of feet aloft...we point to the multitude of Air Force tests which establish our intense and intimate contact with this contaminated airplane, to the OSHU study, to your own common sense.

We don’t know your procedures or guidelines, but as a small group of veterans with a non-controversial argument for having been exposed to dioxin, we seek your help in whatever manner appropriate, so long as it is soon enough to help our sick veterans seek care through the Department of Veterans Affairs. If you have a different procedure to seek your help, tell me how to proceed. If you are organizationally restricted from what we request, what other help can you give us? 

Hopefuly and Respectfully,

For the C-123K/UC-123K Veterans of 1972-1982

Wesley T. Carter, Major, USAF Retired

 www.c123kcancer.blogspot.com
email: rustsilverwings@gmail.com

Secretary of Air Force Decides Against Informing Dioxin-Exposed Aircrews

In the recent dismissal of our SAF/IG complaint, the IG recommended we turn to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Air Force Historical Center regarding my formally filed allegations regarding... 
-questionable conduct by JAG officers
-questionable decisions by general officers, the Air Force Medical Service and the Air Force Material Command.


So I believe I have been told to resolve the issues of:
-Air Force force management
-Air Force JAG ethics
-Air Force weapon system contamination
-Air Force general officer actions
-Air Force aircrews
-Air Force Medical Corps officer actions-
-Air Force MAJCOM command oversight and
-Air Force treatment of retired members
...by trying to talk the VA into doing something. Get real.


Further, when I asked SAF/IG for help notifying aircrews who'd been exposed to dioxin flying the C-123K/UC-123K between 1972-1982 so the crews and maintainers could take whatever measures deemed appropriate regarding their own health and that of their families, the Secretary's office responded:


"Maj Carter,
Unfortunately we do not have the ability to identify or notify the individuals in the categories you mention.




Vincent G. DeBono, Jr., DAFC
Chief, Case Management Division
Office of the Secretary of the Air Force
Office of the Inspector General
Complaints and Resolution Directorate
DSN: 425-1555
COMM:  (703) 588-1555

-----Original Message-----
From: Rustysilverwings [mailto:rustysilverwings@aol.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 3:20 PM
To: Debono, Vincent G CIV USAF SAF/IGQ
Subject: Re: Air Force Aircrews--Response from National Institutes of Health re: 
Agent Orange exposure

Dear Mr. Debono, 

Thank you for your email today letting me know the results of my complaint to 
the SAF/IG. I take it from your response closing the complaint that the 
conclusion on each of the allegations is that they are either unfounded, not 
issues of law or instruction, or are the responsibility of other agencies.

I do remain concerned about the JAG memo recommending information about dioxin 
contamination be "kept within official channels" and the question about whether 
purchasers of the contaminated aircraft, both domestic and foreign governments, 
have or have not been notified of their toxicity. If these are issues best addressed by addressing them to the Department of Veterans Affairs as you suggest, I'll 
certainly do that. If the Department of Veterans Affairs is responsible for the 
action of Air Force officers in their decision (or failure) to notify aircrews 
of exposure to toxic chemicals. I shall ask them why that was not done as the 
various Air Force reports about the contamination began surfacing.

Thank you for your thorough investigation of these issues which were so 
important to me and to the men and women I flew with for ten years. At least, is there any action the SAF can take to help notify aircrews from the time period involved as to their exposure to dioxin? I'm greatly worried the VA will not be particularly interested in pursuing the idea.

Respectfully,



Wesley T. Carter, Major, USAF Retired

AF JAG Attorneys Hide Agent Orange Data Aircrew Data!

In 1996, the Deputy and the Director of the AF Environmental Law division recommended that information about contaminated C-123K aircraft stored at Davis-Monthan as well as a handful of museum aircraft be contained within "official channels"! The memo in which they made this amazing recommendation was included in the GSA Finding which canceled all sales of contaminated C-123K, and which we obtained via FOIA from the Chief Counsel of the General Services Administration.


We should have been given this information once it was established as reasonably correct. That had been established already with studies completed as early as 1993, three years before this JAG officer, Major (later Colonel) Ursula Moul wrote, and her commander, Colonel J. Abbott, endorsed "I do not believe we should alert anyone outside official channels of this potential problem", a problem many of us believe has led to death and illness of C-123K crewmembers. You will see the name of Major Ursula Moul on a whole lot of these contamination papers! Always recommending restricting essential information.


Hard to imagine, isn't it? As aircrew, we all had at least Secret clearances, and our official duties involved manning and supporting the weapon system we'd been assigned, and that was already hazardous duty...we didn't need dioxin contamination to increase our risks! And we certainly didn't need our own JAG officers to restrict information that we and our families needed to protect our health. They didn't even allow our flight surgeons to have this information. If Colonel Moul had been a passenger on a flight and we had to belly in somewhere, she absolutely knows to her very core that every crewmember on the airplane would risk death to get her out to safety...why couldn't she see to our safety with a health alert?


Colonel Moul certainly knows something about restricting release of information that the public needs, as it was the topic of her thesis while completing her Master of Laws degree at George Washington University.


Ya gotta ask yourself...would TV's Navy JAG Harm Rabb have done this to us? No way. On TV, military attorneys like Harm have ethics! BTW, thought his lovely costar was a Marine?

EXTREMELY Important Proof of Dioxin Exposure in C-123K!

Greg Parks, the very helpful Chief Counsel of the US Civilian Board of Contracts, General Services Administration recently provided me extremely useful, extremely pertinent, and extremely timely information concerning C-123K/UC-123K Provider Agent Orange contamination, a subject we're all extremely concerned with.

Extremely kind of him, and extremely important as we former aircrews and maintainers try to convince the Air Force, Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs about our extremely worrisome problem.

You've noticed my use of the word "extremely"? It is an extremely perfect way to describe the Agent Orange contamination of the aircraft we flew, because that's exactly the word used by the Air Force about the C-123K dioxin contamination! The United States Government, acting through the General Services Administration and the United States Air Force in their April 2000 brief to Judge Martha DeGraff (Board of Contract Appeals, GSA, Washington DC), determined on Page 24 that "There is no question, that dioxin contaminated aircraft constituted extremely hazardous and/or dangerous personal property."

I don't see how the Department of Veterans Affairs can fail to reach the conclusion that if other US Government agencies establish the aircraft we flew in and maintained to be extremely hazardous and contaminated, we therefore have been exposed to the contaminants! Neither can I understand why the Air Force, having in April 2000 reached this conclusion in their report to a Federal judge, decided on 9 June 2011 that it was not possible or appropriate to alert the veterans who'd been contaminated! I'm extremely disappointed!

Here's my take on this. We flew airplanes that were already contaminated with Agent Orange residue left over from Operation Ranchhand in Vietnam, from 1972 to 1982. Multiple Air Force tests establish the dioxin contamination of these airplanes even 20 to 30 years after their last spray missions! The planes were so contaminated in 2000 that the base safety and medical officials insisted that hazmat suits and respirators be used to protect workers entering the remaining stored planes. Multiple US Government agencies testified as to the dioxin contamination of the planes we flew that remained in the Davis-Monthan storage area. The planes were so contaminated that the Air Force opted to decontaminate them by melting them into scrap metal ingots. 

The VA requires non-Vietnam veterans claiming Agent Orange exposure to prove we were actually exposed to Agent Orange...these testimonies and the referenced Air Force test clearly establish that proof for all veterans also able to prove they maintained or flew the C-123K/UC-123K. It would take a tremendous and false, even vicious twist of logic to somehow determine the aircraft were contaminated and "extremely dangerous" enough to require hazmat protection yet also determine we weren't exposed to the contaminants in 1972-1982 when the dioxin had had even lesstime to decompose.

Ideas on this?

         Wes Carter, 74AES

      http://www.c123kcancer.blogspot.com

DOCUMENTATION:

Entire GSA/USAF Report to Judge Martha Degraff...click HERE

AF Museum Data Sheet on Patches, Tail 362...click HERE

AF test report showing Patches Tail 362 is contaminated...click HERE

AF JAG recommends "keeping information in official channels" only...click HERE

Davis-Monthan requires hazmat protection inside C-123K...click HERE

SAF/IG decides not to alert C-123 crews about our dioxin exposure...click HERE

University study confirms C-123K aircrew dioxin contamination...click HERE

Our Point Paper & Support Documents about our dioxin exposure...click HERE

COMRADES: (I've never used that word before...this is fun!)...please contact Paul Bailey to provide your name, Agent Orange-related illnesses if any, and names and illnesses of other C-123K/UC-123K people that you know of. Please spread the word to others.