This summer served as a remarkable one for military veterans. This summer, the Honoring Our PACT Act passed Congress and was signed into law. The PACT Act is a bill that provides expanded healthcare options for veterans who were toxic exposed during their military service.

I had the opportunity to help advocate this effort by meeting with Senators to talk about the bill. Veterans and family members came from around the country to share their stories and experiences. This provided faces and personal connections to the issue, which is important.

An unexpected part of the journey was the second Senate vote in July. The second Senate vote was not successful for the bill. there was concern the effort would not be passed this year, if at all. This led to the idea of a Fire Watch from Grunt Style’s co-founder and the fierce advocate and co-founder of Burn Pits 360. They sat on the Senate steps on the afternoon of July 28th, and it turned into a sit in, where veterans, advocates, friends, and supporters traveled from all over to call attention to the issue (More about that later). This led to a third and final Senate vote on August 2nd, which was ultimately successful. The final count was 86-11.

The Personal Impact

The veteran support organization (VSO) community had been supporting efforts around toxic exposure for over 17 years. Some supporters unfortunately paid the cost of toxic exposure and passed away before seeing the success of the efforts. My uncle suffered with the complications of toxic exposure from Agent Orange for years. He could have benefitted from health care services that the PACT Act will provide. He passed away in December of 2020 as a result of his toxic exposure and other issues.

This is the most comprehensive support bill for veterans in years. It made sense that this is the cost of war. Provisions for veterans of several eras have beeen included in the PACT Act. For others, including the 11 Senators who ultimately voted against the effort, the cost of supporting veterans was too high. But that is where advocacy comes in to show where that support would go.

Now, it is up to the VSOs and the Department of Veterans Affairs to move the PACT Act into implementation. For some, there is still time, and that is what truly matters. All gave some, some gave all.