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Soldiers returning from the combat zone have veteran support groups, many charities, and an entire government agency intended to see the needs of illness and injuries. However, contractors working in those same fields have not received such institutional support until now.
These workers face the same mental trauma associated with the battle development, with thousands of burned people facing the same cancers that claimed to live American service members. However, the Association of War Zone Contractors (AOWC), formed this week, did not have the same support group to care for veterans, according to group organizers.
Scott Dillard, co-founder of the new nonprofit, told Fox News Digital.
Americans often forget that contractors make up a lot of workforce at bases overseas. An estimated half of the US employed during the Iraq and Afghan wars were civil contractors rather than military members.
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2005 Iraqi Sandstorm hit Al Asad Airbase. (Commoning of Cory Archibald/AWOC
“Some contractors go outside the wires, but many of them just change the bulbs, throw mashed potatoes at them, and clean the toilet.
Known as “hidden victims” during the Iraq War, many were fleet drivers who drove supplies across dangerous terrain. More than 8,000 contractors have been killed over two decades in the Iraq and Afghanistan war, as did the 7,000 more service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Brown University counts. The US government has not thoroughly reported contractor deaths, and their families often struggle to get compensation.
“Contractors’ functions are kind of invisible military, and we don’t want that,” said Cory Archibald, another co-founder and former contractor. “The public deserves to know that in order for policymakers to make the right decision, they need to know how contractors are integrated into everything they need to understand and act on, and that they need to be integrated into everything they need to do.”
Like a group of veterans who have advocated for improved post-mission care for the US military for decades, the AOWC hopes to advocate for U.S. policymakers to educate contractors returning home to mental and physical injuries or illnesses regarding currently available resources and advocate for U.S. policymakers to streamline the painstaking process that comes with filing claims.
Thanks to the agreement law, the VA recognizes automatic links between 23 different conditions and the combustion pit. However, civilians whose claims are managed by the U.S. Department of Labor must prove their relationship with the same medical condition and development.
Corey Archibald travels between Iraqi bases with Ospreys as a contractor from 2008 to 2009. (Provided by Cory Archibald/AWOC)
Through the Defense Infrastructure Act, contracting companies’ insurance companies must cover care for labor-related injuries, such as cancers that are close to burned-out pits by many people who worked at bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This is an adversarial process for contractors,” Dillard said. “The insurance company is almost certainly going to deny the claim.”
For successful claims, contractors have been waiting for years to see payments in all forms.
Due to a failed claim, the contractor must retain an attorney and wait for the litigation process to unfold in court.
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The research behind the agreement law, which discovered a direct link between certain medical conditions and the pits used to burn medical waste, weapons materials and other things near military bases, focused on service members that had been deployed for several and a half months. Little research has been done about the impact these pits had on contractors. Contractors often worked at bases overseas for years at a time.
“The 2004 Explosion Ordinance Disposition (EOD) in Controlled Explosions Near the KBR Management Compound. These occurred several times a week. We sometimes get alerts over the radio to expect an explosion, but the EOD site was next to the burn pit of Al Asad. (Corry Archibald)
AOWC’s first business is to get names and data from the Burn Pits registry and establish a direct link between contractors and exposure to burn pits. The group then brings the data to policy makers, pleading them to make it easier for contractors to pay attention.
As the size of the military has declined over the years, the US military is increasingly outsourcing work to civilian contractors. And contractors are conveniently removed from the count when country leaders boast about reducing US troops’ footprints at foreign bases.
“They say, ‘We’re going to pull the troops down.’ Well, it’s amazing.
“The fact that all these jobs are outsourced to private contractors means that the people don’t understand what the cost of war is.
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He said he first recognized the “invisibility” of contractors after working in the Army and then working as a contractor for six years, primarily in Afghanistan.
“I didn’t know what my rights were,” he said. “I had no clue that the help was available, and the majority of contractors lack the same knowledge.”
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