Burn Pits The Poisoning of Americas Soldiers

Thousands of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These soldiers, afflicted with rare cancers and respiratory diseases, were sickened from the smoke and ash swirling out of the “burn pits” where military contractors incinerated mountains of trash, including old stockpiles of mustard and sarin gas, medical waste, and other toxic material.

Based on thousands of government documents, over five hundred in-depth medical case studies, and interviews with more than one thousand veterans and active-duty GIs, The Burn Pits will shock the nation. The book is more than an explosive work of investigative journalism—it is the deeply moving chronicle of the many young men and women who signed up to serve their country in the wake of 9/11, only to return home permanently damaged, the victims of their own armed forces criminal negligence.

Joseph Hickman is a former US Marine and Army sergeant who has served in various sensitive operations around the world, including security duty at the prison complex in Guantanamo Bay. His revelations about the abuse of prisoners at Gitmo resulted in a National Magazine Award–winning story in Harpers magazine and a 2015 book, Murder at Camp Delta.