Jon Stewart’s Healthcare Campaign for Our 9/11 Heroes Sadly Still Isn’t Over Yet
America vowed to never forget 9/11, but we never said anything about the first responders and soldiers we sent to clean it up.
That disappointing truth has been a thorn in Jon Stewart’s side in the nearly 23 years since the tragic terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 unified the country against an enemy that we wouldn’t manage to identify until the following month with the invasion of Afghanistan. From there, the War on Terror began in earnest and America focused its attention on overseas conflict while categorically ignoring the brave men and women who jumped into action on 9/11 and in the immediate days thereafter, unless there was a photo opportunity to lay wreaths on their memorials.
It took Congress 18 years to permanently secure compensation for 9/11 first responders who struggled with health complications as a result of their heroic acts on September 11th, and it took a legendary reaming by Stewart during a congressional hearing for proponents of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to finally defeat the staunchly opposed Republican holdouts who had spent nearly two decades glorifying the deeds of dead firemen and police officers while purposefully preventing those still living with the impact of 9/11 from receiving proper care.
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After Stewart stood up for first responders and defeated Mitch McConnell and his cronies in 2019, many citizens and lawmakers thought that his campaign to secure healthcare for these heroes was over. Unfortunately, America and its leaders forgot about the first soldiers deployed in the weeks following 9/11 whom they sent to a base in Uzbekistan that was contaminated with uranium and their radiation-related illnesses that went uncovered by subsequent healthcare bills to this day. But Stewart didn't.
Right now, the part-time Daily Show host is petitioning the Biden administration to close a loophole in its massive veterans aid bill called the PACT Act, which passed in 2022 and addressed many of the health issues suffered by veterans deployed to the Karshi-Khanabad airbase in Uzbekistan, or K2, in the weeks following 9/11. Critically, however, the PACT Act didn’t include provisions for the special operations forces who suffered from exposure to highly radioactive uranium powder found uncontained at K2 who later reported complex medical conditions connected to radiation exposure.
“Imagine you’re stationed inside the meth lab on Breaking Bad,” Stewart explained to the Associated Press in a recent interview. “These guys were exposed to a toxic soup of basically an exploded chemicals and nuclear weapon facility.”
Veterans of K2 have been asking that the Department of Veterans Affairs address the medical issues they now suffer as a result of the irresponsible exposure of active military members to radioactive materials for years, but the agency claims that it’s still gathering information on the issue before making a decision about whether or not those veterans deserve coverage for their complications. “All presumptive conditions established by the VA, rather than by legislation, require a factual rationale,” argued VA spokesman Terrence Hayes.
Though Stewart says that the PACT Act was “an immense improvement” in K2 veterans’ fight for proper healthcare, he maintains that the battle is far from over. “The worst part about it is, those years when they’re sickest, being spent in anxiety and struggle against a system that’s somehow set up to be antagonistic,” Stewart explained. “I don’t know why it’s an adversarial system in any way, shape or form. But that seems to be the uphill climb that everybody has to go through to try and get either the benefits or the healthcare that they’ve earned.”
The health and well-being of these veterans wouldn’t be contingent on another congressional hearing in any just society, but, if it comes to that, Stewart’s teeth are plenty sharp from the last one.
