SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — On Christmas Eve, Victor Skaar mailed a
stack of letters to Air Force veterans he had served with in Palomares, Spain,
scrawling a simple headline at the top of each one: “Great News!”
Mr. Skaar, a retired chief master sergeant, was one of 1,600
troops scrambled by the Air Force in 1966 to clean up a classified nuclear
disaster by collecting debris and shoveling up plutonium-laced soil. Many were
later stricken with cancer and other ailments, and tried without success to get
the federal government to take responsibility and pay for their medical care.
He wanted to spread the word about an encouraging
development: A lawsuit he had filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs
had been certified as a class action, meaning that there was finally a chance
to set the plutonium case straight, not just for him but for everyone who was
there.
But his letters soon began trickling back to him:
Undeliverable. No forwarding address. One brought a reply from a widow. Each
one in his mailbox made his heart sink.
“For many of them,
it’s too late,” he said of his comrades. “They’re gone.”
As one of the first cases ever granted class-action status
by the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, the Skaar lawsuit represents a
major step forward for veterans with long-term health issues linked to toxic
exposure in the service.
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