Expressions of gratitude for military service often arrive in visible and ceremonial means — offering solemn moments of recognition that resonate across communities. Yet for many of more than 678,000 veterans in Virginia, these public acknowledgments sit alongside far less perceptible realities associated with their duties: health impacts stemming from prolonged contact with toxic substances.
It is within this broader context that the National Military Appreciation Month — observed each May — gains added significance. Rather than acting solely as a period of tribute, it also provides an opportunity to reflect on whether the systems designed to support veterans are keeping pace with the long-term repercussions of service. As such, it must correspondingly prompt closer attention to emerging policy responses, including the Veterans Exposed to Toxic (VET) PFAS Act.
Now under consideration in Congress, this proposed measure specifically addresses exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), synthetic chemicals that have drastically tainted the ecosystem in Virginia and beyond.
Confronting the military’s toxic legacy
The scale and continuity of military operations have fostered conditions where toxic exposure has been a persistent — and frequently overlooked — element of service.
Across naval shipyards, air stations, training grounds, and other defense facilities, generations of service members have worked amid hazardous materials that, in many cases, were not fully understood at the time. For one, troops deployed in aging infrastructures — like those in Fort Belvoir — have likely inhaled or ingested asbestos fibers, as this natural mineral was extensively embedded in countless construction materials due to its durability and insulating properties.
Regrettably, it was only years later that its severe health tolls became fully recognized — including its link to debilitating diseases that contributed to nearly 8,100 deaths in the Commonwealth from 1999 to 2017. Worse, even as asbestos’s precarious legacy continues to shape veterans’ health outcomes, it is not the only issue that has drawn increasing scrutiny.
Concomitantly, public attention has likewise turned to PFAS, a massive class of nearly 15,000 human-made compounds dubbed “forever chemicals” because of their unparalleled resistance to breakdown by natural processes, fire, or strong chemicals. These properties have particularly made them highly valuable for military applications beginning in the 1960s, when the Navy first developed the aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) for fuel-based fire suppression and integrated it into routine training and emergency responses.
Over the following decades, that reliance then expanded across countless installations, with the Department of Defense becoming one of the largest users of this firefighting foam worldwide. Tragically, its pervasive presence meant discharging substantial concentrations of PFAS, thereby contaminating several installations in Virginia, including the now-defunct Vint Hill Farms Station, about 65 miles from Charlottesville.
Even more troubling, as research has progressed, concern grew over the health implications of exposure, with growing evidence linking PFAS to a host of life-threatening conditions like kidney, testicular, breast, ovarian, endometrial, prostate, and thyroid cancers.
Exposure demands policy response
The overlapping records of toxic exposure in the military underscore a broader reality that cannot be ignored: for thousands of veterans in Virginia, the consequences of service are not immediate but cumulative — emerging years or even decades after retirement.
More disconcerting is that in environments where multiple hazards coexist, the challenge is not only the health impact itself; it also reflects a persistent gap between lived experience and formal recognition within the benefits system, most notably the Honoring Our PACT Act of the Department of Veterans Affairs. At present, this policy has already established presumptive privilege for more than 20 conditions associated with dangerous substances such as burn pits and Agent Orange — marking an important shift toward evidence-based acknowledgment of service-connected illnesses.
Yet notwithstanding this progress, PFAS exposure remains outside the framework, which means veterans whose diseases are attributed to these substances must still independently prove that their condition is indeed associated with military service. Unfortunately, in practice, that burden can hamper or even prevent access to care and compensation. As such, to address this long-standing issue, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has lobbied for the VET-PFAS Act to fill the crucial gap.
By mandating the VA to extend the presumptive status to certain PFAS-related health conditions, this measure would effectively remove the need for veterans to repeatedly demonstrate the causation of their conditions. In turn, such would reduce delays in care, limit procedural barriers, and ensure that scientific understanding of exposure translates more directly into administrative action.
For Virginia’s veteran community, where military service is deeply woven into both family histories and local economies, the stakes are immediate and personal. Ceremonial recognitions such as the National Military Appreciation Month may honor that rare dedication, but meaningful appreciation must extend beyond acknowledgment to accountability. And advancing the VET-PFAS Act would definitely set a precedent by bringing long-overdue clarity to overlooked exposures—guaranteeing that recognition of service is matched by protection for those who bore its risks.
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