Jeffrey Cox is a U.S. soldier who recently spent two years in Iraq as a combat stress social worker in the Army Reserve. During this time he says he developed a chronic cough. The cough and his faltering health are thought to be the result of a toxic burn pit in Balad and Cox is now taking action to ensure other soldiers to encounter the same health problems when they return from the war.
 

"I don’t have an oxygen tank that I carry around, but it affects me," Cox tells reporters. "Everybody that knows me has heard my cough."

According to Cox heavy smoke that was consistently being emitted from the massive burn pits commonly filled his base and exposed soldiers to toxic fumes like benzene.

"You’d sit in there and breathe that in all day. The smoke was so thick some days that it went right into where I was sleeping. It was like a heavy fog of smoke," says Cox.

Soldier Takes Action with a Benzene Lawsuit
 
Cox recently filed a lawsuit against Halliburton and KBR claiming that the two companies used the pits as dumping ground for unwanted materials, many which were toxic, and ranged from human corpses to plastic foam and bottles.

Everything was reportedly lit on fire and produced toxic fumes and flames that shot hundreds of feet into the sky. Cox says this toxic smoke infested the nearby living quarters where American soldiers and government contractors resided.

Cox and a fellow soldier, James Garland of Osterville, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of carcinoma, filed the lawsuit together. Another 34 lawsuits concerning cancer diagnoses and other health problems from the same pits have also been filed. The benzene lawsuit claims that Halliburton and KBR were negligent with how they dealt with the pits. Some soldiers have even lost their lives from acute myeloid leukemia due to their exposure to the toxic fumes on base.