I spent four years serving our country at one of the world’s most secretive military installations. Today, the federal government acknowledges that the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) contains contamination.
But there is a catch. It’s only considered contaminated if you worked for the Department of Energy (DOE)
. Department of Defense (DOD) personnel who served at the same location are not eligible for the veterans' benefits they have earned.Both cannot be right.
I served in the U.S. Air Force from 1983 to 1989, including four years supporting highly classified programs on the NTTR. I am proud of that service and consider it an honor.
This is not an attack on the Defense Department. The Nevada Test and Training Range remains vital to America's
national security, and the people serving there today do extraordinary things.
This is about what happens after our service, to us and our families.
Why should military veterans be treated less than energy employees?
There should no longer be a debate over whether contamination exists on the NTTR. The federal government has already answered that question. The Energy Department's own records document radiological and chemical contamination on the testing range.
Nuclear weapons testing in Nevada occurred from 1951 to 1992, and DOE continues environmental restoration and long-term monitoring today. Some radioactive contaminants can persist in the environment for thousands of years.
The Department of Defense cannot claim this is someone else's history. DOD itself participates in the federal framework governing investigation, remediation and monitoring of contaminated sites. Yet when veterans become seriously ill, they face an extraordinary burden to demonstrate that this contamination resulted in their individual exposure and disease.
This is not science. This is a federal double standard.
In 2000, Congress created the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program to provide compensation and medical benefits to qualifying DOE workers who developed illnesses associated with radiation and toxic exposures.
The federal government created a pathway for qualifying DOE workers connected to these Nevada sites, yet no comparable avenue exists for military veterans who served in the same environment.
The result is difficult to defend: The government recognizes occupational exposure risks when the worker's paycheck came from the Energy Department – but not when the person wore a U.S. military uniform.
DOE employees, contractors and DOD personnel did not work in separate universes. They operated in the same environment, often supporting the same missions. The difference was often simply who signed their paycheck.
Military, DOD and DOE personnel were all exposed. We deserve equal treatment.
For veterans, proving exposure decades later can be nearly impossible. Our locations, activities and records were classified for national security reasons. Many were never even issued personal radiation dosimeters. You cannot fail to measure someone's exposure and then, decades later, use the absence of that measurement as evidence that exposure didn't occur.
The federal government has already recognized this evidentiary problem for certain DOE workers. Qualifying Nevada test site workers were placed into a "special exposure cohort" because the government determined that certain historical radiation doses could not be reliably reconstructed. Sometimes the records needed to prove what happened decades ago simply don't exist.
Why should the military and DOD personnel be treated any differently than someone who worked at DOE? Our elected officials and those in charge at the Pentagon love to tout their support for veterans, but when they are behind closed doors, that support sometimes disappears.
And the story does not end with those of us who served. The men and women I served beside – and the families who shared the consequences of that service – deserve equal treatment. As a result, in 2023 I founded The Invisible Enemy, a nonprofit organization that advocates for those associated with service on the Nevada Test and Training Range.
Our organization hears from more than just veterans – we also hear from family members reporting miscarriages, birth defects and serious generational illnesses. That does not prove every illness or reproductive outcome was caused by a parent's service. Even so, these families deserve better than a blanket dismissal because the DOD refuses to be accountable for exposing those who served to radiation and other toxins.
When I started The Invisible Enemy, I began to chart a memorial list for all who served on the testing range but had passed away. To date, we have more than 600 names on our list, and it continues to grow. Those names are not statistics. Each represents someone who answered the call, kept the secret and believed that the country they protected would never abandon them.
Now Congress has an opportunity to address this inequity.
US acknowledges the contaminated ground. Recognize those who stood on it.
The bipartisan Sergeant Dave Crete FORGOTTEN Veterans Act of 2026 bears my name. Introduced on June 3, this is an honor I accept on behalf of everyone who served at the testing range. The legislation would require the government to recognize NTTR as an area of contamination and help identify the people who served there, so that those who worked on the range and their family members may finally be able to receive the benefits the government promised when they joined the military.
The legislation would allow the veterans and civilian DOD workers to prove they were there, confirm they were exposed to radiation and other toxins, and help create a presumptive connection to their illnesses. That isn't abandoning science. It is acknowledging reality.
We kept America's secrets because protecting the mission meant protecting America. Honoring that oath should not now be used against us.
If contamination is real enough for DOE to document, clean up and monitor, real enough for DOD to participate in agreements governing its remediation, and real enough for the federal government to compensate and care for qualifying DOE workers, then it is real enough to acknowledge when evaluating military and civilian DOD personnel, and to investigate what might have happened to their families.
The government already recognizes the contaminated ground. It is time to recognize the people who stood on it – and the families still living with its legacy.
Dave Crete, a U.S. Air Force veteran, is founder and chairman of The Invisible Enemy, a nonprofit advocating for veterans, civilian personnel, contractors and families associated with service on the Nevada Test and Training Range.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: We served on toxic ground. The government owes us the truth | Opinion
