For many Americans, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of the summer. Time off for enjoyment at the beach or on the water, and maybe taking advantage of a holiday sale at a car or boat dealership or a favorite retailer. It may be a time to attend a special patriotic program, or to visit a cemetery, or to commune quietly with family or friends with a backyard cookout.
For others, Memorial Day is a time of meditation of things past and present — and the past becomes the present.
Indeed, life-changing moments under hostile fire or the separation from home and loved ones become just as now as an inbound phone call or an email. A flashback can be just as up-to-the-moment as a glance at a heart-monitor watch.
“When you’re there to fight and you see your friends die, it changes your life,” Volusia County Veterans Services Special Projects Coordinator Scott Olson told The Beacon.
In his career with the county’s Veterans Services, Olson deals with the sacrifices of those who have served in the U.S. armed forces and their families and helps them get the benefits promised by the government they were called to serve. Olson himself is a former Marine staff sergeant who experienced war in Iraq.
Who is better to talk with someone about the trials and tribulations of war than someone who has come through the crucible of combat?
“I was stationed at Twenty-Nine Palms [in California],” Olson said. “I was with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. I did three tours in Iraq. The fourth deployment was on a Navy ship. We went to Hong Kong, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and the Pacific.”
“We would do seven months in-country,” he added, referring to his war deployments.
His own tours of combat duty took place in 2005, Aug. 2007-March 2008, 2009-10.
“We would deploy in battalions,” he said.
Olson knows firsthand the hardships of those who go off to a war thousands of miles away from home, and who, upon returning home, may have difficulty putting the war behind and away from them.
“We process a lot of claims for those with post-traumatic stress disorder,” he replied, when asked about those who served in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan — or both — and who reach out to the county’s Veterans Services.
Olson said sometimes the need to talk with someone about PTSD or submit a claim may follow a news report about the wars or their aftermath.
“I talk with a lot of my buddies that I served with, and they remember when ISIS was walking around,” he noted. “To see that going on, it would definitely stir some emotion.”
While serving in Iraq, Olson and his comrades-in-arms spent their time trying to stay alive for their families and friends. Survival was the priority.
DESERT PATROL — S/Sgt. Scott Olson, second from left, and his fellow Marines watch for signs of enemy activity in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province. The photo was taken in 2008.
“I was in the infantry. I was there to protect my brothers to my left and to my right,” he said.
It is a sign of the times that there are increasingly fewer veterans of World War II and the Korean War still alive to submit claims. Olson said he no longer sees those aging warriors coming to his offices. Other conflicts and past occurrences, however, are the stuff of claims for disability.
Although the Vietnam War ended nearly 50 years ago, the effects of that conflict continue. Is Agent Orange — a powerful herbicide sprayed by planes to clear jungles and deprive the enemy of cover — still an issue?
“Oh, yes. All the time,” Olson answered.
“It wasn’t just Agent Orange. There were others,” he added, noting other defoliants with names such as Agent White, Agent Pink and Agent Purple were used in Southeast Asia.
The different colors denoting the chemicals refer to the identifying colors on the metal containers in which they were stored.
In any case, exposure to those chemicals and others has been linked to cancer and other health problems, including birth defects in children born to Vietnam War veterans.
Of more recent vintage are the oil-well fires deliberately set on orders from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, as allied ground forces moved into that country. Many of the combatants who inhaled the thick smoke and fumes, combined with blowing sand, subsequently developed respiratory problems.
With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq came problems such as improvised-explosive devices, also known as roadside bombs, and traumatic brain injuries, common in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Olson credits the PACT Act with reducing the waiting time between filing a claim and getting an answer on compensation. PACT is an acronym for Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics, and it refers to a bill passed by the Congress and signed by President Biden in 2022.
“That really opened up a lot of benefits for anyone who served in the Southwest Asia Theater,” Olson said. “I think that VA [U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs] has processed over 2 million PACT Act claims. I have made many PACT Act claims.”
Closer to home, Olson said he and his colleagues are working and have worked on the claims made by fellow Marines and their families over the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, located at Jacksonville, North Carolina. The water consumed and used by Marines and their dependents and others at the base between 1953 and 1987 was tainted with industrial solvents that can cause cancer and may result in other medical conditions, including female infertility, leukemia and renal toxicity.
As many as 1 million people who served, lived or worked at Camp Lejeune during those years may have been affected by drinking or using the toxic water, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The ATSDR is a companion agency of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. In any event, the PACT Act is helpful in resolving those claims, as well, Olson noted.
Other interesting cases that have become claims for service-connected injuries, Olson said, are those connected with Operation White Coat, a military program of yesteryear to test disease and battlefield conditions, treatments and drugs. Some of the participants — volunteers and non-volunteers — in the secret Cold War-era program were, without their knowledge, given doses of hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD.
“They had to sign papers saying they would never talk about it,” Olson said, recalling what claimants had told him.
A LASTING MOMENT AWAY FROM THE FRONT — Marine S/Sgt. Scott Olson, left, poses with 2nd Lt. Sanford Shaw. A 2002 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shaw was later killed in combat in Iraq in 2010.
Some of the men who were given the psychoactive substances were never the same again. Olson remembered one such claim he had handled, resulting in a final favorable outcome after multiple denials.
“We went all the way up through Veterans Appeals,” he said.
“They should get disability compensation,” Olson added.
Will there be an increase in people coming to the Volusia County’s Veterans Services offices after the Memorial holiday activities, as well as the attention paid to military service and sacrifices?
“Maybe, and I hope so. And I would hope there would be some surviving spouses that may reflect on the loss of their loved ones. Memorial Day is a good time to reflect,” Olson concluded.
For more information about Volusia County Veterans Services, or to make an appointment, call 386-740-5102. The agency has offices in DeLand, Daytona Beach, Deltona and New Smyrna Beach.
