(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Veterans and supporters gather at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City for a protest in response to Trump administration policies on Friday, March 14, 2025.
As a Utah National Guard veteran with two deployments to Iraq, I’m furious at The Washington Post’s recent articles attacking veterans’ disability benefits. They framed it as though the VA is handing out “billions” for minor conditions — like veterans are gaming the system for snoring or bad backs. That narrative isn’t just wrong; it’s dangerous. It feeds the old stigma that if a wound isn’t visible, it isn’t real.
For veterans like me, that stigma becomes guilt. My VA rating isn’t for sleep apnea, though I’ve had more sleep studies than I can count because it’s the “easy answer” doctors check first (and sometimes second and third). My condition — a chronic lung disease that causes unpredictable oxygen drops — developed years after deployments where we lived beside massive burn operations: one an open pit, another later called an “incinerator,” as though a different label made it safer. It didn’t. The VA ruled my lung damage as likely as not caused by those exposures.
It took nine months with no income and mountains of evidence to get that rating — and that was considered fast. Many veterans wait years or give up entirely, convinced the system is stacked against them.
The Post should be ashamed of fueling the same guilt and suspicion that already keep veterans from seeking help. Sleep apnea, lung disease, toxic exposure, PTSD — they’re not handouts. They’re the long-term cost of service. The sad truth is it took the PACT Act to finally bring overdue justice to many Vietnam veterans poisoned by Agent Orange. We shouldn’t have to fight that same battle again.
I’m proud to have served with the Utah National Guard — an organization with a long, proud history of answering the call both at home and abroad. Utah’s Guardsmen have stood shoulder to shoulder through fires, floods and deployments across the globe. We’ve always shown up when needed. It’s time our nation, and the media that speak for it, show the same respect in return.
Utah’s veterans stepped up when our country called. The Washington Post should step up its integrity.
SFC (Ret.) Jason G. Christensen, Holden