Area 51 veterans getting cancer as DOD denies they were there

NewsNation Anchor Natasha Zouves has much more on the Area 51 veterans fighting for benefits. To watch her full report, tune into “NewsNation Prime” this Saturday at 7p/6C.

(NewsNation) — Dave Crete adds another name to a growing memorial list, now more than 400 in total — men and women he says he served with on a secretive range in the Nevada desert that encompasses Area 51.

Crete and his fellow veterans were hand-picked and tasked with top-secret work. They couldn’t even tell their wives what they did every day.

“We couldn’t even tell them the weather,” said Crete.

Now, Crete says he is discovering this group has more in common than their years of service those decades ago. Many are developing serious health issues, multiple tumors and, in too many cases, deadly cancers.

A group of these veterans are telling NewsNation’s Natasha Zouves that they are unable to get the care and benefits they need because the Department of Defense refuses to acknowledge they were ever stationed in the desert. The DOD records sent to Veterans Affairs lists the same two words between asterisks in black and white: “DATA MASKED.”

“They keep us classified to protect themselves,” said Crete.

Crete says the average age on the memorial list is 65.

Backyard barbecue leads to shocking discovery

A 2016 reunion barbecue at Crete’s Las Vegas home was supposed to be a chance for Air Force buddies to reminisce after almost three decades apart, serving together in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. It was veteran Randy Groves who suddenly brought up the subject of tumors — a comment that stopped Dave Crete in his tracks.

“We’re just sitting around drinking beers,” recounted Groves. “I said, ‘You guys, I got this this lump on my back. Does anybody else got that?’ And Dave goes, ‘Yeah, I had a big one cut out.’”

Dave Crete says he had, in fact, developed more than 20 lipomas on his body, ranging from his forehead to his arms to his torso; one of them grew so large that it had to be excised from his back.

“I said, ‘Yeah, I had one of those. I had it removed. It was the size of a grapefruit,’” he recalls.

The veterans discovered that out of the eight men sitting around that circle, six of them had developed tumors. The seventh man said, “I don’t have any, but my son was born with one.”

“It just kind of confirmed it. There was an issue where we were. That’s the one common denominator. We were all there,” said Groves.

“There” was the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), an area encompassing the infamous Area 51. This remote site, known for its nuclear testing since the 1950s, both underground and atmospheric, hosted highly classified military operations.

The veterans still can’t talk about most of their work on the range, but the one declassified mission they can now disclose involves guarding the F-117 Nighthawk, America’s first stealth bomber.

The full scope of their work will likely never be known by the public, but Crete says he takes refuge in a conversation he had with the late Sen. John McCain.

“We never talked about what I had done, but I knew he knew. He was on the Senate Armed Services Committee, so he knew. And he came up to me and he says, ‘Your unit ended the Cold War.’ If you ever wanted a validation what you did was important, that’s just about it,” said Crete.

‘It’s a matter of betrayal‘

Veteran Mike Nemcic had the same tumors as his crewmates at the barbecue, starting around his eye, followed by multiple cancers.

“I was to the point where I felt forsaken. I thought, ‘My God has forsaken me,’” said Nemcic.

Nemcic endured four bouts with cancer — throat, salivary gland, bladder and colon — starting at just 38 years old. He says his biggest fear was leaving his young family behind without a father or provider.

There is also a persistent guilt that won’t leave Nemcic: watching the young men he selected for his team go on to develop serious health issues. This includes Bob Morton, who passed away in 2021 from lung cancer. He was 58 years old.

“I would repeat my military service over again without hesitation because I know it was important to our country. The only regret I have is, once I was there, I got to choose who my team was going to be. I selected Bob to be part of my team. And he’s on my mind. If I wouldn’t have done that, he would still be here,” Nemcic said, holding back tears.

Nemcic is far from alone. Robert Krouse is a former DOD contractor who worked alongside these vets. He endured two cancers, having 80% of his tongue removed along with his vocal cords and all of his teeth. He can’t speak and can’t eat. Despite this, he says he feels blessed to be alive.

“I have a feeding tube, but I saw friends who passed away or are paralyzed and can’t walk,” said Krouse. “I’m just blessed I’m functional but not as handy. I feel blessed. I’m much better off than some.”

Krouse says he “assumed it was safe,” as did all of these men and women. Documentation has been unearthed since their service showing what the government knew before deciding to send these Air Force members into the desert.

“It’s like a kick in the gut. It’s just a matter of betrayal,” said Nemcic. “These folks knew, and they purposefully kept it quiet because it was more beneficial to them not to tell us.”

What the government knew: An unearthed 1975 report

Before Pomp Braswell became a pro golfer and a Harlem Globetrotter, he served.

“You’re hand-picked, you know, you’re the top of the top,” said Braswell. “It felt very special, especially at a young age. My mom knew absolutely zero about what I was doing. She knew there was a phone number if she needed to get ahold of me, that’s it.”

The Air Force vet is now fighting thyroid cancer.

“Our government knew that the area was contaminated. So knowing that, and they willfully put us there, that’s giving somebody a death sentence,” said Braswell.

Hundreds of nuclear weapons tests were conducted in the area of the range from the 1950s to the early 1990s. In the 1970s, the government began exploring the idea of building a military installation there to house classified projects.

A 1975 Environmental Report from the U.S. Energy Research & Development Administration acknowledges nuclear contamination — depleted uranium, beryllium and plutonium —  present before these men and women were sent by the government to the range. But the report adds, “Discontinuing the work done … would be against the national interest.”

“It’s one thing to be ignorant or to be naive to not know,” said Dave Crete. “But they’ve understood for a long time.”

The issue is that now, these veterans are telling NewsNation their claims are being denied by Veterans Affairs, their work so top secret that their records from the DOD are what’s called “Data Masked,” as if they were never there.

“I feel pushed aside,” said Braswell. “That our government has chosen to use national security as their excuse to not take care of the people who took care of them.”

Crete has decided to go public despite risks he believes could be involved. He now runs The Invisible Enemy, a nonprofit fighting for government transparency, pushing for legislation that would provide medical treatment and compensation for military personnel and their families who were exposed to contamination at the Nevada Test and Training Range.

Ripple effects: Sickened families

Along with worries about their own health, many of these veterans carry something else: guilt. They fear they have also exposed their families, both through the genetic material they contributed and the contamination brought home on their boots and uniforms. They were routinely covered in dust from the range.

‘We were in the dirt all the time. I can recall the times where when we perspire, that our uniforms would turn kind of a yellowish orange,” said Nemcic.

Nemcic says he and his fellow veterans would serve for days at a time on the base and then return home, handing their uniforms caked in dirt to their wives to launder.

“We would fly home with this stuff on us,” said Nemcic. “The part that’s the most difficult is that there was someone who knew, or a group of people who knew that this could happen, and withheld that information — and then allowed us to basically poison our families and ourselves. That hurts. That hurts.”

“Everybody’s wives were having miscarriages,” said Dave Crete. “And then you get the birth defects.”

Dave’s wife, Aylin Crete, suffered three miscarriages. The couple says three of their four children have serious health issues. Their oldest son was born with a brain tumor and was later diagnosed with neurofibromatosis.

“It’s the worst. Those are the most innocent victims,” said Crete through tears. “They have nothing to do with nothing. I went to work every day. And I did my job. And my kids suffer.”

Nemcic believes he’s seen the ripple effects of his service in the health issues of his two children: a son who has a thickening of the walls of the heart and a daughter with breast cancer.

Randy Groves, the USAF veteran who initially brought up his tumor at the reunion barbecue, says his wife miscarried twice while they were stationed there.

“Many wives were having miscarriages while there. We had two sons born with health issues. My youngest was born with a heart defect,” said Groves. “I’m proud of my service to my country, but I feel we should’ve been told. Our country knew.”

A mother’s dying act

Jennifer Callahan Page says the contamination on the range “took out my whole family.”

Her father and grandfather both served for 10 and 20 years, respectively, and her mother worked on the range for 30 years as a civilian who was tasked with hiring guards for the test site. Page says she watched all three of them die.

“They’re all gone. And that’s my entire family. So I don’t have anybody left,” said Page.

She says her father died at 56 years old, with lungs that came back on imaging tests as “infiltrated with white.”

“All of the stuff they were exposed to, the plutonium and uranium. It was ruining the pockets of their lungs,” said Page. “Eighty percent of his lungs were filled. My father was my best friend. We talked daily. He called me sometimes several times a day just to say, ‘Hey, I got a great joke.’ And he’d laugh and say, ‘Love you,’ and hang up.”

She moved her mother in with her in Las Vegas, with plans to travel the world and spend time with her grandkids. Then, her mother also got sick.

“About a month after she got here, we had to put her into the hospital. They found tumors and said her entire body cavity was filled,” said Page. “She had Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She had already had a hysterectomy from cervical cancer and a mastectomy from breast cancer. They said there’s no hope, and you just need to make your peace and say your goodbyes.”

Page says it was in hospice where she asked her mother how this happened — what occurred on the range?

“I sat at her bedside every day just holding her hand. She just said, ‘I knew I was exposed. And I knew someday I might need to prove where I was at and what I had done and what I was exposed to in order to get treatment.’ So she started collecting documents,” said Page.

Her mother gave Page a cache of photographs that she had worked to get declassified before she retired. Page has given the cache to NewsNation so they can be seen by the public for the first time.

“There are pictures at the test site. There’s pictures of the control rooms, and the range and what the entire map looks like, pictures of the vent holes and the main craters,” said Page. “[My mom] apologized to me, crying, saying, ‘I’m sorry I ever worked there. I know that’s what’s killing me.’”

Page recalls there was a sense of pride and fond memories growing up in a home where her family members did such important work. There was also a deep understanding of the secrecy, of the highly classified nature of their day-to-day activities on the range.

“When I was a little kid, I’d say, ‘Gosh, you know, everybody’s talking bout this spaceship,’ and [my grandfather] would go, ‘Oh yeah, we don’t talk about that.’ I learned very quickly not to ask questions,” said Page.

Page describes the situation now, of the DOD continuing to refuse to acknowledge the veterans’ service on the range, as “maddening.”

“They were there. They have badges. They have IDs that show where they were. How do you not cover that and just go nope, they weren’t there. No, they weren’t exposed. That doesn’t make it go away. It makes the suffering worse. That’s compounding the issue,” said Page.

‘The guy who cooked the cheeseburger in the chow hall is covered‘

The veterans say they are further confused by who the government has chosen to cover. The Department of Energy workers who worked alongside these veterans on the very same base, but often for fewer hours, are currently provided for.

Under the 2000 EEOICPA Act signed by President Bill Clinton, DOE workers who had presumptive nuclear exposure at the exact same site were provided medical benefits, but the act does not cover veterans or DOD workers.

“The guy who cooked the cheeseburger in the chow hall for me is covered. If they’ve had problems, they have lifetime medical, and they’ve received financial compensation of up to $400,000. The guys that would go out and build the hangers that I had to guard have been compensated, and we can’t be,” said Crete. “The folks that work for the Department of Energy out there have been taken care of. You put us in a place that you knew would harm us. All we’re asking for is the benefits that anybody exposed to the same things anywhere else would be entitled to.”

NewsNation reached out to the Department of Defense for answers. We asked them about the 1975 Environmental Report and the veterans’ claims that their diseases are linked to contamination on the range. We also asked why DOE workers received coverage and compensation, but these veterans have not.

The DOD said they would not comment and referred us to the Air Force.

The Air Force said, “We don’t have any information available from that time frame.”

NewsNation went to Veterans Affairs. The VA told us there is no presumptive exposure for these veterans who served at the range, and these veterans will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to prove their illnesses are related to their service.

The vets tell us this is difficult, if not impossible, when their data is masked.

Their new fight: A path forward

Dave Crete and the other veterans say their hope lies in legislation. His nonprofit, The Invisible Enemy, has been working with Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada, hoping to pass a bill that would guarantee medical treatment and financial compensation to all military personnel who were sickened as a result of exposure to radiation and toxins on the NTTR.

Moves toward legislation have been slow and have suffered several setbacks. Crete and the other veterans hope that by coming forward with their stories, the public will support their mission.

Crete says time is of the essence.

“Yesterday, I added the 446th name to the memorial list. And we suspect that we probably know of about a third of the people that are dead who served up there,” said Crete. “We did something important. We did good work. We changed things. … We don’t deserve being ignored by saying we don’t exist.”

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