 So, last year, Congress passed the PACT Act, which automatically grants a service connection for numerous illnesses from veterans made sick by burn pit smoke in Iraq and Afghanistan to other exposures dating back to the Cold War in Vietnam. However, a recent AARP report found that nearly two-thirds of veterans don't know they're eligible for this care, and the deadline to register an intent to file is fast approaching. Dan Neves, the ambassador for Wounded Warrior Project, is here with me now with details. Dan, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Good, good, good. So tell me all about exactly like this deadline and what it covers and all of that. Yeah, absolutely. So it's really important to know first and foremost the deadline to get retroactive benefits to the day it was passed a year ago is Wednesday in a couple of days, August 9th. And so it's super simple. The VA has made it super simple to just go on and do an intent to file saying, like, hey, I served in these areas where toxic exposure was pretty imminent. There's a simple screening for that. And, you know, I want to say that I'm going to go get checked out. I might have any of these number of illnesses, predominantly cancers. And they have a year from that date to file and still get retroactive benefits. Now, at any time in their life, if something manifests a symptom, some sort of cancer or something, they can still file. They just won't get retroactive benefits to the day the law was passed. So that means like if you don't file and let's say like you've been hospitalized or whatever and you miss this deadline, that hospitalization isn't going to be covered. But if you sign up for the deadline, you're good. Right, exactly. So that that way you're saying, like, hey, I've been in these areas. You get a screening, say, like, hey, I'm eligible. And then so that way you're you're covered. The VA and the government has basically admitted if you served in all these areas, there's a whole host of cancers. The guy survived still today. Stage 3 colon cancer as a result of toxic exposure for my time in Iraq. Yeah. And, you know, there's like a whole subset of people who are like, oh, you know, it's like not a big deal. You know, like, okay, I feel fine. Like, why should I go file? And that's sort of who I was until I got a cancer diagnosis. Right. And I was like, oh, wow. Like, okay, so I lost both legs below the knee in combat. I'm like, okay, just one more thing. And that's that's sort of the reality is cancer doesn't discriminate. No. So I don't care how good you feel. I mean, I was I'm still am a yoga instructor. My diet was impeccable. I felt great. I was at the top of my game and then out of nowhere, bam, cancer diagnosis. Yeah. And it's all related. So is this kind of like blanket coverage in the sense of I guess I'm asking because when I think about like, if a company legally dump some toxins, right? The first thing they say when when cancers pop up is that like, oh, well, you can't directly connect that because we don't have the scientific proof that that actually happened. But what you're saying with the army, what the military is doing is basically like saying, like, no, we're just going to go ahead and cover it. Right. Yeah. It's a whole list of present. They're like, if you have these giant list of types of cancers, like all reproductive cancers, lung cancers, liver, intestinal cancers, digestive, like so many cancers are covered. It's it's easy to find out. Just pop on the pack. Yeah, just Google it and you'll see the whole list. And it's pretty extensive that they're saying we automatically assume that these conditions that you're having now, these cancers are coming from your service in these certain areas. Yeah. I mean, in my family, my uncle was exposed to Agent Orange. And with my brother came back from the Gulf War, the first Gulf War with the Gulf War syndrome. I mean, he seems to be doing OK now. My brother's crazy. So who knows? Mine, too. All right. It's a thing, right? Brothers, but but but yeah, definitely like this is the type of thing that he should be signing up for. Oh, 100 percent. Well, and so this is sort of why I get so preachy about it to people is it doesn't hurt you at all to go get your screening and go get checked out. I just go go get your chest x-ray, go get a colonoscopy. Matter of fact, in colon cancer, it's relevant to me because that's what I had. My oncologist practice is like a majority of them are under 35 years old. And so there's happening younger and younger and then just in general. And then you link that to toxic exposure and you have a whole generation of veterans who are, I don't want to say ticking time bombs to make it sound so dramatic, but I want people to feel like there's a little sense of urgency here because it's if it's not for you. And God forbid, like, I mean, I hope everyone's as healthy as possible, obviously, but with the rate of these cancers popping up in the world, I'm like, why don't you just take some time right now? While this there's like a reason to go get checked out and get it done because it's not just you either. So now if I ultimately succumb to this illness, because I'm enrolled in the PACT Act, there's a thing called the dependency and indemnity compensation that the VA has that will take care of my family once I'm gone. And if you don't enroll, that's you're never going to get it. You're never going to get it. Yeah. How is your cancer diagnosis going? It's going well. I have my actually next scans next week. Actually, this Saturday, I go get the scans and blood work and then Monday, I meet with my oncologist. So it's going well. I feel good for the first time. My last, well, my last open wound just closed a week ago from complications from surgery, but I feel good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know I lost a family member to cancer and I know that the preparing to go in for those scans can be a very scary thing. You know, like you're taking a deep breath and like just feeling like, oh, here we go. Exactly. Yeah. It's the same. Well, it's my wife. I have to talk off the ledge all the time. Yeah. She's the worrier. And I'm like, isn't it supposed to be the other way around where I'm supposed to be? She loves you, man. I mean, that's the beautiful thing. She loves you. Oh, my God. So tell me a little bit about your work with Wounded Warrior. Oh, man, I'm I love that organization so much. They have been there. They met me at my hospital bedside. Like I got blown up November 10th, 2004. So it was like late November by the time, you know, I got to Walter Reed and they met me at my hospital bedside with a backpack and a promise that whatever I needed or whatever my family needed, they'd be there for me. And they've been there every step of my healing. I was a pharmaceutical sales rep. I worked for Pfizer before I got reactivated to go back to combat. And I left my job in pharmaceutical sales to to go work in nonprofit first for the PGA tour raising money for Wounded Warrior Project and then for Wounded Warrior Project. And then I left in 2015 to do my own entrepreneurial things. But I am still an ambassador and a spokesperson for the organization today because we're just amazing people doing amazing things for an entire generation of warriors and their families. So if I ever get the opportunity to speak on their behalf or I'm I'm here to tell everybody, look, if you're a 9-11 generation of veteran, like get involved, yeah, right? Get involved, get maybe get some help that you need that you might not be admitting your needing, especially for the invisible wounds of war, or at least kind of stand up and be part of something, right? Like to get involved, because I think one of the best things Wounded Warrior Project is it is a it's a community where other Wounded Warriors get to like meet and hang out and do things together because the reality is in modern warfare, you go home after you're deployed and you're back in the civilian world. You don't really know a lot of people that have their same experiences. And it takes an organization like that to create the experiences where those people can get together and just talk. Yeah. And there's a lot of healing that happens in our community is how we heal like we can't do it individually. We all have to do it together. Amen. Yeah. Dan Evans, thank you so much for joining us. We will be right back.