With help from the PACT Act, Veteran takes on new mission: beating cancer
Dan Buttery is all about the mission. From leading his company in Iraq to leading the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center, Buttery has spent most of his life fighting alongside and for Veterans. But now, he’s fighting a new foe — cancer. And the PACT Act has given him a head start on this mission.
“My mission statement doesn’t change,” said the 54-year-old Army Veteran. “I’m just going to take on a different capacity. I’m calling an audible on my operational tempo.”
Like many Veterans who served in Iraq, Buttery was exposed to burn pits during his service, and that exposure falls under the provisions of the PACT Act, a law enacted in 2022 that expanded VA health care to millions of Veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange and other toxic substances.
While Buttery — who helped stand up the first Fisher House in Wisconsin and served as assistant secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs — is stepping down from the War Memorial Center to devote his time and energy to his health, he said he will continue to serve Veterans in whatever ways he can.
“It’s time to recalibrate and figure out how to continue having a positive impact on the Veteran community,” he said.
And that includes promoting the benefits of the PACT Act and VA care.
“Because of the PACT Act, kidney cancer is a presumptive (condition). So I immediately filed (for benefits),” he said, adding that all Veterans who experience exposure to toxins should do the same.
“It’s preventive, like a colonoscopy,” he said. “Get in the system and have them check you out. If they see something, they’ll do a follow-up. And if you catch something early, you’ve just increased your chances for a longer, healthier life.”
Proud to serve
Though Buttery’s active duty service ended 17 years ago, he talks of his service — and those he served with — as if it were yesterday.
He brims with pride when he recounts the hundreds of missions his company from the Wisconsin National Guard's 724th Engineer Battalion (724 ENBN) accomplished during his deployment in 2003-04. Their unit was charged with clearing unexploded ordnance but also building whatever was needed to shore up the country’s infrastructure.
“We were a Swiss Army knife,” he said. “We could do so many different things.”
He remembers gaining the trust of an Iraqi village leader whose family had been in the region for thousands of years, as well as the respect of officers who far outranked him. In turn, he has nothing but the utmost respect for the soldiers he served with and the work they did.
But he also saw good men die — some while in country, others after returning home. He remembers the stench of the burn pits, how it was carried through the air by the unstoppable dust that permeated everything.
He specifically remembers a sergeant, approximately his same age, dying of cancer just 18 months ago. He’s seen much younger soldiers become ill. And he remembers when the alarming reports started coming out — many years after his deployment — about what was in the air they were breathing.
“This stuff is real,” he said. “All these crazy cancers are popping up all over the place. There are Vets who are healthier than I am, dying from strange, abnormal medical conditions at a higher rate than the average citizen.
“When the burn pit registry became a thing, I went in (to VA) right away because I knew I was around this stuff. You’re around it all the time.”
A new mission
While it was a spinal cord injury that led to Buttery’s medical discharge from the Army, the revelation of his cancer came from an acute appendicitis attack in July 2022. A subsequent CT scan showed a lesion on one of his kidneys.
That and the PACT Act led him to the Milwaukee VA, where the cancer was confirmed. Having lost his mother to cancer when she was 51, Buttery was ready to take on his new mission.
“When I hear cancer, I’m like, ‘Let’s attack this. Let’s go after this. Let’s put a plan in and figure out what we need to do’ – which is my attitude on everything,” he said.
“I have confidence in the docs who are doing this. We’re fortunate to have what we have here in Milwaukee. … The care here is amazing.”
Right now, Buttery’s tempo is wait and see. It’s a slow-growing cancer, and he undergoes regular tests to monitor it. When the time is right, his team will make the appropriate move.
“I was very fortunate” in having the cancer caught early, he said, and that was a direct result of the PACT Act. He believes any Veteran who has one of the presumptive conditions covered by the PACT Act should sign up for the registry and get screened.
“You’re literally playing Russian roulette, especially if you were exposed to this crap,” he said. “I know soldiers I served with who are now gone… so if you can find out, why not? You can address something now before it becomes a bigger, miserable, difficult problem.
“If you’re eligible, you have earned this benefit. … There’s no excuse for not going through this.”
Learn more about the PACT Act
The PACT Act is perhaps the largest health care and benefit expansion in VA history. Veterans of Vietnam, the Gulf War and post-9/11 eras interested in learning more about PACT Act eligibility should visit the PACT Act information page. The PACT Act covers more than 20 presumptive conditions related to burn pits, Agent Orange and other toxic exposures.