One of the most important reasons I keep advocating for The Conn Act is because of what I discovered while reviewing my father’s military and VA records.

My dad, Sgt. Richard Andrew Conn, was a Vietnam veteran awarded the Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal with “V” device for valor. But to understand his true exposure history, I had to do what the system should have already done.

I had to:

-identify typos and inconsistencies on his DD214 and award records
-trace his units, duty stations, and timeline in Vietnam
-research likely chemical and environmental exposures based on his MOS, specialty duties, combat dates, and known herbicide use during that era — including Agent Orange and the broader “rainbow herbicides” used in Vietnam
-compare those exposures with his long-term symptoms and health decline
-and piece together records scattered across multiple departments, systems, and misspelled files

Even basic military details — including his connection to the 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam — were not clearly reflected in his VA medical records.

The same is true for exposure risk at U.S. military bases, including legacy asbestos exposure that affected countless service members long before anyone thought to track it properly.

My father should not have needed a daughter to reconstruct what the system should have known.

That should never happen.

A veteran’s MOS, unit, base locations, battlefield exposures, lack of PPE, airborne hazards, contaminated food or water, chemical contact, inhalation risks, and specialty duties should all matter at intake — and they should not have to be reconstructed by a grieving family decades later.

This is why I believe we need:

-one unified records system
-true interoperability across VA, DoD, and archived military records
-specialized MOS- and exposure-based screening at every VA intake
-and ongoing re-evaluation of veterans over time as symptoms and science evolve

We also need ongoing research into secondhand and intergenerational toxic exposure risks for military and veteran families — including the children of Vietnam-era veterans and others who may have been affected by take-home, household, or reproductive exposure pathways that still are not fully understood.

This is not just about my father.

I am confident his experience is one of many.

Veterans should not have to prove the full story of their exposure history through fragmented records, missing files, clerical errors, and disconnected departments. And families should not have to become investigators to uncover what should have been visible from the start.

If we are serious about protecting those who served, then we need to start with common sense, transparency, accountability, and full-picture screening.

They put their lives on the line for this country.

The least we can do is build a system that knows who they were, where they served, what they were exposed to, and how those exposures may still be affecting them.

That is why I keep fighting for The Conn Act.

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