It is possible there are legitimate links (I lived and worked near the burn pits and those for sure messed up my respirstory system). But maybe more likely is b

It is possible there are legitimate links (I lived and worked near the burn pits and those for sure messed up my respirstory system). But maybe more likely is because you get an automatic 50% disability rating from the VA when you’re diagnosed in service. It’s automatically presumed that if you had no diagnosis before that it is service connected. I.e. you developed it as a result of your service and therefore the VA will compensate you for it. This means an extra $1-2 thousand per month for life in most cases. So there is this natural experiment where we have a population with a very high incentive to get tested compared to the baseline population.