Sgt. Kevin Lee Lloyd

Kevin is a 40-year-old U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran who proudly served our country in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

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Like so many veterans of his era, Kevin was exposed to open-air burn pits — toxic exposure that led to a diagnosis no one should ever face: Stage 4 colorectal cancer. It has spread to numerous systems in his body, including his brain, and has almost completely robbed him of his sight and ability to care for and advocate for himself. This cancer is 100% service related. His body is failing, and he may only have days or weeks left. But instead of receiving the honorable care he deserves, he is being abandoned by the very system he fought to protect.

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The VA is attempting to push Kevin into a nursing home — not to provide care, but to get rid of him. He is not on an oncology unit, as we have been falsely told. He is on a medical-surgical unit, left to wait for hours for pain medication and basic nursing care that would maintain his humanity. He is calling for help and having staff enter his room to turn off his call light only to be told that due to shift changes or staffing issues he must wait hours on end for his basic needs to be met. His cancer is beyond the VA’s capability — a fact they admitted in writing in December 2023 when they referred him to community oncology. And yet they misrepresented his condition to MD Anderson in order to meet their own bureaucratic needs and not his.

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Kevin is nearly blind. He is in agony. And he knows this is happening.

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We have been pleading for help from local elected officials from Montgomery County since June '23, the day he was admitted. Our cries are falling on deaf ears.

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We are currently living at the Fisher House- a place for military and veteran families to stay while their loved one is in the hospital — displaced from our own home — so Kevin does not die alone. I am terrified to leave his side due to medical errors, neglect, and fear of retaliation while staff neglect to provide basic care and mock his coherence and understanding of the situation.

 

Our three young sons are watching their father be discarded by the government he served, two of them with lifelong medical needs of their own.

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We tell our children “Once a Marine, Always a Marine” and “we never leave a man behind.” But Kevin has been left behind. If we were still active duty, this would never be allowed to happen. He would be treated with honor, dignity, and the full support of the military family.

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This isn’t just cancer — he was poisoned by the burn pits overseas, his cancer is covered under the PACT Act and he is dying for it. He deserves the same care and support he would receive if he were still serving abroad.

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We are asking — begging — for the public, the press, and the veteran community to stand up with us.