One night in a quiet Texas bedroom, the impact of war finally caught up with Le Roy Torres. His lungs, which used to let him run long distances, burned with every breath. Everything he’d planned for his life was taken from him because of the war.
As he contemplated the unthinkable, his service dog—Hope—was at his feet.
Hope saved his life that night with her steady presence and warm eyes, which seemed to hold and understand all of his pain. With Hope and his wife Rosie by his side, he’d turn those dark moments into fuel to champion a cause that would take a decade to see to fruition.
The Effects of Toxic Exposure
“We met on January 24, 2002. I was a state trooper, and I would travel two hours to the Audie Murphy Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, for my dad, and lo and behold: That’s where I met Miss Lopez at the time. She helped me with my dad’s appointment and we became friends, and here we are,” Le Roy told We Are the Mighty.
Miss Lopez is now Rosie Torres. She quickly fell in love with Le Roy, and they married not long after. He was an Army reservist logistics officer and proud Texas state trooper. By 2007, he was activated and deployed to Iraq in November for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“I was living next to these massive burn pits, the largest in Iraq at about 10 acres. So you know, we breathed it, and we lived it, ingested it,” Le Roy shared. “December 30, I had to go to the troop medical clinic, and I was quarantined for 72 hours. I had a really bad upper respiratory infection.
“It became a routine. Every couple of months, I had to go and see the doctor, developed this dry cough, and started waking up with headaches towards the end of my deployment.”
That first time, he was told that it was just going to take time for his body to acclimate to Iraq. Medical personnel gave him a Z-Pak when he was discharged and sent him on his way. This process and explanation continued throughout his deployment.
“Right before I left Iraq, they handed me a letter which had a write-up on the possible hazards of burn pit exposure, and that’s when I knew this was going to be an issue that would follow me home,” Le Roy remembered.
Weeks after returning home to Texas, Le Roy was in the emergency room, severely ill. He remembers a doctor asking him about environmental exposures.
As Le Roy battled constant sickness month after month, he did everything he could to maintain his responsibilities as a state trooper, but he missed a lot of work. Finally, a supervisor sent him home, worried he might be contagious.
“For about two months, we traveled around Texas. From military hospitals to MD Anderson in Houston, Lackland Air Force Base to Audie Murphy [VA Medical Center]. They’d say, ‘Well, there is something wrong with you, but we don’t know exactly what it is.’ And, of course, burn pit exposure wasn’t even recognized at the time,” Le Roy said.
“Finally, Dr. Miller at Vanderbilt said that you have this constrictive bronchiolitis, but the only way I can get the answer was through an invasive surgery biopsy. They took two small wedges, and that’s how they discovered my lung injury. I was diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis with peribronchiolar fibrosis. That brought some sense of peace, that at least now I know what’s wrong with me.”
The couple drained their life savings to get answers. When they finally returned to Texas, he thought his job as a trooper would be waiting for him, but instead, he was forced to resign.
Le Roy had dreamed of continuing his time in the Army and was actually working toward becoming a chaplain. When his lung biopsy came back, he was forced into a medical retirement. With his dreams crumbling around him, he was headed down a dark road.
“That was the point where I began to turn my pain into purpose after Hope saved my life. That’s when I got up, and that’s what actually drove me to file the case against DPS [Department of Public Safety],” he explained.
Fighting Back
Rosie and Le Roy worked together to build a registry of veterans experiencing issues after exposure to burn pits overseas. Burn Pits 360 became a 12-year battle to get veterans the care and support they deserved from the beginning.
“There were times when I remember sitting in my kitchen crying after we started the registry. I’m like, ‘I don’t want to carry this cross. I don’t want it. Give it to somebody else.’ And I clearly remember God saying, ‘It has to be you. It can’t be anybody else,’” Rosie said.
“The registry we started is what helped us craft the policy. It allowed the families and the veterans to have somewhere to feel heard, and from feeling heard, it allowed us to collect data that then allowed us to go to Congress and say you can’t ignore the fact that 10,000 people are experiencing these symptoms and this is not coincidental.”
By 2013, President Barack Obama signed a federal law requiring a national burn pit exposure registry, but legislation requiring the Department of Veterans Affairs to preemptively recognize burn pit exposure illnesses wouldn’t be introduced until 2021.
In 2017, Le Roy filed a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety. It had been nearly nine years since he returned from Iraq. Torres alleged that DPS violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) by failing to provide him a position that could accommodate the service-connected disability he developed after his Iraq deployment.
The PACT Act
After uniting with numerous veterans service organizations (VSOs) and aligning with the 9/11 community, and with Jon Stewart at the helm using his platform, Congress finally listened. In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act into law.
Just weeks before the historic PACT Act signing, Le Roy’s Supreme Court case came back. In Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in his favor, reversing the Texas court and allowing his USERRA lawsuit against DPS to proceed. A year later, a Texas jury took less than two hours to reach a verdict.
The state was ordered to pay him $2.49 million in lost wages and benefits.
“The USERRA case was fought to set legal precedents for all these other veterans who are reservists who felt this fear of not feeling protected. I’m not gonna leave any stone unturned. It’s not OK to do this to people,” Rosie said.
Le Roy shared the story of the moments before his long-ago lung biopsy. Rosie held his hand and promised him she’d fight till her last breath for answers and a resolution. Alongside her husband, they’re doing it for millions of veterans, and now civilians deployed overseas, too.
“In honor of Kenya Merritt, there’s new legislation, the Kenya Merritt Renewing Our PACT Act of 2026. We’re fully supporting it. This bill would help not only FBI agents but even, for example, CID and NCIS civilians who were deployed,” LeRoy shared.
Two years ago, Le Roy’s beloved Hope passed over the rainbow bridge. He credits her not only with saving his life on that dark night, but also with igniting a movement that will serve millions. Despite recent losses and being tethered to oxygen constantly, Le Roy’s heart is light. His words for others struggling were simple: Don’t lose hope and have faith.
Everywhere that Rosie and Le Roy go, they still meet people living the same story. A firefighter who can’t walk up stairs, federal agents with sudden cancer diagnoses, or veterans who spent their last days chasing required paperwork.
Most will never make it to a microphone or into a congressional hearing. But their names live on a spreadsheet that Rosie started at her kitchen table, praying to God for the strength to carry the weight of their pain.
The war that followed them home is far from over, but because of Rosie and Le Roy, it is no longer silent. It has names, numbers, laws, and a living registry.
To learn more about Burn Pits 360 and the work Rosie and Le Roy Torres are doing, visit BurnPits360.org.
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