That’s not snow. That’s fire-retardant foam that John Sherman, a 60th Engineer Squadron firefighter, is seen in the midst of at an aircraft hangar at Travis Air Force Base in California on Sept. 24, 2013. Firefighters were helping control the foam’s dispersion using powerful fans and covering drains. Now, ‘forever chemicals’ found in the foam that military firefighters were using has been linked for the first time to testicular cancer. (Ken Wright / Air Force)
Gary Flook served in the Air Force for 37 years, as a firefighter at the now-closed Chanute Air Force Base in Champaign County and the former Grissom Air Force Base in northern Indiana, where he regularly trained with aqueous film forming foam — AFFF, a frothy white fire retardant that’s highly effective but now known to be toxic.
Flook volunteered at his local fire department, where he also used the foam, unaware of the health risks it posed.
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