He now lives in North Bend, Wash. Decades ago, he took part in Project 112, which spawned Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense). Those projects were designed to test defenses against chemical and biological warfare on land and at sea. Many of Project 112's tests were conducted at Dugway.

Bunn said he's been trying since 2002 to get the VA to pay for tests on his lungs that will determine the best treatment options. His lung scarring makes it hard for him to exhale, although he inhales with relative ease.

To date, he has had to pay about $3,000 out of pocket for tests. A simple walk to the mailbox or playing with his granddaughter leaves the former private first class struggling to breathe. He wants relief.

Bunn said the VA has told him that his condition is related to exposure to asbestos during childhood. He disagrees, pointing to a time at Dugway when he spent a week in the hospital after one test.

"I'm not even sure what they were testing," Bunn said. "They told me when they let me out that my lungs would not function correctly. But they had the greatness to write it up as an upper respiratory infection."

On Nov. 5, Bunn contacted someone at the phone number listed on the new Web site. A month later, he was still waiting to hear about something that will help him.

"All I want is my medical benefits," Bunn said. "I want this service-connected so that they'll pay for all these tests. I'm still a guinea pig. They're getting the information they want from my body, but I have to pay for it ... I'm still a lab rat."

Health problems

Samuel Anderson, 78, was a pilot in charge of shadowing a drone aircraft that sprayed nerve gas during tests at Dugway in 1955. A photographer on board his plane was supposed to record the drone's activity. During one flight, Anderson received an alarming call over his radio.

"They kept yelling at me, 'Return to base, return to base,"' Anderson recalled. "I wasn't really certain what the situation was. Someone told me I had flown through the (nerve gas) cloud."

Right after he landed, Anderson and the photographer stripped to their underwear and were sprayed with a decontaminant. "I thought: This is serious business. This is not play time," Anderson said.

In the years that followed his honorable discharge from the Army as a first lieutenant in 1956, Anderson, who now lives in Knoxville, Tenn., said his feet burned after exercise. He eventually was diagnosed as having neuropathy, which long term means he may completely lose feeling in his feet or even be forced to amputate one or both of them.

After Medicare covers some of Anderson's medication, he pays about $7,000 a year of his own money to treat the neuropathy. He and his wife live on the stocks they have invested in over the years, and with the downturn in the economy, a lot of that money is disappearing, making the increasing cost of medication more of a worry for them.