Air Force vets who served at top secret Area 52 base reveal how it made them sick with tumors but say they can’t get aid because the government refuses to acknowledge their mission

Veterans who served at a top-secret base called “Area 52” say the government won’t compensate them for becoming sick from their service because the U.S. won’t confirm they ever went there.

Air Force veterans previously sued the federal government after allegedly developing health problems as a result of working at the base, known as Tonopah Test Range, in the 1980s.

More and more service members are coming forward with stories of how working at the nuclear test site left them with a debilitating illness later in life, as America tested weapons that would leave behind toxic radioactive material, according to a federal review.

Mark Ely, 63, served at the base in his 20s as a technician inspecting secretly acquired Soviet fighter jets in what was known as a “quiet house” when he was physically fit.

Now he counts the various life-threatening problems he faces during the various secret missions, he says because of the radiation from tests at Area 52.

“It’s scarred my lungs. I have cysts on my liver. … I developed lipomas, tumors in my body that I had to remove. My lining in my bladder had become loose,” Ely said CBS News.

He says he cannot get the government to recognize his services, which was done under a non-disclosure agreement, and that he cannot prove he worked there.

“There’s a slogan people say: ‘Deny deny until you die.’ It’s true here,” Ely said.

“Upholding the national interest was more important than my own life,” he added.

Ely says he is furious with the federal government after the service he gave to their efforts during the height of the Cold War.

“It makes me incredibly angry and it hurts me too, because they should have my support,” Ely said. “I had theirs and I want them to have mine.”

Dave Crete has long spoken out about the effects of the tests on soldiers and has spent much of the past decade trying to locate hundreds of other veterans who worked there. He is one of two who filed a lawsuit last year over his and another soldier’s service in the more infamous “Area 51.”

He says he has seen ‘all kinds of cancer’ in veterans, while he himself suffers from chronic bronchitis, breathing problems and a tumor that he had to have removed from his back.

Crete was employed by the Air Force Security Police Squadron to guard the F-117A stealth bomber at the firing range.

While many government employees have been able to receive more than $25 billion in federal assistance while working in the region, Air Force veterans like Ely and Crete have been left out.

The Ministry of Defense confirmed Ely and Crete served but declined to say where when contacted for comment.

Crete and Pomp Braswell – the co-plaintiff in his lawsuit – claim their health problems arose after the land on which they lived and worked was contaminated with toxic materials from government tests.

“The point is, we were all hand-picked to get permission up there,” Braswell, who worked at the location between 1987 and 1990, told the outlet.

“Having said that, we were all at the top of our game, always,” he added.

“The government said they had secured the area so there would be no further spread of the contagion,” said Crete, who worked at the base between 1983 and 1987.

“The way they secured it was with a barbed wire fence. Now, I don’t have a PhD in physics,” he added, “but a barbed wire fence isn’t going to do that.”

Crete, now a campaigner for wounded or injured government workers, said he realized something was wrong after attending a reunion with those who used to work in his unit at the test range.

“There are eight of us and six of us have tumors, something like that just can’t be normal,” he explained.

“One of the guys who didn’t say his child was born with a tumor,” he said.

The Ministry of Defense has claimed to the men that they were not in the area at the times they stated.

This means that they have not been entitled to compensation for themselves or their families.

“They say their plane was there, but we weren’t, so the plane flew itself, guarded itself, parked itself and repaired itself. It makes me angry,” Crete said.

“Because we are not recognized as having a sense of duty, people with children are dying without any benefits for those children or that widow.

“It’s disheartening,” Braswell, now a professional golfer, said of the government’s response.

“It’s infuriating, especially when our government and company take care of other countries and they don’t take care of us.”

Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei told Arizona Family News he is working on a bill to provide compensation and restitution to U.S. military personnel and their families who have suffered from exposure to toxic materials.

The Ministry of Defense told DailyMail.com that they do not comment on current or ongoing legal proceedings.