The following is a personal story submitted to Civilian Exposure and published as part of our new series: “Contamination Chronicles: Personal Stories of Exposure”. If you would like to submit your story, you may fill out our form here or send directly via email to share-@-civilianexposure.org.
I was at Lejeune for about 4 months at administrative admin school. I showered in and drank the water, not to mention cooked all my food in it as well when stationed there. Why should us Marines have to wait for some kind of compensation for our suffering when the higher ups knew this water system was contaminated since the 1950s? Most of us will be dead or infected with some sort of illness by then.
The administrators of this base should be held accountable for they knew of the situation all along. We Marines need to be compensated for them looking the other way. It was irresponsible, and dishonorable.
I suffer from severe depression and a skin disease to this day. I was stationed in Camp Lejeune in 1983. Where are all the lawyers who should stand up for the ones who don’t have any cancers at this time, but will still pursue them for their out right negligence? It’s a shame that we should continue to suffer this egregious act. Just the thought of the military personnel knowing is a travesty. They should all be investigated and thrown in jail!
Note from the Editor: The author currently resides in Connecticut. The account/editorial is verbatim from the author without edit, with only the omission of their name to preserve anonymity.
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1 comment
You seem to be missing a little bit here. In my case it is the air force, in your case the marines. In the service we are not people. We are considered “expendable items”. I worked at one of the most contaminated site in the country. I too drank the water, used it to cook and bathe, for 10 years. They told us there were no studies done to determine what, if anything, these chemicals would do to our bodies. But if they would have paid for one exam, for one person, that would have opened the floodgates of the military to treat everyone that their carelessness has caused to get sick. The worst part is, they don’t care how many people are affected by this exposure. In the city that I live in, we have 4 big name hospitals. One is a med school. The doctors at these hospitals have never been made aware of the contamination at these bases. They will never admit that their action have ever caused health issues for anyone.