va

An opening exists for more inclusivity in the Burn Pits Bill H.R. 2372 which streamlines the process for obtaining VA benefits for burn pits and other toxic waste exposures. The bill is directed at those service members who were exposed to contaminates, especially in burn pits, where diseases appear years later because a latency period exists before disease detection.

As young men and teenagers, we were given a futile and dangerous task to ‘cleanup’ the nuclear fallout and debris of 43 atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. We attempted to gather the highest level of radioactive material and dump it into a nuclear blast crater. We dumped 110,000 cubic yards into a nuclear blast crater on Runit Island before covering it under a massive concrete containment dome.

I’m a wife and caregiver to my now 82-year old Marine. My husband’s medical conditions NEVER STOP!! It all started in 1991, when he had blockages and ended up with 4 stents outside his heart. I was shocked when he started complaining of what felt like a toothache and even a heartburn episode. He went to his doctor where they told him to immediately go to the ER.

My dad was a Vietnam hospital corpsman exposed to Agent Orange. He has three of the 13 types of cancer possible from it. I struggled for the last 9 years to help his body heal itself.  As for me, I have MS, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and a spinal injury in 2008, resulting in needing stem cell procedure. But because of the Camp Lejeune water and the inoculations they gave us, my stem cell injection failed.

In the late 1950’s, my father worked at APG. I’m not sure in what area or if it was when he was in the Army or while he was a civilian. In 1967, my father was killed at work in California and the autopsy showed he was in the beginning of cirrhosis of the liver. The electric company responsible for his death used that information to say that my father was an alcoholic, which he wasn’t.

The following is a personal story submitted to Civilian Exposure and published as part…

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 tried to tell the doctors and the Army about the poisoning. They wouldn’t listen to me. I was medically discharged and tried to tell the VA doctors and administration. They wouldn’t listen to me. I have made phone calls, sent emails, and left messages with newspapers, Congressmen, even the President of the United States. No one answers.

As an infant in the early 1980s, Brent Wilson lived with his family at Camp Lejeune, a U.S. Marine base in North Carolina. His father, GI Wilson, a retired colonel who had a decorated 37-year military career, was stationed on the base for several years between combat assignments. Little did the Wilson family know, simply being on that military base and drinking the water there could cause cancer.

It has been a while since I have taken the time to sit down…

My husband was stationed at Camp Lejeune from 1977 thru 1980. We lived in…