Camp Lejeune and the U.S. Military's Polluted Legacy
By Alexander Nazaryan
The old railroad track, now a bike and jogging path, winds through the forest that separates Camp Lejeune from Highway 24, which caters to the thousands of Marines stationed here with cheap barbershops that will trim your high-and-tight for $5, furniture stores for the many young families on base, a couple of gun shops, a few bars and the requisite jiggle joint. None of this familiarly shabby Americana is even remotely visible from the verdant path. Trees crowd the sylvan trail like overeager children at a Fourth of July parade, their branches poking through the bases barbed wire fence. You hear far more woodpeckers and thrushes than Osprey helicopters. Spend enough time on this lush greenway or on the dunes of nearby Onslow Beach and you might forget that Camp Lejeune may be, as Dan Rather once said, the worst example of water contamination this country has ever seen.
Camp Lejeune, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, is a toxic paradox, a place where young men and women were poisoned while in the service of their nation. They swore to defend this land, and the land made them sick. And there are hundreds of Camp Lejeunes across the country, military sites contaminated with all manner of pollutants, from chemical weapon graveyards to vast groundwater deposits of gasoline. Soldiers know they might be felled by a snipers bullet in Baghdad or a roadside bomb in the gullies of Afghanistan. They might even expect it. But waterborne carcinogens are not an enemy whose ambush they prepare for.
That toxic enemy is far more prevalent than most American suspect, not to mention far more intractable. That the Department of Defense is the worlds worst polluter is a refrain one often hears from environmentalists, who have long-standing, unsurprising gripes with the military-industrial complex. But politics aside, the greenies have a convincing point. Dive into the numbers, as I did, and the Pentagon starts to make Koch Industries look like an organic farm.
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http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-military-supposed-protect-countrys-citizens-and-soldiers-not-poison-them-259103.html
peacebird
(14,195 posts)Last year. My brother had a cancerous lump removed from his breast.
I am pretty confident moms death was related to Camp L.
mrmpa
(4,033 posts)two brothers were born there in '58 and '60. The one from '58 was born with an added appendage to his intestine. He suffered throughout his childhood and early adulthood from stomach pain, it wasn't until about 1985 when he was admitted to the hospital with extreme belly pain, they decided to do an appendectomy and they found the birth defect & it was removed.
The one born in '60 had a benign tumor removed from his breast.
My older brother has been treated for high blood pressure since he was 17.
I have suffered from endometriosis and the inability to get pregnant.
My dad died from mesothelioma and melanoma, this was attributed to his exposure to asbestos at his work place.
The problems my brothers and I have are from the research done associated with our exposure to the water at Camp LeJeune. Just consider that my mom didn't breastfeed us, she gave us formula made with the water.
If and when Congress funds the care to the family members of those men and women who served at LeJeune, we're on our own.
peacebird
(14,195 posts)than my folks and brother. We were there the same time as you!
Brigid
(17,621 posts)The letters I got because I was there in the '80's made it sound like that was the area involved, plus a few other where I never went. Lejeune is a big place.
mrmpa
(4,033 posts)we lived on Tarrawa Terrace. it's an area involved.
We got the letters also and I made sure we all filled out the surveys, etc. that we have received from the Corps.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,284 posts)Thanks for the thread, n2doc.
Brigid
(17,621 posts)I got a letter about it a few years ago, but I haven't had any health problems that could be attributed to my being there. It sounds like a lot of this pollution was in areas of the base where I never went.