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In the 1980s, several wells that provided drinking water to military soldiers at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were said to be contaminated with dangerous compounds like benzene, vinyl chloride and trichloroethylene (TCE), among others. It has been said that the water supply was contaminated at Camp Lejeune from the 1950s to 1985.
The main source of the contamination was allegedly from an on-base leaking storage tank, industrial compounds and an off-base dry cleaner.
When David Foster, 64, of Beckley, joined the military and left for Camp Lejeune in 1972, he had no idea what this contamination would later mean for his health.
Foster, who grew up in McDowell County, was excited to join the U.S. Marine Corps and serve his country.
“I went in on a buddy plan,” Foster said. “There was four of us,” he said, referring to three friends from Bluefield, who joined the military at the same time.
On the day Foster’s military career began, his mother drove him to the drop-off point for new recruits.
“She said, ‘Boy, you do good!'” Foster recalled. “She was nervous.”
As was he.
When Foster arrived at basic training in Camp Lejeune, he had no idea the facility he was staying in was polluted with contaminated drinking water. Like the rest of the recruits, Foster stayed in a wooden barrack that he says was old but clean.
He recalls his military day routine like it was yesterday.
“We’d get up at 4:30 in the morning and we’d go to get breakfast and then would go exercise,” Foster remembered.
“I ate pancakes. Biscuits. Juice, coffee or water,” he said. “They fed you good. I liked it there. The weather was nice. It was just hot.”
Foster adds, “I had no complaints.”
“The drill instructors were really hard on you as an 18-year-old kid… When I left the Marine Corps, I thought I could lift the corner of this house. They get your mind all psyched up,” he added.
On graduation day, Foster’s mother and cousins traveled down to Camp Lejeune to watch him graduate.
“She was real proud on graduation day,” Foster said thoughtfully.
Foster completed his 13 weeks of training at Camp Lejeune, as well as several Mediterranean tours serving his country in places like Cuba and the Panama Canal. He later switched gears and joined the U.S. Army following in the footsteps of his father, who was also an army solider.
After his military career was over, Foster landed a job at the VA Hospital in Beckley. His military service was over but would soon come back to haunt him.
In 2016, Foster received a letter in the mail from the Marines advising him to see a doctor, as he could have one of several serious health conditions from the water he was exposed to at Camp Lejeune.
In the summer of 2016, Foster went to the doctor for testing as the letter suggested. Foster was soon thunderstruck when they told him he had multiple myeloma cancer – a form of blood cancer – that was on the list of potential health problems. He was given a five-year life expectancy.
“He was devastated,” said his wife, Barbara Foster. “It took him awhile to comprehend it really,” said Barbara, who’s been married to Foster for almost 40 years.
The shock was hard to bear. “Not in my wildest dreams,” Foster said, when asked if he thought he would test positive for one of the conditions other Camp Lejeune soldiers were being diagnosed with.
“In hindsight, I probably had this thing laying dormant since I was roughly 30 years old,” he said.
One of the hardest parts for Foster was telling his four children and 13 grandchildren.
“They were devastated,” he said. “Thinking the worst. Daddy’s got to be around,” he said.
“He’s our rock… He’s everything to us. I would be lost without him,” Barbara said.
After Foster told his family, he began traveling to Durham to receive cancer treatments at the VA hospital in North Carolina. Foster got accustomed to his new normal, but slowly lost mobility and began forgetting things. The chemotherapy treatments and cancer maintenance treatments were hard on Foster’s body.
He began having kidney and heart trouble, Barbara said. He used to love riding his motorcycle but now his days consist of slowly moving about the home with a cane, and lots of fatigue, pain and doctor’s appointments.
In 2017, Foster traveled to San Antonio, Texas, for six weeks to be prepared for a stem cell transplant, should he need one in the future.
“They took over three million (stem cells) and froze those and they’re good for seven years. If he ever needs a stem cell transplant, they will filter those back in his body,” Barbara explained.
Foster says what hurts the most about his situation is, he feels the military knew the water was contaminated long before they alerted veterans who were exposed to the contaminants.
“They kept it on the down low. They said they had been investigating it for over 30 years.”
In 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, and the Committee on Science and Technology, held a hearing to discuss the “toxic legacy” of drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune.
During the hearing, the House of Representatives said key issues were: It took the Marines more than four years to shut down drinking wells they knew to be contaminated with “toxic chemicals” and another 24 years and “an act of congress to force them" to inform veterans about the contamination causing health problems; they “prevented full disclosure regarding the true extent" of contamination; they “struggled to obtain complete cooperation and support necessary to conduct accurate and comprehensive health assessments” of the toxic hazards; and the Marines seem to view the contamination at Camp Lejeune as “a public relations battle rather than a public health hazard.”
They also said the military released a “glossy booklet” on Camp Lejeune’s historic drinking water but excluded critical information and misrepresented scientific conclusions about the health impact of past toxic exposure on Camp Lejeune residents.
Several former military members who served at Camp Lejeune testified to government officials during the hearing. Like Foster, many were diagnosed with cancer.
James Watters, a former Navy lieutenant and retired commander from Lubbock, Texas, was diagnosed with kidney cancer following his 1977-1979 time served at Camp Lejeune.
He told members of Congress he had been diagnosed with stage 3, almost 4, advanced renal cell carcinoma and was given one year to live.
When Watters received a letter in 2008 from a military official advising that he was exposed to hazardous chemicals at Camp Lejeune, he filed a claim with the Department of Veterans for benefits.
He noted that the letter came 21 years after the Marine Corps and Navy knew he was exposed to the “volatile” organic compounds. His first two claims were denied, but he eventually received benefits from the military accepting fault.
“I would have appreciated being notified by the Marine Corps even 18 months before the July 2008 notice. It would have made a difference in when my kidney cancer was diagnosed and my prognosis,” Watters said in the hearing.
“…I was horrified to find out how many people the Marine Corps had poisoned, and the obstructionist tactics the U.S. Marine Corps and Department of Navy has used to avoid responsibility and avoid providing any type of assistance with health care, or any financial assistance to those they have sickened,” he said.
“It is my firm belief that the United States Marine Corps and the Department of Navy leadership have abandoned and betrayed their wounded from Camp Lejeune including women and children and left them to suffer and die,” Watters said. “The U.S. Soldier's Creed specifically states, 'I will never leave a fallen comrade.' If the Marines have a similar creed, their senior leaders seem to think it does not apply in this case.”
Foster says he hopes to connect with other Camp Lejeune soldiers like Watters who may have similar health conditions, and is considering pursuing a class action lawsuit as an individual lawsuit he filed was denied.
“You have veterans that have passed away from this and family members that have cancer or different illnesses because of this water contamination, and there’s nothing you can do about it, he said. “They say to go to your local VA and be treated for it. But what about the long-term effects of this?”
Foster says his military days were some of the best of his life. However, the health consequences he now suffers are incomprehensible.
“That is pretty bad to contaminate all those people with all of these illnesses and just write it off and not think nothing about it,” he said. “You serve your country, and this is what you get.”
The VA has established a disability for veterans who were exposed to contaminants in Camp Lejeune’s water from 1953 to 1987 and developed one of eight diseases: non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, adult leukemia, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, bladder, kidney or liver cancer, multiple myeloma and Parkinson’s disease.
“Presently, these conditions are the only ones for which there is sufficient scientific and medical evidence to support the creation of presumption,” the VA reports. “However, VA will continue to review relevant information as it becomes available.”
To date, there have been approximately 4,400 federal tort claims for personal injury or wrongful death resulting from exposure to contaminants at Camp Lejeune from the 1950s to the 1980s. Some of those claimants also filed lawsuits against the U.S. government, which were dismissed in December 2016 by the U.S. District Court in Georgia.
On Jan. 24, 2019, the Office of the Navy Chief of Information released a press release saying it denies all pending Camp Lejeune Federal Tort Act claims.
The VA says people experiencing health conditions they think may be related to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune are encouraged to contact their primary care provider.
Please, see the video at :
https://www.register-herald.com/news/military-service-has-unexpected-cost-fond-memories-of-camp-lejeune/article_c7a8ff8f-6bd5-5418-984c-aa9f2ee2b952.html
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