Vultures Circling Lejeune
For nearly 35 years those who lived onboard North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune were exposed to toxic chemicals while drinking, cooking, swimming, and bathing in the water provided. From 1953 to 1987 those serving at the sprawling Marine base were exposed to the contaminated water that seeped into the soil and poisoned groundwater at fuel depots, base junkyards, even a dry cleaner.
The toxic compounds discovered in the drinking water included Benzene, Tetrachloroethylene, Trichloroethylene, and Vinyl Chloride which is a byproduct of the breaking down of several toxins in the groundwater.
The tainted water was up to 400 times what was allowed by safety standards. More than a million Marines, Sailors, civilian workers and their families were exposed.
The listing of cancers and other serious diseases or conditions resulting from ingesting the water is extensive. The government subsequently passed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2021, allowing those affected by the toxic water there to file a lawsuit in federal court to compensate for pain suffering and expenses related to their diagnosis and treatment. The Department of Veterans Affairs will cover medical costs for the wide array of maladies.
As if on cue, the scammers piped themselves onboard.
Bogus claims threaten to taint Lejeune payouts to veterans
The government plan to pay billions of dollars to victims of toxic water at Camp Lejeune has unleashed a wave of fraudulent claims that threatens to disrupt or taint what could be one of the largest-ever mass tort cases.
Mikal Watts, whose Texas firm has 6,000 Camp Lejeune clients, said its internal auditors determined hundreds of referrals from other lawyers for Camp Lejuene and other cases were bogus, often based on doctored medical records and fictional reports of diseases or other sickness. Some of the would-be plaintiffs, he said, had been recruited through call centers based in India.
Another lawyer, Donald Marcari, said his Virginia-based firm has rejected scores of suspicious Camp Lejeune claims, including a few from people who listed home addresses that turned out to be a Burger King or a local chapel, or who offered confusing or illogical replies to routine questions about their time at the base or how they got sick.
“As soon as you go outside the script, they can’t answer,” said Marcari, a former Navy attorney.
Despicable. The outright fraud is criminal and the time and effort to identify and weed out the thieves extends the real pain for victims and slows the process of compensating them or their survivors. H/T to Mick for the link.
Category: Big Pentagon, Crime, Marines
VA sez NOT service related.
I was there for two 6 month schools in the time frame. They sent me a questionaire about my health. They seemed more concerned about how much you drink rather than your health. I wrote on each drinking question “what the hell does this have to do with drinking cleaning agents” havent heard back.
I was there for 2 weeks for a school in the early 2000’s and I frequently get emails claiming I could get a payout for exposure. I assume someone is getting paid for signing up claimants legit or not.
Only lawyers get rich in class action suits, and they run this commercial all the time in my area.
The people affected will get table scraps at best.
What’s that old joke about a bus load of lawyers faling off a cliff with an empty seat? A shame.
This is not a class action lawsuit. The US government is not contesting responsibility. This is presumptive if you fit time line and have any of the listed medical conditions. Lawyers are just processing paperwork and of course taking a cut.
No shit, there I was, waiting my turn at the drinking fountain…
Having said that little bit of snark, glad they cleaned it up before I arrived at the end of 92.
Yep. I got their in late 2000. I still saw a piece of paper taped to the bathroom wall of the Catholic Chapel that warned that the water was not drinkable. Probably still there.
Boot.
As a general rule, people suck.
TopGoz,
Find a bank envelope of cash,
announce it publicly,
to be returned to the person who can properly identify the contents,
and all of a sudden 200 people lost bank envelopes of cash.
Any time there is a source of unearned money $$$$$, the fraudsters start crawling out of the woodwork. Look at all the people in prison who filed for unemployment and those Covid loans. Back in the 1990’s there were multiple Nigerian gangs in the L.A. area faking auto accidents to make fraudulent insurance claims
Your right and I’ll bank on it.
I’m still waiting on my 3M ear plug payout. Once I get that I will go ahead and proceed with the Camp Lejeune settlement. It’s only been 12 years…. any day now.
Keep the faith.
You will likely get a coupon for new ear plugs, while the class action lawers rake in millions.
Got to act fast on that because it’s ear today, gone tommoro.
Lejuene claims have a deadline, if you don’t file and can prove an actual condition and timeline at CLNC. You will be SOL.
I’m shocked!…Shocked beyond belief I tell you! Who knew that there were unscrupulous people and (gasps clutches pearls) lawers that would attempt such a scam. One would have to really bEnAsTy and an on point logistics all over to try this. I hope these scammers have just enough fuel to arrive to their crash site…Despicable bastards.
Hell, who didn’t see this coming? The Free Sh^t army, led by scuzzy lawers, didn’t take long to come out of the sewer. On every commercial break there is an ad for the multitudes of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe firms soliciting for business to file a claim, many of them headed (?) by a former (?) Marine showing pictures of them in the Viet of The Nam or claiming, “I was stationed at Camp L during this time frame and I will fight to get you all you’re entitled to.”
Start prosecuting the scammers, lawers, and call centers that are making false claims, on a Federal Form if you will, make the punishment swift, sure, painful, and then run ads showing what happens to scammers. Oh…wait…it’s not against the law to lie…oops…my bad.
I get 2-3 emails a week concerning possible exposure. I’ve never been to Lejeune. Spent about a month at Pendleton once, does that count for anything?
Funny you should mention Camp Pendleton… in our on-base housing there (‘87-‘94) the tap water often ran brown. We were constantly assured that it was perfectly safe.
Our local municipality calls it flushing the systems and not to do whites until water looks like water again.
Had the Air Force base hear in SC tell us their Fire Suppression foam that they trained with has been seeping into the ground water. They had to shut down two of their six wells. You should start seeing this around most airports soon. Anyone with a well down stream of the airport will be effected, or at least needs to have their well tested (free by the government)…and then put on city water until it gets back to normal.
Back in the day, we used to routinely scrub down the flight deck aboard the ship with AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam) firefighting foam in order to remove all of the residual fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, etc., that would inevitably accumulate up on the surface of the flight deck as a result of sustained flight operations during a deployment.
(As an aside, following an AFFF scrub down we would sometimes have a “Steel Beach Picnic” up on the now clean flight deck, where we’d have hamburgers, hot dogs, cold sodas, and so on, accompanied by the Air Boss’s favorite music playing over the 5MC.)
Scrubbing down the flight deck with AFFF was always an all-hands event. Sailors and Marines from the ship’s Air Department and embarked squadrons, both officers and enlisted, would fall in on the flight deck at the appointed time with a stiff bristle push broom in hand, and commence to vigorously scrub down the flight deck with AFFF while the Air Boss directed the action from Pri-Fly over the 5MC. If the weather was hot, we’d be working in nothing but PT gear and steel-toed Flight/Safety boots.
We waded around in that AFFF on the flight deck during washdowns without giving it a second thought, got it inadvertently sprayed all over us when they broke out the saltwater fire hoses to rinse it off the flight deck, etc., and I’m sure that we breathed and ingested it.
So now AFFF has been identified as being hazardous. We never knew/considered that AFFF could possibly end up causing us harm.
What next…
We used Protein onboard the LPH 3 which stunk like hell from all the shit that was mixed into it. FDNY used chemical foam when I buffed E 311 back in 1960. We still used Protein foam when I was in Hose 1 (405) ERFD and A TRIPLE F when I was in LBFD. IMHO, Fluoroprotein was better than A TRIPLE F. I used to use liquid dish soap to simulate HIGH EX foam when I did a Sunday HI EX drill while in ERFD
I has on Lejuene in 82 for school, funny thing is I remember the water tasted funny, just figured it was normal, some places have crappy tasting water. This isn’t going to be the only base with a major contamination problem, bases in the past were largely unregulated industrial parks. Disposal of solvents, oil, chemicals such as heavy metals and paints etc were not an important issue, pouring it down the drain or dumping it on the ground in a hole somewhere wasn’t uncommon. I believe I read something about water contamination at Ft Ord recently maybe one of you guys know about it. Scary thing is that they ignored information about possible contamination at CLNC as early as the 1950s and definitely knew the extent since 1982 but didn’t close the wells until 1987. People in charge and informed of this should be criminally charged if still alive. They knowingly poisoned Marines and their families.
I can remember aircraft fuel samples still being thrown directly on to the concrete aircraft parking mats at Marine Corps Air Stations and Naval Air Stations following aircraft servicing up into the early/mid ’90s “when no one was looking”.
It may explain your hankering for a crayola sammich?
With a little gucamole and a side of refried beans, they do make a tasty burrito.
Grew up in base housing as a kid. Lost both parents before they were 65 to health issues. I have quite a few health issues of my own…but I have no faith in the government doing anything to clear up their fuck up.
To much money has to go to Ukraine, illegals and everything else and all.
Well said.
I wonder of All-Points Logistics has gotten in on the gravy train.
I am sure the False Commander “Phony” Phil Monkress (CEO of All-Points Logistics) claims he spent some time there while he was a “LT Commander” in the Navy to steal a few bucks.
I was at the Service Supply School for 8 weeks. It was located at what had been Montford Point. Known now as Camp Johnson (named for “Hashmark” Johnson, USMC SGTMAJ). It just happened to be one of the areas where the contamination was concentrated.
So, at some point in the future I still might have a chance to die for my country…from some form of cancer.
I started receiving notifications in the mail a number of years ago when all of this became public knowledge and I still receive updates in the mail but I was stationed on Geiger and only had to go over to Lejeune for dental issues and occasional training during my four years. If the gubment sends out mass notifications to anyone who ever set foot on Lejeune, they are bound to get bullshit claims from those of us who are unscrupulous. Just saying..
I checked into that, and the water going to Geiger came from Mainside Lejeune. You ain’t necessarily out of the woods yet.
“Trichloroethylene”
One of my military industrial complex employers used the stuff
to clean pc boards. In ultrasonic tubs. Bought the stuff in 55 gal
drums. Green and white with all kinds of warnings stencled.
Great for cleaning car parts, weapons etc.
Nasty stuff.
I’ve never been to Camp Lejeune, ever. But I get about a dozen spam e-mails every week, soliciting my participation in the lawsuit lottery.
These types of things will never stop because there’s a potentially big upside and very little downside. If they get away with it, they get free cash, if they get caught they get a slap on the wrist and sternly worded warning not to do it again.
To have any chance of even slightly slowing it down there would need to be real consequences, not just for people who successfully defrauded the government out of thousands or millions, but just for the attempt. A credible threat of 10 or 15 years in prison (and if they’re trying to defraud the military, it should be in a military prison turning big rocks into little rocks) for just trying to commit fraud would be a deterrent to some people inclined to the attempt.
Wouldn’t end it, of course, there are always people who’d do it anyway because they think they’ll never get caught or are desperate enough to disregard the threat, but it would give at least some of the grifters second thoughts.
The lawyers too…they should be disbarred and jailed as well. But those things will never happen, so we’ll continue to be defrauded by people with no morals.
BTW: The fact that they’ve identified so many grifters trying to defraud the system means that there are probably an order of magnitude more that haven’t been caught.
Claims ask for proof of injury, medical records and permission to access medical records, proof of service at CLNC for 30+ consecutive days. Lawyers will take 40%, some veterans organizations will help you file for free. It’s pretty straightforward if you have a presumptive medical condition and can prove service at CLNC the Department of the Navy will at some time get to review your records and offer a settlement, you can deny the settlement and appeal for a higher award and lord knows how long the process will take. Bottom line is without proof of service during the time period at CLNC and having a documented presumptive condition your claim will be kicked.
When you see the ambulance chasers advertising on TV and in the Am Legion magazine, you know damn well the scammers are salivating right in the mess of the situation.