Senator McCain, Camp Lejeune and the Marines He Turned His Back On

Senator McCain is running a good campaign - using his time in the military and as a Prisoner of War to demonstrate his leadership skills and his concern for our country. Understandably, many are impressed that he survived the ordeal of being a POW. Veterans respect a candidate that has served his country and will tend to vote for a candidate with military experience, believing this protects the many members of the military community, both former and current.

What is not reported on, however, is how Sen. McCain turned his back on the thousands of Marines and their family members who have suffered unimaginable horrors due to the toxic water on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, water that had been contaminated with Perchloroethylene (PCE), Trichloroethylene (TCE), Dichloroethylene (DCE), Vinyl Chloride and Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylene (BTEX) for thirty years. The water at Hadnot Point was also contaminated from a fuel leakage.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report commissioned by a Republican-controlled Congress and White House. In 2003 Sen. McCain was contacted regarding the "glaring errors and omissions in the report." In 2005, a group protesting the faulty report traveled to Washington and met with his staff. The GAO finished their work in 2006 and the report was released in May 2007. John McCain’s name appears second on the report.

Finally, in 2007, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, not Senator McCain, scheduled a hearing. Around the same time, the government disclosed results from a new scientific study. The House Energy and Commerce panel on oversight and investigations, held a hearing on the subject also. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is now claiming that the water was contaminated until 1987, two years after the Marine Corps said they had closed the wells.

People have died because of this. Many, many have suffered. It's not just the veterans that are ill - their family members have been stricken with myriad illnesses also. Jerry Ensminger, once stationed at Camp Lejeune, lost his 9-year-old daughter to leukemia after a horrendous three-year battle with the disease. How many more children need to die from this cover-up before Senator McCain admits he put politics before people and ignored the pleas for help?

For more information on this problem, please visit:

The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten  www.tftptf.com

CBS News   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/12/tech/main2917545.shtml

CNN  http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/12/toxic.tapwater/index.html

MSNBC  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19177607/

YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIrWzg47tMk

YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYoLG5ZEcNI

YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN2koIRSW4k&feature=related