The government’s long campaign of lying, deflecting, and victim blaming in the Camp LeJeune poisoning matter is coming to an end. The victims had a Multi-District Litigation in Georgia from 2011 to 2016, when U.S. District Judge Thrash dismissed the MDL on December 5, 2016.
We victims had to appeal and we lost at the 11th Circuit. The U.S. Supreme Court would not review our loss. Then, because we are right as rain, Congress overrode the government’s victory and passed the Camp LeJeune Justice Act of 2022. The president signed it on August 10, 2022.
It is now July 2025. Next month is the three-year anniversary of our law. Astonishingly, the litigation is not over and there is no global settlement, let alone a fair one. I personally suspect that the Court making settlement information secret is because some people are getting paid now and they are not being lowballed either. The rest of us would be very angry if we saw base commanders getting paid off in full when they were the ones who should have kept the water clean in the first place.
We suffered while the government allowed water poisoning for 34 years until 1987. We suffered without health care until 2012 and that health care is only for people who had a “base residence.”
That’s ridiculous because the vast majority of base users were during the Vietnam War Era and there was not enough base housing at the peak in 1968-1971. People lived in Jacksonville or nearby and either used the base or worked there. It is nonsense to restrict the CLFMP health care to only base “residents.” To block half of the people who should have this coverage is an outrage. Congress made a bad, half-ass health care law that excludes half the people who should be covered. Even children like me who were born in Camp LeJeune Naval Hospital during the toxic water time have been excluded. It’s wrong. That law must be changed.
So, DOJ and Navy JAG need to grow some humility and bow their heads as they accept losing this CLJA litigation. It was passed for them to lose. Not for them to fight over jury trials or dragging out discovery in the mass litigation.
DOJ and Navy JAG can show their remorse at opposing these poisoning victims. They can either agree to pay interest (9% per year) from first date of exposure or pay the attorney fees the victims must pay. They can accept every person with a CLJA claim into the CLFMP health program and do it right now so victims have health care, finally.
The law grants broad relief for “harm” and part of the harm is having to wait up to 72 years (56.5 years in my case) when justice would have meant paying back injury when the damage was done. The true measure of damage is when the damage was done and how long a person had to wait for justice. Harm did not start on August 10, 2022. That’s just when Congress authorized paying for the harms. This is why interest should be granted from the time of injury, the first date of Camp LeJeune exposure.
After losing to the DOJ and having claims dismissed at Navy JAG, those agencies need to stop being so arrogant. Congress had to waste time passing a new law because DOJ and Navy JAG won when Congress didn’t want them to win. Instead of thinking it is their job just to “WIN,” they need to understand that winning means compensating and providing health care to these U.S. Marines and their families and anyone else who used that base and was poisoned and injured during that 34 years, 1953-1987.
It’s the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, not the GOVERNMENT WINS DEPARTMENT. If winning means denying justice, DOJ should not want to win. It’s not their mission to win.
DOJ and Navy JAG need to pay, not delay.
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