A Confederate Yankee
By Bill Mayers
(Town of Sullivan, NY – June 2014) Given the cynical grandstanding by Congress over Benghazi, Obamacare and whether or not Dr. Oz is a shill, it’s a challenge to get everyday Americans to take note of the oft-times monstrous behavior experienced by some of our fellow citizens at the hands of the powers-that-be.
This is not a hate-filled rant about people looking for a free ride, this is disgustingly real.
Beginning more than 30 years ago, United States Marines and their families stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC, were subjected to a devil’s brew of toxic chemicals in their water: water used for drinking, cooking, bathing, laundry. These chemicals included the industrial solvent trichloroethylene, known to cause cancer, especially among children.
Other chemicals, including benzene, were also present as long ago as 1985, and probably well before that – these chemicals are known to cause kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, childhood cancers and other defects, such as the inability of women to conceive and bear children.
The government, including the state of North Carolina, knew this. They knew it from the get-go. They knew that thousands and thousands of Marines, their families and the citizens of nearby Asheville were being subject to this contaminated water, and they not only did nothing, they actively covered up the problem.
Then North Carolina did something we’d normally associate with such filth as the leadership of North Korea or petty dictatorships on the African continent: they quietly passed a law stating that unless complaints were initiated within 10 years of the beginning of the problem, victims are out of luck. There is no grace period; 10 years is the absolute cut-off.
Ain’t it funny, though, that almost nobody in the rank-and-file had any clue, outside an unusually high rate of diseases and disabilities? In other words, claims should have been filed by 1995. Yet nobody affected by this problem knew of the danger until 1997.
Well, you might say, folks could still count on the Supreme Court to back them up. Guess what? The Supremes said no. They said North Carolina’s vile, vicious, cowardly law is not superseded by federal law. This means that tens of thousands of people, among who are two of my dearest friends, are out of luck.
Dirty end of a very dirty stick.
Shafted.
And Congress? Whining about Benghazi. Obamacare. Dr. Oz. And other trivia.
Folks, that ain’t the America I grew up in.
William D. “Bill” Mayers RT, RN, of Sullivan is a retired senior U.S. Army Corpsman. A certified healthcare professional since 1964, he holds two professional licenses, including that of Registered Professional Nurse licensed in New York, Alaska, Virginia and Louisiana. He has four children, two stepchildren, three grandchildren and is an avid analyst of current events.