Leo Case survived the battle of Iwo Jima and risked his life to save lots of his crew throughout a conflict within the South Pacific — solely to die of a number of cancers at 58.
The World War II tank commander and recipient of the Navy Cross, the army’s second-highest recognition for valor, was one of many first service members uncovered to a contaminated water provide at Camp Lejeune.
His granddaughter sought to show he was sickened on the Marine Corps coaching facility in North Carolina. In the method, she amassed an archive of information that she stated may assist 1000’s of different veterans and their family members bolster their difficult water contamination circumstances.
“It’s grow to be very private,” stated Jessie Hoerman, 55.
Hoerman, an legal professional in St. Louis, has spent the final two years scouring eBay, vintage shops and nationwide archives to search out muster rolls, cellphone directories, yearbooks and different supplies that might substantiate her household’s declare.
Now, she plans to share what she believes is the biggest personal assortment of Camp Lejeune supplies with the veterans named in her paperwork.
“I need to go and discover these households,” she stated. “I need to give these exhausting copies again.”
In one of many largest water contamination circumstances in U.S. historical past, as much as 1 million individuals who lived or labored at Camp Lejeune from August 1953 to December 1987 might have been uncovered to a ingesting water provide contaminated with chemical compounds which were linked to extreme well being issues, federal well being officers stated.
Multiple sources contaminated the wells, together with waste from a close-by dry-cleaning facility and leaks from underground storage tanks on base, in line with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
There have been extraordinarily excessive ranges of trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, vinyl chloride and benzene — colorless chemical compounds that may trigger a number of illnesses, together with cardiac defects and a few cancers, the ATSDR stated.
Case died of bowel, colon, liver and lung most cancers in 1976. The Veterans Administration hospital that handled him in Syracuse, New York, performed a postmortem examination and located no proof of any hereditary or infectious illness, in line with a letter it despatched the household that was offered to NBC News.
Hoerman stated she began digging into her grandfather’s historical past after the PACT Act of 2022 expanded advantages to thousands and thousands of veterans uncovered to burn pits and different poisonous substances.