Eric Holford. David Coates. Rafael Garcia, Sr. David Rimmer. Edward Swindler. William Martin, Jr. Timothy Henson.
Their widows said these seven Marines represent just the smallest fraction of men, women and even children, poisoned by the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.
As many as one million people who lived and worked in North Carolina’s Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune were exposed to contaminated drinking water between 1953 and 1987. The water was contaminated with several chemicals including trichlorethelyne (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and benzene.
After years of downplaying or denying the effect that contaminated water had on those who drank, bathed, cooked and, lived with it, the government has conceded a presumptive service connection for eight conditions, including:
- Adult leukemia
- Aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes
- Bladder cancer
- Kidney cancer
- Liver cancer
- Multiple myeloma
- Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
- Parkinson’s disease
In order to claim those benefits, you must have served Camp Lejeune or MCAS New River, North Carolina, for at least 30 days total between August 1, 1953, and December 31, 1987 and you must not have received a dishonorable or other-than-honorable discharge from the military.
The biggest problem is, thousands of veterans have suffered difficult deaths as a result of conditions not on that list, many of them at very young ages.
And many of those Marines have gotten no benefits or help from the VA at all.
But there is the possibility of some relief.
When the PACT Act was passed in 2022, it included the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. One of the problems that veterans were having with getting benefits is that there’s a statute of limitations to sue the government. For most, the latency period in which it takes time for cancer or other serious illnesses like veterans are experiencing, is much longer than the period in which one would be able to sue the government. Many veterans are getting sick 30, 40 years after their service or longer.
But the Camp Lejeune Justice Act allows for veterans, survivors and families to file for a lawsuit for the harm caused by exposure to the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. In order to file, you still have to have lived, worked or were otherwise on base and exposed to the water for at least a total of 30 days between August 1, 1953 and December 31, 1987 or your mother was there under those same parameters while pregnant with you.
According to the VA, to file, you or your lawyer must file an administrative claim with the Department of the Navy. You can follow the Navy’s process to seek an award of relief for your claim. You may also be able to choose the Department of the Navy’s new elective option to get a faster settlement decision directly from the Navy. Or if the Navy denies your claim or you wait longer than 6 months for a decision, you can file a lawsuit in the Eastern District of North Carolina. For more information on how to file your administrative claim, click here.
The reason this is so important is because under the law, you only have until August 10, 2024 to file your administrative claim, two years from the date the act was signed. For many veterans that don’t have presumptive service connections, this may be the only way they and their families can find any relief or award for their suffering.
That’s where the seven named above and pictured below come in.
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Their stories show how people from all walks of life all served or worked at Camp Lejeune and any one who was there can be affected by the toxic water. If their stories sound similar to yours or to a loved one of yours, you may want to file an administrative claim before the August 10, 2024 deadline.
READ: Eric Holford & Michelle James’ story “My fight isn’t just for me alone. It’s for everybody else,” said James.
READ: David & Susie Coates’ story “The VA just loves to tell me no, and I think they try to do that with a lot of people,” said Coates.
READ: Rafael & Carmen Garcia’s story “I have to worry now about my son. I hope he makes it to see his grandkids graduate,” said Garcia
READ: David & Jenny Rimmer’s story “I’m finding help is out there,” said Rimmer.
READ: Edward & Karen Swindler’s story “No one can advocate better than you can for yourself,” said Swindler.
READ: William & Debbie Martin’s story “He just slipped away every day, you could see a little piece of him leave,” said Martin.
READ: Timothy & Sheila Henson’s story “He was proud to be a Marine. He would have done it all over again,” said Henson.
News 6 sat down with their widows because they’re passionate about making sure other veterans, survivors and families know how and what they can fight for and what they deserve.
Michelle James is the ringleader of this group of widows and works hard to connect others with the resources they need to be successful.
The first thing she said she wants people to know is that the water contamination, the poisoning of up to a million Marines and civilians at Camp Lejeune is real.
“When we went to DC back in June, we were in the hotel, we had our T-shirts on and a Marine came up to us and he said, “You know, I’ve been seeing this on the TV, but now that I’m seeing you, it’s real.’ So he didn’t even take any notice of it. And then he said to us, ‘Oh my God. I’ve been really sick. I wonder if all these illnesses are because of my time at Camp Lejeune,’” said James. “Again, on Facebook, there’s loads of these attorney ads. And I will go in there and people are saying this is a scam, and I’ll be like, ‘No, it’s not a scam.’ And then I’ll be educating them on these Facebook pages. But it’s not a scam. My husband died.”
The next thing she wants people to know is that anyone affected by the toxic water really should file for the lawsuit, even if they’ve been denied benefits by the VA or don’t qualify for them in the first place, because either they’ve been other-than-honorable discharged or their illnesses aren’t on the presumptive service connection list.
“The VA system is totally different to the legal system. So the illnesses that the VA recognizes, in order to give you benefits, there isn’t any specific illnesses for the lawsuit,” said James. “However, there are some attorneys that will only go for safe bid. But there’s other attorneys out there that will fight for you and they’re willing to go and get their own scientific research. People need to understand time is running out. It’s only a two-year window given and that two years runs out August 2024. So, if you don’t put in an administrative claim now, right up until like for August, you’re never going to be able to sue the government again. That money is not going to replace your loved one, but it could make the after a bit easier on your family.”
But a lot of widows don’t know where to start, and that’s where James herself comes in. James is ready to offer the knowledge she has and resources she’s found to anyone affected by the water at Camp Lejeune that needs them, but especially for the widows who have lost their husbands to conditions caused by the toxic water.
“They still don’t really understand what the lawsuit is all about. They don’t understand how they would go about even putting in a claim and then obviously they don’t want to go to attorney because they think they’re going to be charged,” said James.
Her efforts to help others first started with her Facebook group, Camp Lejeune Toxic Water Widows.
“I wanted it to be a place where they could feel judgment-free, that they could come in there, scream and shout, whatever they needed to do to get it off their chest,” said James. “So this was a safe space for them to be able to come and meet up on a collective. I have like weekly Zoom calls… I try to provide education as well as information.”
A lot of that information is used to help those widows begin to start compiling the information they need to file a claim. In many cases, if the veteran did not have a presumptive service connection, they’ll need what’s called a Nexus letter. This is a letter prepared by a medical professional using scientific and medical evidence to show the illness the veteran has is at least as likely as not caused by their time and the water at Camp Lejeune.
And if you’ve already filed claims for benefits with the VA or as part of the lawsuit and been denied, in many cases, it doesn’t mean you can’t try again or even appeal, and if James doesn’t have the answer on how to do it, she will find who does.
“We’re not legally trained or anything like that. We’re not taking anything away from the lawyers. But sometimes even those that have gotten lawyers, their claims are still being denied. We’re just saying that we’re helping to add a little bit more extra layer to your claims, you know, so we’re helping you with that research, that you can then give it to the lawyer,” said James. “And we’ve got people that have already walked the path. I want to be able to build up a resource list so that I can say to the women look, ‘These are kind of our go-to people’ or ‘We’ve got results from these people.’”
But sometimes, the most important thing the Facebook group can offer these women is some camaraderie and support--even for James herself.
“We had our retreat last weekend in Orlando. There was seven of us and it was like really great. And the women that came they were really grateful and they thanked me because again, it’s putting them in touch with like-minded women, women who are going through the same thing as them,” said James. “It is a part of that healing journey, so that’s what I wanted, the retreat to have some healing to it as well. We had the spa day, so they had full body massages and stuff like that. But it’s about getting in tune with the inner emotions as well. I provided them with some of that, that emotional work to try and at least release some of that what they’re carrying around with them. Because they need that, especially if they are going to go through the court process because it does rake up a lot of emotions, even for myself even though I’ve been on many healing journeys and I know what to do.”
Now James has decided to take it one step further and start a non-profit organization called Lejeune Empowered Advocacy for Widows (LEAWs). The tagline for the organization is Empowering Widows, Advocacy with Bulldog Tenacity.
And bulldog tenacity, that’s something that describes James to a T. Her late husband, Eric Holford, knew it, too.
“He knew that I was a strong advocate. And he knew that I’m the type of person that I’m always researching stuff. And I don’t take no for an answer. And I’m going to find an answer,” said James. “So if there was if there’s an answer to be found, he knew I’m going to find it and he always knew that I would do the right thing.”
And that’s her goal now—to take that attitude to help whoever she can, even if just in a small way.
“When my husband passed, because he wasn’t entitled to benefits and my savings was dwindling down, I needed some assistance,” said James. “An organization reached out to me, and they told me not to worry, they had me covered. They promised me that they would help me with the funeral costs and basically anything I needed to get Eric back to Nashville. That meant a lot to me. Just knowing that someone was there to help me.”
James plans to raise funds for the organization and use them to do things like send flowers to a widow to brighten her day when she needs it most, or sit with a widow in the courtroom as they’re fighting their case. She’d love to be able to offer things like funeral assistance or trips to see their family members during hard times. Even be able to offer some help if a widow is forced out of her home because of a natural disaster or because of losing her husband. She’s even willing to do things like scan the paperwork a widow needs to submit if they don’t know how or are too stressed to manage it. At the end of the day, it’s just about being a rock for someone who may have just lost theirs.
Serving these women, getting results for their families may be difficult and it won’t happen without a fight, but James would have it no other way.
“I don’t want them to be stuck and confused and not knowing where to go. I want them to know that somebody’s got their back, and that they’re going to go out of their way to try and help them in as best as they can,” said James. “I think God definitely put me on this earth to serve. Always helping others and sometimes to my detriment. But as long as they’re happy, I’m happy.”