When Debbie Martin first met her husband William Donald Martin, Jr., she didn’t care for him at all.
“We went to middle school together, and he was a little brat,” laughed Martin. “But when we were 15, we were in driver’s education together. And I got to know him and saw how sweet he was. And we just immediately fell in love. I mean, he asked me on our very first date. He rode to my house on a bicycle because he didn’t have his license yet. And I came out and then we started dating, and we’d been together ever since. And he was my very best friend.”
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Bill wanted to join the Marine Corps because they had some big plans. Martin wasn’t thrilled at first because she wanted Bill with her, but soon she accepted it.
“I was very proud of him. He was proud of what he did. He wanted to be a Marine. And he was, it’s an honor. It’s an honor to serve your country,” said Martin.
They were married when Bill was 21 and Martin was 20; but she didn’t go with him to Camp Lejeune because some of those big plans included saving money to be able to buy a home together. And that’s exactly what happened, right there in West Virginia.
“We were so proud. You know, we were young and we had our own place. We weren’t renting, we had our own home,” said Martin. “Then he had two six-month trips to Okinawa. We bought our home the year before he got out of the service and our very first Christmas he was in Okinawa, so it was really special when we got to spend the second year in the home together.”
After the Marines, Bill worked with the operating engineers. The couple had three children, a son and two daughters.
“Bill was… he was so loved. He loved children, loved his children, loved his mom, loved my mom and my dad. He was so very likable. He was a heavy equipment operator, very talented. He was a mechanic, he could fix anything. He was six foot tall. He was involved in anything that his friends were doing. If somebody needed to put a new roof on, he’d go over and help them. He bought a bulldozer at one time, he was going to make an extra money on the side and take on some bulldozing work and he never charged a penny,” said Martin.
Life was full until Bill retired at age 55.
“We had plans. I was going to retire at 60, he’s going to retire at 55 and we were going to hunt and fish together and had it all planned, but it didn’t work out that way,” said Martin.
It started with little things, memory issues, ear pain. After rounds of antibiotics with no improvement, they knew something was wrong.
“I called the doctor’s office and said, ‘There’s something wrong with him,’” said Martin. “And they said, ‘You know, I think we agree with you, we’re going to send him in for a CT scan.’”
That’s when they found the brain tumor. It was Glioblastoma Multiforme, a fast-growing and aggressive tumor. It was unmethylated, which can mean a patient may not benefit from chemotherapy.
“Cancer is cruel, but one that takes your brain is especially cruel,” said Martin. “It took his voice. He couldn’t see there at the end, he couldn’t walk. His body was very strong, nothing else was failing him, then he had headaches and he suffered. And it was awful. It was awful to watch that happen. He just slipped away every day, you could see a little piece of him leave.”
During his battle with cancer, Martin said Bill started getting letters in the mail from the military about the water situation at Camp Lejeune. They went to the VA to fill out a paper for benefits, but his cancer wasn’t on the presumptive service connection list. Two months later, they got the letter denying his illness was related to the toxic water. So, Martin thought, that was it.
“And after he died, and the PACT Act was passed, and people start calling, I had buddies that were in the military with him. They were at Camp Lejeune with him, called me and said brain cancer is on this list, because it wasn’t on the list prior. ‘Brain cancer is on this list, you need to file’ and ‘Well, you know, they already denied him. There’s nothing to file.’”
But they kept pushing Martin to file, so she started looking back into it. She started joining and looking at Facebook groups, where other people encouraged her to also file for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation or DIC benefits. Even a Veteran Service Officer told her she didn’t qualify, but this time, Martin wasn’t taking no for an answer, and filed anyway.
“So I filed and they denied me. But when they did deny me, I got a letter from the VA saying that I could, since he passed before a year was up, that I could file an appeal to their decision. And I found that in February, and I’ve yet to hear back from them on that one. I did get an email saying that they wanted to do an examination but that’s going to be hard to do because he’s been dead for four years. But you know, that’s where I’m at right now,” said Martin.
It’s not an easy process. The VA does not make it easy to get your benefits in cases like these and many times, people aren’t informed of all the evidence or documentation they’ll need in order to get awarded.
That’s where the Camp Lejeune Toxic Water Widows Facebook group came in.
“I learned all that from other widows now. These ladies that I’m with are a great network.,” said Martin. “And I had another widow whose husband died of the same thing, glioblastoma, and she shared with me, ‘This is what you need.’ And she shared with me her Nexus letter. And I wrote to all of his doctors and didn’t hear back from any of them. I did finally get in touch with his palliative care doctor who has agreed to write me one. I sent him all the evidence because I’ve been investigating and all the evidence I came up with, his exposure to vinyl chloride which causes brain cancer. And he agreed with me and he said, ‘I really think you’re right and I’ll do this for you.’ And so I’m waiting on that letter.”
But she knows there are so many other widows who need the help, too.
“There’s other widows out there that don’t know that they could file for DIC,” said Martin. “They don’t know that they can file to have their husbands’ cancers to be service related. They don’t know there’s a network of us out there that are going to do the same thing. And we don’t know the answers either. But we can bounce questions or, you know, answers off each other.”
In the meantime, while Martin waits, she said she will never stop fighting for what she and Bill are owed, and she’ll never forget him.
“I’m left and it stinks. I was 55 years old. I was going to be alone for the rest of my life, you know, and he was my very best friend,” said Martin. “My son doesn’t have a fishing partner anymore. My daughter got married, I had to walk her down the aisle, her daddy wasn’t there. Now she’s got her first home. She’s got questions, though. The hot water tank went out, Bill took care of those things, but he wasn’t there anymore to take care of those things. And then my youngest daughter was in college whenever he was sick. And she dropped out, she stayed home with me and helped me take care of him. And she’s still finding her way.”
“He was the love of my life. He loved me, you know, some people go through their whole lives and not have the love like I had. I’m sure he would have liked for it to last much longer, and it didn’t.”