Lejeune veteran receives full disability on contaminated water claims

A former Camp Lejeune Marine suffering from a rare blood disease last week became one of a small number of veterans to receive full disability due to historical water contamination.

Braintree, Mass., resident Paul Buckley said he was shocked after multiple claim denials from the Department of Veterans Affairs to discover a packet in his mailbox granting his claim in full.

“I opened it up and almost fell to the ground,” he said.

The victory comes after a long and harrowing journey for the 46-year-old veteran. On May 10, 2006, more than 20 years after Buckley’s contract with the Marine Corps ended, he became rapidly ill, driving himself to the hospital before collapsing in its emergency room. He was in a coma for 10 days.

Buckley, then 42, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an uncommon and largely incurable form of cancer that typically afflicts a far different demographic.

“The doctors were confused because the people who get my disease are primarily elderly and they have worked in industries where there has been exposure to certain chemicals,” Buckley said. “I was burning my brain trying to figure out where I got this.”

When his sister mailed him a news article describing the chemicals that contaminated Camp Lejeune drinking water from the 1950s to the early 1980s, he finally had some answers.

“Lo and behold, after some research on a couple of Web sites, all of a sudden here we come with all these chemicals, benzene and everything else,” Buckley said. “Benzene is one of the primary causes of my cancer. It’s in all the literature.”

Recent media reports have disclosed that, due to a 1984 fuel spill at Lejeune’s Hadnot Point, the water may have contained much higher levels of the benzene than later records indicated. Buckley lived for a year and a half in the bachelor enlisted quarters at French Creek, a region serviced by the Hadnot Point water pipes.

Staff with the Boston branch of Disabled American Veterans, who advocated on Buckley’s behalf, said that he represented a “perfect storm” of circumstances: no environmental or family links to his disease and a detailed nexus letter from doctors with Harvard Medical School making his case.

The decision granting Buckley’s appeal, dated March 9, cites letters from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, patient treatment reports indicating a complete absence of risk factors apart from his residence aboard Lejeune and Internet information about myeloma as evidence for the ruling.

“It is established that TCE, PCE, DCE, benzene, vinyl chloride, radioactive material, pesticides (including DDT), petroleum-based products and other volatile organic compounds found in the water at Camp Lejeune are known human carcinogens,” the decision reads.

The ruling later notes that more than 80 percent of myeloma sufferers are 60 years old or older.

“All reasonable doubt has been resolved in your favor,” the report concludes. “Service connection for Multiple Myeloma with prior symptoms (acute renal failure, anemia, and infections) has been established as directly related to military service.”

A veteran advocate for those affected by Camp Lejeune water contamination, Richlands resident Jerry Ensminger, said he was aware of only two other veterans who had received full disability on water contamination claims.

“These latest revelations about benzene are starting to help some of these folks that have been harmed by this to get some relief here,” he said.

Officials with the VA were unable to comment by press time on circumstances of specific case files or answer questions about the number of veterans who have received 100 percent water-related disability.

Contact Hope Hodge at 910-219-8453 or hhodge@freedomenc.com.