[CPEO-MEF] Camp Lejeune veterans haunted by illnesses

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North Carolina
Camp Lejeune veterans haunted by illnesses
By ANNA GRIFFIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - More than the stiffness, the soreness and the days
lost to doctors, Terry Dyer feels haunted by questions.

What does she tell her kids? What does she say when they ask what makes
them sick, whether they'll ever get better or who they can blame?

That last one Dyer knows, even if science hasn't proven it: She blames
Camp Lejeune, the Onslow County Marine Corps base and site of an
environmental mishap that lasted decades and may have poisoned up to
16,500 children.

Dyer's father spent 15 years as civilian principal of the base
elementary school. He raised three daughters there, suffered a series of
ailments and died of a heart attack at 45.

Today, Dyer and her sisters consider that the first warning sign. They
just didn't know it then.

By their nature, military bases are ecological disasters, vast, drab
landscapes shelled, marched and drilled into submission.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/01/03/build/health/lejeune.inc

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