[CPEO-MEF] Marine fights Lejeune

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Justice for Janey
Marine fights Lejeune over the polluted waters he believed caused 
daughter's death

By Amanda Greene
Wilmington Star-News (NC)
August 26, 2007

Leukemia.

Hearing that word in July 1983, Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger 
buckled toward the white tile floor of the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital 
in Jacksonville.

The word thundered in his head. How could Janey, his 6-year-old 
daughter, have cancer? Not his dark-haired angel.

... chances for survival "greatly diminished."

Then he hit the floor.

"I went to my knees and I started sweating, and I soaked my shirt," 
Ensminger recalled some 24 years later, sitting on the couch at his 
White Lake home. "I started getting nauseous, and I had to reach deep 
down inside myself and pull myself together because Janey was resting in 
the next room."

Ensminger said he didn't cry once in front of his daughter through all 
her treatments, until her death at age 9 on Sept. 24, 1985, at Duke 
Children's Hospital and Health Center. But telling Janey's story now 
makes him sob as if her death happened yesterday.

Just below the former drill instructor's tough exterior is a father's 
unrelenting grief. It's his constant reminder to seek justice for Janey. 
Ensminger blames his former employer of 24 years - the Marine Corps - 
for failing to protect his family against water contamination that he 
believes caused her illness and her death.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/article/20070826/NEWS/708260433

--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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