Melania Trump, Usha Vance go to Camp Lejeune contaminated water victims

[ad_1] NEW Now you can hearken to Fox Information articles!

On their first official joint journey, First Woman Melania Trump and Second Woman Usha Vance visited Camp Lejeune. For these of us who fell sufferer to the poisoned water on base and have spent years feeling ignored, their go to provided one thing we haven’t felt in a very long time: hope.

For many years, Camp Lejeune has been handled as a tragic chapter in our nation’s historical past. However for the Marines, households and civilians who lived there, it wasn’t a headline – it was our on a regular basis actuality. It was the place we constructed our lives, unaware that the water we drank and cooked with was silently poisoning us.

First woman Melania Trump and second woman Usha Vance meet with college students as they go to Lejeune Excessive Faculty at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, Nov. 19, 2025. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

My father, a Marine Corps veteran, moved our household onto the bottom in 1959. Years later, I married a Marine who was additionally stationed there, and I labored on base as a civilian for 25 years. Camp Lejeune was residence — to me, to my household, and to numerous others. None of us knew that we had been being poisoned – and the federal government did nothing to cease it.

The Camp Lejeune water contamination disaster is likely one of the worst circumstances of presidency negligence in our nation’s historical past. From 1953-1987, over a million individuals got here into contact with contaminated water on base. Households like mine drank, bathed in, and cooked with it for many years.

MELANIA TRUMP SAYS AI WILL RESHAPE WAR MORE PROFOUNDLY THAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS DURING VISIT WITH MARINES

Military scientists first detected contamination in 1980, but officers did not act or warn us. The federal government didn’t start notifying former residents till 1999. By then, the injury was completed.

I obtained my first most cancers analysis in 1978 – leukemia. I beat it, acquired married, and tried to maneuver ahead. Then, my daughter was born with a spinal tumor. Later, she was identified with bladder most cancers, had surgical procedure, and was in remission for 10 months earlier than she handed at age 32.

I developed cervical most cancers in 1989, colon most cancers in 2010, then breast most cancers. In 2023, I used to be identified with most cancers in my breast, kidney, and liver. After a liver transplant in 2024, I've now been cancer-free for almost two years.

POISONED PROMISES: CAMP LEJEUNE FAMILIES STILL WAIT FOR JUSTICE DECADES AFTER TOXIC WATER SCANDAL

Amid these well being battles, I additionally skilled unimaginable loss. My father died of Parkinson’s – a situation linked to the toxins present in Lejeune’s water– and in 2014, I misplaced my husband to lung most cancers and melanoma. 5 months later, we misplaced our daughter.

Signage stands on the principle gate to Camp Lejeune Marine Base exterior Jacksonville, N.C., Friday, April 29, 2022. (AP Photograph/Allen G. Breed)

My story is painful, however it isn't distinctive. My household’s story is only one of many. 1000's who lived and served at Camp Lejeune have died ready for justice.

For years, even primary medical care was out of attain. I used to be initially denied care by the Division of Veterans Affairs as a result of I used to be a civilian. My father and husband had been marines, and I lived and labored on base, surrounded by poisonous chemical substances, for many years. However to the VA, that didn’t matter.

JD VANCE HAILS TRUMP ADMIN'S 'BULLDOZER' APPROACH TO PUBLIC HEALTH, DISCUSSES HOW APPALACHIA WAS 'LEFT BEHIND'

It wasn’t till 2012 that Congress handed a legislation permitting veterans and their households who frolicked at Lejeune to obtain care by means of the VA. However for a lot of, it got here too late.

Then, in 2022, Congress took an much more essential step: it handed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, which gave these uncovered to the contaminated water the appropriate to sue the federal authorities for damages. It was a long-overdue acknowledgment of duty and a bipartisan dedication to accountability.

Three years later, that promise stays largely unfulfilled.

FIRST LADY MELANIA TRUMP AND USHA VANCE VISIT TROOPS' FAMILIES IN FIRST JOINT VISIT

Greater than 400,000 claims have been filed underneath the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. Fewer than 900 have been resolved.

The identical authorities that poisoned us, ignored warnings, and withheld the reality is now delaying settlements and failing to satisfy the usual of accountability that Congress set.

This isn’t only a authorized failure. It’s an ethical one.

First woman Melania Trump and second woman Usha Vance go to Lejeune Excessive Faculty at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, Nov. 19, 2025. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Many Lejeune veterans are aged or terminally sick – many extra have already died. Whereas no sum of money can carry again our beloved one, honest settlements can assist with medical prices and supply long-awaited closure.

Congress handed this legislation as a result of it acknowledged that authorities negligence led to the poisoning of almost a million People. Lawmakers understood that we had been owed compensation for our struggling and the appropriate to carry our authorities accountable.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

President Trump has lengthy been a good friend to our troops and to our veterans. By encouraging the Division of Justice to meet the guarantees of the 2022 legislation, he might carry actual reduction to the households who've suffered for many years.

The legislation has already been handed with bipartisan help and signed into legislation. Now, we want this administration to direct the Division of Justice and the Division of the Navy to maneuver rapidly, overview circumstances pretty, and supply simply settlements.

The federal government failed us at each step – ignoring pink flags, withholding data, denying care, and protecting up the reality.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The latest go to by First Woman Melania Trump and Second Woman Usha Vance gave us hope that our voices are lastly being heard. For these of us who've spent many years combating simply to be acknowledged, gestures like this matter. They remind us that justice — after so a few years — might lastly be inside attain. However hope alone is just not sufficient.

Too many Lejeune veterans have already died ready for justice to be served, and we can't afford to attend any longer. The federal government has an actual probability to make issues proper — and now could be the time to behave.

Virginia Robinson, a board member of Justice for Lejeune, is a most cancers survivor and advocate for victims of the poisonous water disaster at Camp Lejeune. Study extra at www.JusticeForLejeune.org.