[This was sent to a youth group at my church for them to contemplate.]
Following is a true
story.
If you have done any serious TV watching over the past year, you will have seen
a commercial about a place called Camp Lejeune. It is a sad story. (Information below derived from several postings by local governments, veterans' groups, the Bladder Cancer Society, et. al.)
From
the 1950s through the 1980s, people – Marines, their families, contract
employees, visiting military, etc. living or working/regularly visiting the
U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Lejeune, North Carolina, were
potentially exposed to and/or poisoned by contaminated drinking water. The water
contaminants were toxic: industrial solvents, benzene, and other chemicals.
Benzene is a colorless volatile liquid hydrocarbon present in coal tar and petroleum, and used in chemical synthesis, i.e., causing
or producing a chemical reaction. An example of that is the combination of
sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl) to produce sodium chloride (NaCl). Its use as a
solvent has been reduced because it was discovered later to
contain carcinogenic or cancer-causing properties that could prove
mortally compromising if breathed in, ingested, or absorbed through the skin. However, in
the 1950s through the 1980s in Lejeune, North Carolina, persons were ignorant of
this and other toxins that had entered into the eating and drinking environment
and sources: the water used for making urns and urns of coffee, making pots and
pots of tea, making pitchers full of lemonade or iced tea; of boiling
vegetables and meat in, of making baby formulas with. Over a period of 30-plus
years. There is a saying that you may have heard before – “ignorance is bliss”,
but for the hundreds, if not thousands of persons ingesting or otherwise
exposed to the Camp’s water, bliss was not in their future.
The impact of the toxins was not immediate; but over the course of time, large
numbers of persons connected to the military were presenting with differing
cancers and conditions: bladder cancer, breast cancer, esophageal cancer,
kidney cancer, different blood cancers – including leukemia and aplastic anemia,
lung cancers, liver cancer, lymphoma, female infertility, Parkinson’s disease,
and more. It has not been officially confirmed when the military ‘discovered’
this disastrous situation (it has been reported that it only became aware of the issue in 1985), but when research into the commonalities of the
patients over the course of decades came to light, people who were still alive
or who had relatives and friends who had succumbed to the cancers they had
contracted as a result of the poisoned waters, were stunned. How many survived
is unknown, but the number of deaths and the amount of suffering caused by the
poisoning were monumental.
Can you imagine – all of those people were walking around with ‘time bombs’ in
their bodies because they did not know. Friends and families consoling each other through years of pain and suffering - theirs and others who spent time at the base. They did not know that the water
was poisoned. They did not know that the cause of their cancers and other fatal
health issues was caused by drinking the same water that they took their medicines
with that were supposed to combat the cancers growing in their bodies. They suffered and died because they did not know. The dead people
will not be able to be compensated – no money will bring them back. No
successful court battle will take away the years of pain and suffering. They
died not knowing why.
As I said, this is a true
story, and so very sad. Its ramifications are still being felt. Families who had members who lived and died during the 1960s through present will never be able to reconcile the inconceivable idea that their beloved were poisoned in the course of their work. So, one may
say, “that is sad – but I didn’t have any relatives or know anybody who had
that experience.”
That is quite true – you may
not have had anyone with whom you share DNA or was a family friend who suffered
as a result of the poisoned water. But that is not the point of this story.
Can you figure out what is the point, and what it has to do with the partial quote in the subject line? Will anyone be able to figure it out?
Results will be posted in a few days.
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