Poisoned Marine veterans to ask Congress for court relief

A leading activist for Camp Lejeune veterans exposed to toxic tap water will ask Congress to clear the way for families poisoned at the base to proceed with claims in court.

Retired Master Sergeant Jerry Ensminger, whose daughter died of leukemia after her family lived at the North Carolina base, said in Atlanta on Tuesday that he is seeking a new law that will mitigate the impact of a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively blocked Lejeune families from seeking relief through the courts. Under the court’s ruling, those impacted by the water would have had to file a legal claim by 1994, a period when many weren’t even aware of the problems or the links to the contaminated base water.

“The only avenue I had to seek relief for all the hell she went through, my family went through, was stripped from me,” said Ensminger. “It was stripped from all of you who had dependents that were effected by this. Our judiciary system stripped us of the very damn constitutional rights that all of us were there serving to protect.”