when marine corps master sergeant jerry ensminger's young daughter died from a rare type of leukemia he wanted to know. why his search for answers led him to the shocking discovery of one of the largest water contamination incidents in u.s. history at camp lejeune where he had once been based. with relentless determination, he spearheaded a decades-long battle to make this information public. the powerful documentary you are about to see is called "acce "semper fi, always faithful." an emotional story of one man's transformation into the activist he never imagined he'd become.

. the joined the marine korcorps 1970, right out of high school. i loved that life. breathed it. i loved it. >> i trained over 2,000 new recruits on the drill field. i came back from okinawa with my family. we applied for base housing. it's a typical military base. jacksonville, north carolina.

we stayed at camp lejeune until december of 1975 when jany was conceived. in july of 1983, jany got leukemia. after the shock of her diagnosis wore off, my reaction was to question it. why? that nagging question of why stayed with me through her illness, through her death, and for 14 years.

>> in '97, i found out about the water contamination. i was eating a plate of food in the kitchen, getting rody for the evening news. the reporter said "the contaminants found in the water at la june have been linked in scientific literature to birth defects and childhood cancers." >> my first thought was, was this what happened to janie. i dropped my plate right there. i mean, it was like god was saying to me, "here is a glimmer of hope that you will find your answer."

>> i knew my son for six weeks. christopher was buried at arlington national cemetery. ann and i, i don't think we ever discussed it again. in about 1998 i read that they were looking for persons that lived at camp lejeune. they talked about the ex poesh your to chemicals. >> i had lots of things going on. but i said, this is what i want to do. i want to find out what the hell happened. >> jerry was onto it about three to four years before i even knew about it. >> i don't think there's anything significant in a lot of this stuff. >> so where's these documents? >> we'll see what we've got. >> we worked for six years without even knowing what the truth was until the marine corps posted a bunch of documents by mistake. >> as soon as i found that i said, oh, my god, this is the

holy grail, kid. >> i stayed up for weeks on end all night going through this web site. >> i couldn't believe what i was readin reading! >> when i first found this out, i had all the faith and confidence in the world that the united states marine corps would do what was right by their people. as time went on, i made more and more contacts with the marine corps. you name it, they committed it. stone wall, incorrect information. i started to slowly realize that these people were not going to do what was right by their people. they were going to have to be forced to do it.

and that burden fell on me. >> not any other child in her mother's history or mine that had ever had leukemia. >> in april of last year i was diagnosed with male breast cancerer and underwent surgery in may. when i saw that interview, life as i know it changed. i called that day. i said, i know you can't give it to me but can you please pass my information to jerry ensminger and have him call me because i really want to talk to him. >> your ears burning? >> no. the reason i was calling was anything that you find needs to be underlined and put in bold, dark letters. >> by the way, the kids are in their rooms to watch the wtfs. >> okay. >> bye. >> bye. >> here you go, my dear.

>> i mean, who we were beforehand was just the partane family. just your average american 39-year-old father of four. i was active in boy scouts. i went camping with my kids, doing what most americans do. >> okay. i got to get to work here. >> that has all changed over the past year. i never thought i would be able to know where my cancer came from and to be able to make a difference. >> the health and welfare of our marines, sailors, their families, and our civilian workers, are a top priority for the marine corps. we will continue to cooperate in

an effort to get answers for those of our marine corps family who may have been exposed to volatile organic compounds in drinking water at camp lejeune in the past. >> officially i've been told nothing. i've read things. and i've heard things. >> how long did you live on the base? >> i was conceived on the base and then born on the basement and my exposure ended at the age of four months. >> do you know if you were nursed or if you were fed formula? so your diet every day as a baby was full of the contaminated water. and i'm sure your mom bathed you often in nice, warm water. the water itself is going to send the tc into your skin. baby's bottoms are all full of fat where it will go right into the fat and get into your bloodstream.

>> and when i first heard about this, i called someone in tallahassee. >> for most cancers in adults we think the latency period is between 10 to 50 years. for children, their cancers can develop with much shorter late ensays. so we think childhood leukemia often comes about from exposures that take place in the womb. that's why people at camp lejeune have a right to know they were exposed, and therefore they should be vigilant about these things. >> and six months i've looked at ten families, including myself, in tallahassee that all lived at la june and are all sick. one family, the father died of male breast cancer. there's another gentleman, he was diagnosed with male breast cancer. and me. what are the odds of that? i wonder when we start to look out in the country how many other cancers we're going to find. my house is where plants came to die. ♪ but, it turns out

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>> these stone that is tell if the parents were sergeant or staff sergeant, military, a whole bunch spread out with rank of the father. >> there's a first lieutenant. >> we need to catalog all those and then put the dates in sequence and see just how quick these kids were dying and where they are on the base.

>> for the past ten years i've been a claims adjuster for state farm insurance. and having the ability to go through and do an investigation, getting the facts together and creating that skill set is invaluable. first at camp lejeune the marine corps says this is what happened. and then we find out that that's not the truth. >> compliance is a number one priority for us. we're talking about the health and welfare of our marines and their families. >> the chemicals were first discovered in the early 1980s. the base was trying to determine the source. as soon as they discovered the source of the chemicals, that well was shut down. >> when i first started looking

into this as someone who knew nothing about camp lejeune, the first thing i wanted to know was what happened. as i've started reading what happened, i could hear in my mind the technicians talking. why aren't you doing something about it? why are you still using this water? i went looking and found mike hargett. >> we had recognized some contaminants that we didn't expect to see. i went on base and we went to talk with some personnel in public works. >> now, was this a civilian? >> no, this was a uniformed personnel. uniformed officer. >> do you recall his rank? >> he was a major. it was a very brief meeting. in the meeting we presented the fact that we'd found some

contaminants. we were almost sum marrily dismissed that, okay, yeah, we'll take care of it. >> hold it. let's back up a minute. you specifically told them that you had found contaminants? >> yes. >> did you identify the contaminants to them? >> i don't believe we even got around to saying what the contaminants were. it was water's water. we just have to make sure we have plenty of it out there. and these government regulations were a burden that was unwelcome. >> the fact that he went down there and alerted these people of what was in their water, how dangerous it was? i mean, for them to say, oh, we didn't know what this was. >> we didn't know it was harmful. well, there goes their story. >> yep. >> want to find out what really was going on behind the scenes. >> politics, convenience,

deniability. i got 30 years over there. >> what went wrong with their plan to keep it quiet? >> there was just too much of it. it got out of hand. you can only keep a secret for so long. the more people you involve in the secret, the more likely the secret's going to get out. >> the marine corps did not want an investigation. they did not want a health study. so how do you prevent that? you hide and conceal the truth. >> you know, there's a lot of people out there suffering that need health care. all these military people who didn't stay in and retire, who did one or two enlistments and got out, they're at the mercy of the public health system. >> we need to bring this issue up publicly.

>> hi, jerry. >> this issue as a whole as far as public health. >> senator burr. do you remember me? >> i do. >> if any situation warrants a hearing by our senate armed services committee it's this one. >> jerry is the front end of this team. he's the one that gets out of his farmer suit in north carolina and puts on his coat and tie and goes to d.c. i'm in idaho living in my cave and providing the information. you know, i just want to see the marine corps accept the fact that they did something to us. >> we testify first. but the order in which we are going to go in?

i don't know. >> what are the key messages that -- >> notification of everybody that was exposed at camp lejeune. studies. the populations that haven't been looked at. and health care. now. for the people that are hurting. >> i am appearing here today as one spokesperson for the hundreds of thousands of marines, sailors, their families, and loyal civilian employees who were unknowingly exposed to horrendous levels of toxins through their drinking water at camp lejeune, north carolina.

>> dr. sinks, if you had been on these bases and known about the con tame nation would you have felt comfortable drinking that water? >> i personally would have been using different water. >> i'm told that officials waited years before they identified the contaminated wells and then closed them down in 1985. who was in charge then at camp lejeune? >> all the officials at camp lejeune would have been in charge just like they are today. >> general dickerson, why is the o.d. not notified those residents at camp lejeune that they may have been exposed to tce or pce? don't you think you have a responsibility to let these people know they may have been exposed? >> yes, sir. >> why don't you do it? >> that would be a very difficult and laborious task.

we could try. but i could never commit to finding 100% of people who may have been exposed. that would be very difficult. >> you can't tell me the marine corps doesn't know who was at camp lejeune from '65 to 2007. i just can't believe you can't do that. >> these people are sick and dying and fighting for benefits and health. seems like we would be doing everything possible to contact every person who was on these bases. and i get the sense that we're not making that effort. >> our most precious presource is our marines and families. we're going to do everything possible to take care of them. i.

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>> when we got the hearings, i was really expecting those to be the catalyst for more investigations and then ultimately get to the truth. well, i was wrong. they held the hearing, they got great accolades for it. and then they dropped the ball. unfortunately i cannot get the senator to do a thing. he would not even -- they would not even take my phone calls. >> the main thing is don't let this issue die. >> one year ago today, a 39-year-old tallahassee resident was diagnosed with male breast cancer. now mike partane -- >> there's a part of me that says, be quiet, sit down. just tell the people you need to

tell locally and let's just -- let's not make a big scene. but -- >> i'm totally opposite of that. because one of the things that i've understood, i mean, our biggest weakness is the fact that we're not concentrated at camp lejeune. this isn't like love canal where you can go drive down the street and see little susy's house there and that's where she died and littlejohn any over there, he got cancer. you can't do that at camp lejeune. the people that were there are only there for a couple of years and they're gone. but as word of this gets out, that weakness becomes our strength. because we're in every town across america. we're in every town, every city, and every state. and every one of us has a congressman and a senator.

>> i want to thank you all for your interests. we certainly value the need, the hunger, the desire for information from those of you who have been here at camp lejeune. >> my name is jerry w. townsend. i arrived at camp lejeune in 1955. >> i joined the united states marine corps and came to camp lejeune in 1981. >> i worked over at camp lejeune as a civilian. >> my husband's name was billy marvin hill. he worked at camp lejeune for 30 some years. >> when i was 47, i was diagnosed with male breast cancer. >> my son was diagnosed with non-hodgkin's lymphoma. my daughter tiffany was diagnosed with cancer on her kidney. >> i had cancer in my left kidney. >> three weeks later he was diagnosed with leukemia.

>> my children, they both were just so very sick when they came into this world. incubato incubators. couldn't bring them home. >> they knew this about the water, why they didn't tell us. >> i don't believe they should be hiding any information from this audience. none. >> there is so much pain that has happened in this area that people don't understand. i blame myself for years until this came out. i hated myself. i hated my body. because i thought i had failed my children. >> i had a son, russell alexander thorpe, that was born november 30th, 1977 with an open spine. there was no hope for him. this is my treasure box that i have of him. this is the suit he was wearing the day he died in my arms at 10 minutes past 12:00, new year's eve. this is the vomit i have never

been able to wash off. this is what i have left of my son. and then the doctors did not have any idea what was causing it. so they suggested we try again. we did. and i had a son born without a cranium. so i have two graves out in oslo memorial park. i would appreciate it if y'all would take into consideration that we are not numbers in a study. we are human beings that have had great tragedies. and the pain never leaves. rusty would be 30 years old on the 30th of this month. the pain is no less. thank you. [ groans ] [ marge ] psst.

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a man in a white pickup truck in connection with several shootings. three people were killed, two were injured. the victims are all black. the suspected gunman is white

but police say they have no reason yet to suspect the crime is racially motivated. investigators want to know why a navy jet crased into a virginia beach apartment building on friday. everyone who was injured has now been released from the hospital. now back to our program. did you want grits with your eggs? >> no. >> bread's right there. toaster's right there. >> hey, buddy! >> he's overly consumed with this. this is his life. this is what he does. >> he and janie were very, very close. and i can only imagine what it would be like to lose a child. and he just always seemed

like -- he just always seemed like he didn't want to get close again. because he just couldn't bear losing. so it's been tough. you know, you lose your sister, and you kind of feel like you lost your dad, too. so -- >> it ripped our family apart. >> he was with her all the time. he lived at that hospital with her. >> she was the type, she wanted to know everything that was going on around her. and she wouldn't take morphine. the day she died, she was really bad. she said, "oh, daddy, i really hurt." and i said, "i know, honey. i said, but you won't take morphine." she goes, "maybe i better have

some." her nurse wiped the port off on her i.v. line and stuck the needle in and was getting ready to push it and janie looked at her and janie said "stop! " she looked back and she said, "i wantsome of that for my daddy. and she said, janie, we cannot give this to your daddy. she said, this is a very, very, very strong pain medicine. janie looked at her and said, "i know my daddy's hurting, too."

and then to find out that these people knew about this? never revealed it? well, you understand my resolve. in this. >> we're going to pull into a parking lot, the site of the at

that point water treatment plant. camp lejeune covers 159,000 acres, 559 miles of roadway, six water treatment facilities and approximately 7,690 buildings. and it's the largest marine base on the east coast. >> this is a past disposal area. so it's just a lot of cleaning solvents, mostly. i think it was just dumping over the years. anything and everything. >> danny? i'm going to be working. no fighting. mom will be home in about an hour. we're not going fishing in the middle of the day. >> no, i'm just asking how long are you going to be back for? >> maybe another hour. i don't know. >> hey, this is mike partane from camp lejeune. when you get a chance there's something that's come up. i want to ask for volunteers.

they're wanting to put together a calendar. i'm calling everyone to see who would be interested. if you're interested what we're going to do is give us a calendar. when they heard 59 men with breast cancer. oh, thank you. take care. bye bye. >> we never get to spend any time like we used to. where we just sit together and we just have pizza and we play board games. >> do you think what i'm doing at camp lejeune is important? >> very important. >> i'm not saying that what you're doing isn't important and that i don't back you. i do. it's just there are times that -- when we don't have a whole lot of time together. i wonder if you ever became sick again, would that be a regret. >> no. it's hard. i mean, i don't enjoy staying up until 1:00, 2:00 in the morning and getting up on five, six hours of sleep going to work. it would be nice to go on a family vacation.

if we could stop people from being poisoned and children from being poisoned and they can save someone's life or save someone from going through what i went through, then it's worth it. >> i agree. >> are you going fishing? >> yes. could create more than half a million jobs in the us alone. from the canadian border, through the mid west, to the gulf coast. benefiting hundreds of thousands of families throughout the country. this is just what our economy needs right now. ♪

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>> i'd like to welcome everyone. >> i'm sitting there, and then i start hearing some of the people on the panel. >> good afternoon. i'm speaking on behalf of the -- thank you for the opportunity to share with the panel some of our concerns about u.s. epa's review of tatrachloisoline. >> i'm one of those special interests. the evidence linking exposure of this chemical to humans is limited. >> i'm with general electric corporate environmental programs. i have trouble understanding how that study is evidence of anything. >> there was nobody else there from the public. it was just jerry and me. and here they are making decisions that are going to affect my health and whether or not this chemical is going to be in my drinking water. it takes every dime i have to

save up money to go drive to jerry's house and ride with jerry to d.c. these people come flying in on jets. they're wearing amari suits. they have headquarters in d.c. how can the public compete with that? >> my intent for appearing here today is to ensure that science is allowed to do its work without human biases affecting the results. i can't say that from any of the other special interest groups whose motivations are driven by the almighty dollar and others who are attempting to shirk their liabilities while we fully admit that this is a carcinogen to rats and other animals, but yet we still just haven't tweaked that thing to where we could say it's a carcinogen to humans. the benefit of the doubt looks like it's going to go to the chemical and not to protect public health. what is wrong with this picture?

>> we have these groups of scientists who meet. and they decide is it a human carcinogen? is it an animal carcinogen? and the decision is not just a scientific decision. it's a multibillion dollar decision with multinational implications. because if you can delay in classifying something as a human carcinogen you may be saving companies billions. >> camp lejeune is just the tip of the iceberg.

>> all these plumes are coming this way. >> how far do they go beyond here? >> oh, i'd say like maybe, two three miles. >> really? >> yeah. this was one of our first casualties in our neighborhood. and then across the street we have another one. we put another purple cross on this one here. >> this is your wife? >> yeah. she passed away three years ago. >> i'm sorry. >> a lot of people are dying. >> if contamination moves into the houses and it gets very hot here at san antonio during the summer. it's particularly bad you can actually smell it. and the houses act like tents. so when it comes up and vaporizes to the sur surface it's caught in the houses. >> they haven't done anything to help us out, the city or the air

force. they'll stall you and stall you and finally say, you know what, the hell with it. i'm not going to go out there and fight this. you can't beat them. so you just give up. >> yeah, you can. >> come on. let's be realistic. they're not going to listen to you. >> i've been fighting this at camp lejeune for 12 years. and i'm not quitting. i told the commandant of the marine corps i'm not going to quit either when you face up to your responsibility or blow dirt over my dead ass that's when i'm quitting. >> i hate this damn finger pad. >> why didn't you bring your mouse? >> my mouse doesn't work without the [ expletive ] a board, remember? >> oh. >> now look here.

all previous sampling in and around site 22 indicates that petroleum-related products from tanks at this site are the only apparent source of contamination. somebody's ass is in trouble over this. >> we found documents related to a fuel spill that they never reported to anybody. they never even tried to clean it up. >> we always realized that there was something that the department of the navy and the marine corps were hiding. but we had no idea the magnitude. and when we saw all that we said, oh, my god! >> documents recently reviewed by the press reveal the contamination was far more extensive and deadly than previously assumed. >> documents last week -- >> massive leaks of benzine. >> a known carcinogen.

>> this ain't church, you guys. you guys can come up here to the front. >> the worst thing we found out we just discovered. >> they estimated that 1.1 million gallons of fuel had been lost out of the fuel farm. that was spills, leaks, into the ground at the fuel farm. >> are there any incidents or things that you all were doing that in the back of your mind like hey, there's something wrong with this? >> yeah. a lot of the times we used to flush hydrants. i opened a fire hydrant one day and it almost knocked me down. snot eyes, started running. it was like rotten gasoline coming out of that thing. >> every time they had a major rain and everything they had gasoline and vapors come up in these buildings. and the fire department, we responded to those buildings right regular. >> did that get reported up anywhere? >> i reported to my captain.

but who it went from there, i never knew no more about it. >> you knew something was wrong, but then you know if i say something >> you don't question. >> and you respect rank and do what you're told. >> would any of you be interested in speaking to an associated press reporter? >> yeah. >> this thing about the fuel, this is going to explode. ears, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪

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good evening. camp lejeune in jacksonville, north carolina, is the place where thousands of young marines -- >> in other news, the stunning and very upsetting admission today from the federal government. >> the form of cancer that might have come from the water they used every day. >> scientists and federal investigators now believe camp lejeune may be the worst example of water contamination this country has ever seen. >> they were told to dump it, get rid of it.

>> we weren't dumping toxic chemicals into the ground. >> really? >> we've got to get to the bottom of this. and that means congress is going to have to press the marine corps for answers. >> thank you. >> i mean that. >> thank you, i mean it. >> bring your elbow into you a little bit. >> that's nice. a little more smile. that's good. beautiful. >> what kind of treatment did you have? >> they took off my right breast. >> i was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003, and then i was diagnosed with prostate cancer. >> i had one son but he died after he was born. he had holes in his heart. >> very rare for a man to get breast cancer. >> everybody knows what it looks like by now. >> you're talking to somebody who's mad at the federal government, mad at the marine corps. that's why i'm here. >> ah!

>> i just want to thank everybody for coming. right now, we've identified probably the single largest male breast cancer cluster that's ever been known. this project we are doing, the proceeds from the calendars, they're going to go for frant research to look into camp lejeune, not only for male breast cancer, but other diseases. jerry, do you want to say anything? >> the guy who started it all. come on. [ applause ] >> you know, i'm just glad that i was able to help you people in this room. so semper fi. >> semper fi. [ applause ] >> relax a little bit. that's it. don't look stiff. that's good. look at me. beautiful. >> wonderful. thank you.

>> today's a big day. the house of representatives was introducing a bill. i was in my study, sitting behind my -- in front of my computer, when they called me. quite an honor. >> good morning, and welcome. i'm very proud to be here to introduce the janey ensminger act. this bill is the next step in providing justice to those who were affected by the toxic drinking water at camp lejeune. >> the janey ensminger act

requires the department of veterans affairs to provide health care to the veterans and their families who served at camp lejeune during the period of water contamination. >> this will make it easier for marines and their families to receive disability compensation for their illness. >> it was suggested last week that the va isn't equipped to do this. until you realize that we're already doing it, and it's call the family members of agent orange. >> jerry, to you and your family, thank you for the years of perseverance that you have shown in getting us to where we are today. >> i am now pleased to introduce jerry ensminger. jerry's been more relentless, more powerful than any paid lobbyist could ever be. >> good afternoon. i am the father of janey ensminger, the 9-year-old little girl for whom this bill's named. i can only surmise that had this

conduct been demonstrated by a private industry, and not a department of defense entity, they would have most certainly found themselves in a federal courtroom long ago. it is my hope that some day soon, all of us will finally be allowed to achieve some much-needed closure. may god bless janey, and may god bless you for bestowing this honor upon her. thank you. >> i carried the torch for this organization.

and i instilled in those kids our motto, semper fidelis, which means always faithful. it meant something to me that we take care of our own, and it meant something to those kids that i trained. i want this situation here to live in history, and in science, so that it never happens to anybody else again.