Naval and Coast Guard ships exposed to AO in Vietnam

NAUS today in their newsletter published the following list of Navy
ships which were added this week to the AO List

VA Adds Ships to Agent Orange Exposure List
This week the VA has added the below named ships to the already
existing list for Navy and Coast Guard ships and vessels that are
presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange. If you served on any
of these mentioned ships and you have had a claim denied, you should
reapply citing the VA list as the source for your reapplication. NAUS
is told the VA is already working on a third list that will have more
ships listed. If you have a claim and evidence the ship you served on
was in Vietnamese waters and/or actually tied up to a dock there, make
sure you include that with your claim.

Vessels that operated primarily or exclusively on the inland waterways

All U.S. Coast Guard Cutters with hull designation WPB [patrol boat]
and
WHEC [high endurance cutters]

USS Mark (AKL-12) [light cargo ship]; USS Brule (AKL-28)

USS Patapsco (AOG-1) [gasoline tanker]; USS Elkhorn (AOG-7)
USS Genesee (AOG-8); USS Kishwaukee (AOG-9)
USS Tombigbee (AOG-11); USS Noxubee (AOG-56)

USS Okanogan (APA-210) [attack transport]; USS Montrose (APA-212)
USS Bexar (APA-237)

USS Benewah (APB-35) [self-propelled barracks ship]; USS Colleton
(APB-36)
USS Mercer (APB-39); USS Nueces (APB-40)

Barracks Barge (APL-26) [sleeping quarters] ); Barracks Barge
(APL-30)

USS Tutuila (ARG-4) [repair ship]; USS Satyr (ARL-23) [repair ship]
USS Sphinx (ARL-24); USS Askari (ARL-30); USS Indra (ARL-37)
USS Krishna (ARL-38)

USS Belle Grove (LSD-2) [landing ship dock]; USS Comstock (LSD-19)
USS Tortuga (LSD-26)

USS Asheville (PG-84) [patrol gunboat]; USS Gallop (PG-85)
USS Antelope (PG-86); USS Ready (PG-87); USS Crockett (PG-88)
USS Marathon (PG-89); USS Canon (PG-90)

Floating Base Platform (YRBM-17) [repair, berthing, and messing barge]
Floating Base Platform (YRBM-18); Floating Base Platform (YRBM-20)

Winnemucca (YTB-785) [harbor tug]


Vessels that operated temporarily on Vietnam's inland waterways or
docked to the shore:

USS Card (ACV-11) [escort carrier] mined, sunk, and salvaged in Saigon
River Harbor during May 1964
USS Maury (AGS-16) [mapping survey ship] conducted surveys of Mekong
Delta and other coastal areas and rivers beginning November 1965
through
1969
USS Henrico (APA-45) [amphibious attack transport] operated on Hue
River
during March 1965 and conducted numerous troop landings through March
1967
USS Montrose (APA-212) operated on Song Hue River during December
1965,
operated on Long Tau River during March 1967, and operated on Cua Viet
River and at Dong Ha during May 1967
USS Talladega (APA-208) operated on Saigon River during October 1967
USS Bolster (ARS-38) [salvage ship] crew operated on land.
USS Canberra (CAG-2) [guided missile cruiser] operated on Saigon River
from March 31 through April 1, 1966, on Cua Viet River during December
15, 1966, and on Mekong Delta Ham Luong River during January 15, 1967
USS Sproston (DD-577) [destroyer] operated on Mekong Delta and Ganh
Rai
Bay during January 1966
USS Picking (DD-685) operated on Saigon River during November 16, 1965
USS Epperson (DD-719) docked to Da Nang Pier on October 4, 1970
USS Southerland (DD-743) operated on Song Nga Bay and Saigon River
during July 1966
USS John W. Thomason (DD-760) operated on Nga Be River during 1969
USS Buck (DD-761) operated on Mekong River Delta and Saigon River
during
October 1966
USS Preston (DD-795) operated on Mekong River Delta, Ganh Rai Bay, and
Saigon River during September 28 - 29 and December 27 - 29, 1965
USS Warrington (DD-843) operated on Mekong River Delta Rung Sat
Special
Zone, North of Vung Gahn Rai Bay during March 1967
USS Dyess (DD-880) operated on Saigon River and Rung Sat Special Zone
from June 19-July 1, 1966
USS Perkins (DD-877) operated on Saigon River during June 1969
USS Orleck (DD-886) operated on Mekong River Delta during July 1969
USS Joseph Strauss (DDG-16) [guided missile destroyer] operated on
Mekong River Delta and Ganh Rai Bay during November 7 and December 7,
1968
USS Waddell (DDG-24) operated on Cua Viet River during March 1967
USS Newell (DER-322) [radar destroyer escort] docked at port of Nha
Trang during December 22-24, 1965
USS Duluth (LPD-6) [amphibious transport dock] docked to pier at Da
Nang
during March and October 1971
USS Cleveland (LPD-7) operated on Cua Viet River and at Dong Ha, as
well
as Hue River, from November 1967 through 1968 and Saigon River during
September 1969
USS Dubuque (LPD-8) docked at Da Nang on March 15, 1970
USS Boxer (LPH-4) [amphibious assault ship] docked to pier at Cam Rahn
Bay on September 9, 1965
USS Carter Hall (LSD-3) [landing ship dock] operated on Cua Viet River
and at Dong Ha during December 1967

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VA quietly giving benefits to Marines exposed to toxic water

VA quietly giving benefits to Marines exposed to toxic water

By Barbara Barrett
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: Saturday, Jun. 19, 2010 - 9:01 pm
WASHINGTON — Former Marine Corps Cpl. Peter Devereaux was told about a year ago that he had just two or three years to live.

More than 12 months later, at 48, he still isn't ready to concede that the cancer that's wasting his innards is going to kill him. He swallows his pills and suffers the pain and each afternoon he greets his 12-year-old daughter, Jackie, as she steps off her school bus in North Andover, Mass.

The U.S. Department of the Navy says that more research is needed to connect ailments suffered by Marines such as Devereaux who served at Camp Lejeune and their families who lived there to decades of water contamination at the 156,000-acre base in eastern North Carolina. Meanwhile, however, the Department of Veterans Affairs has quietly begun awarding benefits to a few Marines who were based at Lejeune.

"Right now, I would venture to say that any Camp Lejeune veteran who files a claim now is presumed to have been exposed to the contaminated drinking water," Brad Flohr, the assistant director for policy, compensation and pension service at the VA, told a meeting of affected Marines and family members in April.

It's estimated that as many as a million people were exposed to the water from the 1950s to the 1980s. The water was laced with trichloroethylene, known as TCE; tetrachloroethylene, known as PCE; benzene and other volatile organic chemicals.

Peter Devereaux doesn't expect to be around for Jackie's college years, but he hopes to be able to pay for them. Along with hundreds of other veterans across the country, he's convinced that contaminated water caused his cancer.

"It's like it's criminal, you know?" said Devereaux, who has male breast cancer.
While the Department of the Navy, which oversees the base, is funding continuing research on the issue, in some cases the VA has acknowledged that as likely as not, some Marine veterans' ailments were caused by drinking and bathing in poisonous water.

Despite the exposure, though, there's no presumption that a veteran's disease was caused by the contamination. Each case is judged on hits own merits, Flohr said.

Still, veterans' advocates have hope.

"It matters. That's an admission, right there," said Jerry Ensminger, a Marine veteran in North Carolina who lost his daughter to leukemia in 1985 after living at Camp Lejeune.

James Watters of Lubbock, Texas, was told in 2008 that he had a year to live. In June 2009, he learned that the VA had linked his cancer to the Lejeune contamination.

"This thing is huge in its ramifications," Watters said. "I think it just opens the floodgates."

More Marine veterans are learning about what happened years ago at Camp Lejeune.

Two years ago, a new law required the Defense Department to contact veterans through the Internal Revenue Service and tell them about their exposure.

Many veterans interviewed by McClatchy said they had no idea that they'd been exposed until they opened the envelopes in the mail.

"You know what went off in my head? A light bulb," said Allen Menard, 47, of Green Bay, Wis. His doctor had told him years before that his form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, was chemical-related.

He filed for VA disability in 2008, blaming his cancer on Lejeune's water, and was at first denied before finally he was granted a full service connection, a recognition that his illness is related to his service, this spring.

"I did my research. I had to fight," Menard said. "I had two professors at Boston University write letters for me."

One of those professors, epidemiologist Richard Clapp, said veterans deserve an answer about what effects the water might have had on their health.

"It's a horrific problem," said Clapp, who serves on a community panel that's studying the Lejeune contamination. "There are lots of people exposed, some to very high levels of these chemicals. Some for short periods for time, some for decades."

The public is only now beginning to realize the extent of the contamination.

Stories among the veterans indicate a handful have been given service connections. Each case means the VA has established that there's at least a 50 percent chance that the veteran's military service caused the ailment.

The awards are inconsistent, however. While a veteran in Wisconsin is offered payment, one in Florida with similar symptoms is denied. The VA doesn't keep track, and Flohr said this spring that he'd just learned about many of the successful appeals.

Legislation in the House of Representatives and Senate would establish presumptions between service connection and illnesses associated with the contamination, but those bills are still pending.

Although advocates are energized by recent VA benefits awards, a McClatchy review of some Veterans Affairs decisions shows that connections to the toxic water at Lejeune have been made in the past.

In 2002, for example, the agency granted a service connection to a veteran with cancer of the hard palate. The veteran, whose name is redacted, had served from 1982 to 1987 at Lejeune. His application was denied in 1995 and again in 1999.

After he sent in medical opinions about the contamination, an appeals board granted the service connection.

Another challenge for Veterans Affairs and federal scientists comes in deciding what diseases might have been caused by which chemical in the water.

For now, Flohr said the VA is trying to educate regional offices around the country. Last month, the agency sent a memo to its regional offices describing contamination of TCE and PCE.

The memo says there may be limited association between those chemicals and cancers of the kidney, breast, bladder, lung or esophagus.

The Veteran Affairs memo doesn't mention benzene, even though federal scientists said a year ago that benzene has emerged as a central suspect in the contamination. Benzene is a known carcinogen.

The distinction about which chemicals were present in the water is important, because they're associated with different diseases.

For years, Marine veteran Michael Schooler suspected that Agent Orange he was exposed to in Vietnam was responsible for his acute myoletic leukemia. Then McClatchy and other news outlets reported this year that benzene has had a far greater significance in the contamination than scientists had previously realized.

"I asked my doctor, 'Does benzene cause it?' " recalled Schooler, 61, of Jasper, Ind. "He lit up like a Christmas tree. He said, 'That's what causes it.'"

Schooler filed an appeal this spring. He expects to learn this month whether the VA will grant the service connection for benzene exposure.

In Massachusetts, Peter Devereaux also waits, drawing on the patience he learned while he was in the Marines.
"I'm terminal," he said. "Being a man, I only want to take care of my wife and daughter, like I always have."

FOR VETERANS WHO MIGHT BE AFFECTED

Veterans who think they might have been affected by contaminated water at Camp Lejeune can apply for service connection health benefits from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. You can apply by filling out VA Form 21-526, Veterans Application for Compensation and/or Pension.

The VA recommends that if you have any of the following material, please attach it to your application:


Discharge or separation papers (DD214 or equivalent)
Dependency records (marriage & children's birth certificates)
Medical evidence (doctor & hospital reports)
Veterans who have applied for benefits related to water contamination at Camp Lejeune say they strongly recommend a medical nexus letter from a doctor.

For more information, contact your local VA office or your local veterans service organization, or go online to http://www.vba.va.gov/VBA/

The Marine Corps also has a website about the Lejeune contamination, https://clnr.hqi.usmc.mil/clwater/

A group of Marine veterans and affected family members has a website on the issue, The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten, www.tftptf.com

ON THE WEB

Department of Veterans Affairs fact sheet on Camp Lejeune water contamination

Department of Veterans Affairs benefits website

"The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten: Camp Lejeune Toxic Water"

Camp Lejeune Historic Drinking Water

About Camp Lejeune

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Congress pushes military to release data on Camp Lejeune water

Warnings about Lejeune's tainted water unheeded for years

Lejeune water probe: Did Marine Corps hide benzene data?

Judge: Lejeune ex-resident can move ahead with injury claim

Marine base's residents, many ill, only now learning of toxic water

Toxins in Camp Lejeune water 30 years ago still a problem

Follow the latest politics news at McClatchy's Planet Washington

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go to the link at the top of the page and you can access all of these topics and get more information about the exposures and follow the mess......

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