Senator Marco Rubio
In 1986, Audrey Williams Pride laid her infant son to rest. She blamed herself for his death—but it was actually the government’s fault. The authorities at Camp Lejeune, the North Carolina Marine Corps base Audrey called home, had contaminated the drinking water.
Audrey is not alone. From 1953 to 1987, more than a million men, women, and children bathed in and ingested Camp Lejeune’s toxic water. Hundreds of babies died, so many filling a stretch of a nearby cemetery that it received the grim title “Baby Heaven.” And children were not the only victims of the poisoning. Tens of thousands of Marines, military family members, and civilian staff have since developed severe illnesses, from cancer to Parkinson’s, linked to the contamination.
