Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune
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| Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune | |
|---|---|
| Jacksonville, North Carolina
34°35'34.08"N 77°20'32.60"W |
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 MCB Camp Lejeune Insignia |
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| Type | Military base |
| Built | 1941 |
| In use | 1941– |
| Controlled by | USMC |
| Garrison | II Marine Expeditionary Force Marine Special Operations Command |
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune is near Jacksonville, North Carolina, on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States.
Camp Lejeune is home to the II Marine Expeditionary Force, 2nd Marine Division, three other major Marine commands, and a Naval hospital. As of the early 2000s, Onslow County's population was 143,491 of which 43,100 were active service members.
The base occupies 246 square miles (637 km²)[1]. The base's 14 miles (23 km) of beaches make it a major area for amphibious assault training, and its location between two deep-water ports (Wilmington and Morehead City) allows for fast deployments.
The main base is supplemented by four satellite facilities: Camp Geiger, Stone Bay, Courthouse Bay, Camp Johnson, and the latest addition to the facility, the Greater Sandy Run Training Area. When added to the main base and MCAS Cherry Point, they make up the largest concentration of Marines and U.S. Navy sailors in the world.
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[edit] Resident commands
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[edit] History
In April 1941, construction was approved on an 11,000-acre (45 km²) tract in Onslow County, North Carolina. On May 1 of that year, Lt. Col. William P. T. Hill began construction on Marine Barracks New River, N.C. The first base headquarters was in a summer cottage on Montford Point, then shifted to Hadnot Point in 1942. Later that year it was renamed in honor of the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, John A. Lejeune.
One of the satellite facilities of Camp Lejeune served for a while as a third boot camp for the Marines, in addition to Parris Island and San Diego. That facility, Montford Point, was established after Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802. Between 1942 and 1949, a brief era of segregated training for black Marines, the camp at Montford Point trained 20,000 African-Americans. After the military was ordered to fully integrate, Montford Point was renamed Camp Gilbert H. Johnson and became the home of the Marine Corps Combat Service Support Schools.
In 1982, Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were found to be in Camp Lejeune's drinking water supply. VOC contamination of groundwater can cause birth defects and other ill health effects in pregnant and nursing mothers. This information was not made public for nearly two decades when the government attempted to identify those who may have been exposed.
Today MCB Camp Lejeune boasts 11 miles of beach capable of supporting amphibious operations. There are 78 live-fire ranges, 98 maneuver areas, 34 gun positions, 540 tactical landing zones and a state-of-the-art Military Operations in Urban Terrain training facility. Military forces from around the world come to MCB Camp Lejeune on a regular basis for bilateral and NATO-sponsored exercises.
[edit] Pollution
From at least 1957 through 1987, Marines and their families at Lejeune drank and bathed in water contaminated with toxins at concentrations up to 40-times permitted by safety standards, and at least 850 former residents filed claims for nearly $4 billion from the military. The main chemicals involved were trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE); however, more than 70 chemicals have been identified as contaminants at Lejeune. [2] The base's wells were shut off in the mid-1980s, after which the water met federal standards.[2][3]
In 2007, Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine master sergeant, found a document dated 1981 that described a radioactive dump site near a rifle range at the camp. According to the report, the waste was laced with strontium-90, an isotope known to cause cancer and leukemia.[2] According to Camp Lejeune's installation restoration program manager, base officials learned in 2004 about the 1981 document.[2] Ensminger served in the Marine Corps for 24 and a half years, and lived for part of that time at Camp Lejeune. In 1985 his 9-year-old daughter, Janey, died of cancer.[2]
An advocacy group called The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten was created to inform possible victims of the contamination at Lejeune. The group's website includes an introduction with some basic information about the contamination at Lejeune, including that many health problems various types of cancer, leukemia, miscarriages and birth defects, have been noted in people who drank the contaminated water. According to their site, numerous base housing areas were affected by the contamination, including Tarawa Terrace, Midway Park, Berkeley Manor, Paradise Point, Hadnot Point, Hospital Point, and Watkins Village.[4]
[edit] Marine Corps Brig
The military prison at Camp Lejeune has been in operation since 1968 and currently has a maximum capacity of 280 inmates who are locked up between 30 and 90 days.
The Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) recommended in 2005 that the brig be closed, and the Secretary of Defense has to implement the commission's recommendations at the latest on September 15, 2011. A new brig is scheduled to be built in Chesapeake, Virginia. Instead a small detention facility will be built at Camp Lejeune to hold detainees awaiting court martial.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text in the public domain from the United States Marine Corps.
- ^ Camp Lejeune History. USMC. Retrieved on 2007-10-01. “A tobacco barn, farm house and temporary tent cities have grown into a 246-square mile premier military training facility”
- ^ a b c d e Thompson, Estes (2007-07-10). EPA investigating whether radioactive waste was buried at pollution-plagued Camp Lejeune. ABC News, Associated Press. Retrieved on 2007-09-29.
- ^ Camp Lejeune Water Study - US Marine Corps
- ^ The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten. 2008-02-04. Access date 2008-02-06
[edit] See also
- Lejeune High School, located on base, serving military dependents
- List of United States Marine Corps installations
- Marine Corps Air Station New River
- Museum of the Marine
- Camp Lejeune Incident
[edit] External links
- The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten
- Camp Lejune official website, including a history of Camp Lejeune
- Camp Lejeune Globe, military-authorized newspaper
- Montford Point Marines Honored at DoD Observance, a February 2006 AFIS press release
- Onslow Beach - an introduction - article with image gallery of military training exercises, at Citizendium
- Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry - Camp Lejeune, North Carolina: Water Modeling
- An inside look at the base brig at www.lejeune.usmc.mil
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