More than three decades after coming into contact with 100 barrels of a mysterious substance on a Marine Corps base in Japan, a Keene city councilor and state representative finally has some closure.
In 1981, Kris E. Roberts was a facilities maintenance officer at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, Japan.
As a first lieutenant in
charge of maintaining the base with 50 Okinawans and the 35 U.S.
soldiers working under him, Roberts was assigned to look into some
unusually high chemical readings in the water coming off the base.
He and his men did some
digging, and found barrels of a substance that Roberts thinks was Agent
Orange, one of the herbicides used by the U.S. military during the
Vietnam War to kill the foliage that North Vietnamese troops used for
cover.
More than 100 barrels lay neatly in the ground, rusty and leaking fluid, Roberts said.
“We dug, and it was more and more and more,” he said.
Now Roberts, a candidate
for mayor in Keene, is the first veteran the U.S. government has
acknowledged came into contact with hazardous chemicals on Futenma, he
said Wednesday.
In a ruling this month,
the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ appeals board told Roberts that
the prostate cancer he was diagnosed with in 2006 was due to “exposure
to hazardous chemicals.”
Roberts, now 61, said he experienced several medical issues, including strokes and blackouts, when he returned from Okinawa.
”Things just weren’t working,” he said. “I was was passing out ... and I had no idea what was causing it.”
He and his men had moved
the barrels onto trucks that were taken off the island, then submerged
themselves in water at the site where the barrels had been after a
typhoon flooded the area.
Roberts thought nothing
at the time of the potential health effects of interacting with the
barrels, which he said had rust that was the reddish-orange color of
Agent Orange. ”In 1981, Agent Orange was really no big deal,” he said.
“We weren’t working in any protective gear.”
Based on photographs of
the barrels and a doctor’s report that Roberts’ prostate cancer may have
been caused by exposure to chemicals, the Veterans Appeals Board said
in a letter to Roberts this month that “the benefit of the doubt has
been given in your favor.”
“We have conceded your
exposure to hazardous chemicals and granted service for prostate
cancer,” the letter says, which means there could be a connection
between the two, Roberts said.
The letter denies that the chemical in the barrels was Agent Orange.
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