BALTIMORE — James Moore says serving his country was an honor.
'Just make it right': Baltimore Marine veteran waits for Camp Lejeune claim after cancer diagnosis
The Baltimore veteran served in the Marine Corps from 1968 to 1987, including multiple assignments at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina — a base he remembers for its training, barracks and brotherhood.
“I love Camp Lejeune. I love it,” Moore said. “I just didn’t know what was going on.”
What Moore says he did not know at the time was that the water Marines drank, cooked with and showered in had been contaminated.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune began in the early 1950s, and the most contaminated wells were shut down in 1985.
“We drank water every single day,” Moore said. “We ate food every single day. And we had no idea that the water was like that.”
Moore says he learned about the contamination years later, after a friend who had served as a corpsman died and left him a letter telling him about Camp Lejeune’s water.
By then, Moore says, his own health had already changed.
“I have prostate cancer,” Moore said. “I had an aggressive prostate cancer.”
Moore says no doctor has told him directly that his prostate cancer was caused by Camp Lejeune’s water. But after Congress created a legal path for people exposed to contaminated water at the base to file claims and seek compensation, Moore says he started trying to prove what he could.
“So what I did is I contacted a lawyer,” Moore said.
The Camp Lejeune Justice Act was included in the 2022 Honoring our PACT Act. It allows certain veterans, family members and others exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune to file claims.
More than 546,500 Camp Lejeune compensation claims were filed before the deadline, according to court filings. But the Department of Justice says, as of March, 2,531 settlement offers had been approved through its faster Elective Option program. Moore says he is still waiting.
“I’m praying that I’ll see a settlement,” Moore said. “But I don’t think I’ll see a settlement before I pass.”
That uncertainty recently brought Moore and other Camp Lejeune survivors to Washington, D.C., where they called for faster answers and broader recognition for people they say were exposed on base, including families, civilian workers and children.
“What we’re asking for is compensation for drinking contaminated water at our stay at Camp Lejeune,” Moore said. “And we were not even informed that the water was contaminated.”
The Department of Justice says total Camp Lejeune Justice Act settlement offers have exceeded $876 million, with payouts exceeding $665 million as of May 15, 2026.
But Moore says payout numbers do not capture what it feels like to wait in your seventies, while dealing with cancer, for a decision that may come too late.
“We are 70-something years old,” Moore said. “We’re gonna die.”
For Moore, compensation would not undo the diagnosis, the surgery or the years spent searching for answers. But he says acknowledgment still matters.
“It doesn’t make it better,” Moore said. “But it makes it right.”
Moore survived Vietnam, came home and built a life. Now, decades later, he says the fight he worries about most is one he never saw coming.
“I didn’t die in Vietnam,” Moore said. “I’m gonna die from the water at Camp Lejeune. Can you imagine that?”
Despite the frustration, Moore says he still believes serving this country is an honor. But for the veterans and families connected to Camp Lejeune, he says honor now has to come with accountability.
“Every family, every kid, every worker, every driver, every school teacher, every person that ever touched base at Camp Lejeune — they should be compensated,” Moore said.
The deadline to file new Camp Lejeune Justice Act claims has passed, but cases filed on time are still being reviewed. Moore says he wants veterans and families connected to the base to check their records, follow their claims and keep pushing for answers.
