Leo Case was a World War II tank commander who survived the battle of Iwo Jima and risked his life to save his crew during a clash in the South Pacific, only to die of multiple cancers at 58. He was one of the first service members exposed to a contaminated water supply at Camp Lejeune. His granddaughter, Jessie Hoerman, an attorney in St. Louis, spent two years amassing an archive of records to prove he was sickened at the Marine Corps training facility in North Carolina, hoping to help thousands of other veterans with similar cases.
Hoerman has collected muster rolls, phone directories, yearbooks, and other materials that could substantiate her family’s claim and plans to share this collection with other veterans named in her documents. Up to 1 million people who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune from 1953 to 1987 may have been exposed to a contaminated drinking water supply, which has been linked to severe health problems such as cardiac defects and cancers.
Leo Case died of bowel, colon, liver, and lung cancer in 1976. The Veterans Administration hospital that treated him found no evidence of hereditary or infectious diseases. Hoerman began investigating her grandfather’s history after the PACT Act of 2022 expanded benefits to veterans exposed to toxic substances. She hopes that her collection of materials will help other families affected by the water contamination at Camp Lejeune.
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