Film Probes How Toxic Water at Largest US Marine Base Damaged Lives

"Mike Partain didn’t believe the rumors about a place called Baby Heaven until he visited a Jacksonville, N.C., graveyard and wandered into a section where newborns were laid to rest. Surrounded by hundreds of tiny marble headstones, he started to cry."


"A documentary film crew that followed him for a story about water contamination at Camp Lejeune heard his whimpers through a microphone clipped to his clothes. The crew dashed from another part of the graveyard and found him asking, 'Why them and not me?'

The scene at Jacksonville City Cemetery is among the more poignant moments in the documentary 'Semper Fi: Always Faithful,' about the men, women and children affected over three decades by contaminated water at the nation’s largest Marine base. The film made the short list of 15 documentary features being considered for an Oscar; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will cut the list to five Tuesday."

Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post January 21, 2012.
Source: Wash Post, 01/23/2012