I-Team

MIAMI (CBS4) ― "They knew about it, they lied to us and they didn't let the American people know for years later and in the meantime, people are suffering and dying and not knowing why."

Ed Bauries will tell you he is a proud Marine with a tortured soul ,"nothing will bring my babies back", and a broken body, "I thought of just taking my own life at times, it would be easier for my family."

Riddled with searing pain and paralysis from multiple sclerosis, his muscles and nerves feel so inflamed, it's as if he is on fire: "Up my neck up the right side of my face which it burns for 24/7."

Sitting across from Chief I-Team Investigator Michele Gillen in his South Florida home, he traces his arm and neck for Gillen explaining the pain is constant.

"Do you feel it now?" Gillen asks. "Oh yeah, yes."

But it is not only disease that bonds him with a band of brothers, other Marines, their children, their widows, from across Florida and the nation. Their shared bond is the water at Camp Lejune, North Carolina. Water they bathed in, cooked with and drank, decades ago, stationed at the base. Water that now appears to have been tainted with some of the most dangerous chemicals in the world.

"I'm missing half my chest. And every day I see it, it's a reminder that something horrible happened to me," Mike Partain shares with Gillen.

The son and grandson of Marine officers, Partin was born at Camp Lejune. Hundreds of thousands lived there from the 1950's through 1980's where it is now alleged drinking water was contaminated with chemicals from leaking underground storage tanks, the dumping of waste and a toxic spill from a nearby dry cleaners.

"One night my wife gives me a hug before I go to bed and she finds a bump on my chest. And then I go to the Doctor and they tell me I have male breast cancer," Partain recalls."Two weeks later, I have a mastectomy."

And just weeks later, by accident, he learned about the contamination of water there watching the news. A congressional hearing investigating health concerns including that babies born at the camp might have been exposed to chemicals discovered in the water.

"It was a shock," the towering Partain told Gillen at his Winterhaven home.

It was a shock that led him to a photograph taken within minutes of his birth at the camp. He was born with a mysterious rash that covered his head and body. If you look on the nightstand you see the half empty glass of water his mother was drinking and the half full bottle of his baby formula made with that very water.

"And the realization that I was one of those kids, you could have knocked me over with a feather," Partain remembers. "Suddently everything came into focus."

Now he and that band of brothers have organized a grassroots SOS campaign to reach anyone else who may have been exposed. Right behind North Carolina, Florida has the second highest number of servicemen and families who once lived on the base during the years in question.

"Michele, in the past two years since I was diagnosed I have found 52 other men who share male breast cancer and time spent at Camp LeJeune. That's the only thing we have in common," Partain says.

He adds that he believes there's an array of rare cancers and diseases striking men like him and their families, with no one tracking or helping.

"Liver damage. Kidney damage. Liver Cancer. Kidney cancer. Bladder Cancer. We are also seeing thyroid cancers, breast cancer in men and women. Thyroid cancer, leukemia, neurological disorder."

The I-Team has uncovered a trail of documents that first raised red flags about alleged contaminants in Camp Lejeune water dating back to 1981. But at the end of this day, the military says there is not enough proof to link contaminants with the health nightmares so many are experiencing today.

Gillen went to the nation's captial to meet with U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina). She asked about the military's response to those "red flags."

"Not just ignored but manipulated. And I think that is the concern. It's tough to go back and pick the individual to hold responsible and rather than spending our time focused on that, we are focused on how to start from this point forward and ask the military for a different response and a different attitude," Sen. Burr told Gillen.

The North Carolina Senator tells Gillen he wants answers, studies and medical assistance for the servicemen and their families who have been afflicted and today need help.

Meanwhile, Gillen asked Bauries if he were facing one of the congressional panels that are looking into this, what he would you like to say to them.

"I would have to say, 'Why did you turn your back on me? Why don't you help us? We helped you, we did whatever you asked of us, we sacrificed our lives, time away from our loved ones, Why wont you help us?' " He pleads for the families in need and life and death fights. He understands and has lived it.

Bauries was just 18 when he enlisted in the U.S. Marines. "My Daughter was 7 days old when I had my orders." And he was shipped out to fight and face death in Vietnam

"All you wanted to do was go home and you finally do get home, some of us and we find out we are in another war, a silent war -- one that we didn't find out we were in until many years later."

When he returned he from Vietnam he, his wife and little girl were stationed at Camp Lejeune for 15 months. Tragedies began to unfold.

"We had a son, he lived for one hour. We had another son and he lived for six months," he said.

Ten years ago, he says he got a call from a government official asking about his second son, and concerns there may have been something wrong with the water back at Camp Lejeune.

He says no one in the government has ever followed up about either of his sons' deaths or his health.

That led Gillen to speak with US Marine Corps Major General Eugen Payne. He spoke with Gillen via satellite from Washington D.C.

"Was the water contaminated that many of those families drank?" Gillen asked.

"The water there was contaminated water at Camp Lejeune during that period," Payne told Gillen. But most importantly, he continued, was that the Corps is reaching out to find those who may have been affected.

But Gillen asked why it took an act from U.S. Congress to force the corps to reach out to find and contact the families.

"That is a very good question." Payne responded. "I would say we always had an interest in contacting thee individuals. But we were focused primarily at that time on finding answers."

Bauries is one of many who worries that time will run out before answers are found.

"What is your greatest fear right now?" Gillen asked.

"That I am going to die not knowing positively that this was the cause," he emotionally details. "That this was the cause of my son's dying because it has consumed my whole life. I have been sick my entire life, I have lost my life and if this happens to be the cause, I just want to know they should be man enough to look us in the face and say, 'Yes, this was the cause of your pains and I would be happy.' "

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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