Well, it seems contaminated well water has done what Lorena Bobbitt (now Gallo) could not — relieved John Wayne Bobbitt of some body parts. Specifically his toes.
In an interview with The Sun (note: the article is accompanied by pictures of Bobbitt’s toeless feet) the 57-year-old former Marine says he was diagnosed with toxic peripheral polyneuropathy, which “causes nerve damage and contributes to the emergence of osteomyelitis, a bone infection that gives him ulcers and necessitates painful skin grafts” as a result of his stint at the infamous Camp Lejeune in North Carolina back in the 1980s.
In 1980, in order to comply with new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the base began testing the water in its wells. As it turned out, the water in two of the eight wells were contaminated with toxic chemicals 240 to 3400 times what would be considered a safe level for human beings, as dry cleaning solvents from an off-base laundry nearby, “oil, industrial wastewater, and toxic chemicals used as degreasers and solvents were all knowingly dumped in the local storm drains at the army base between 1952 and 1987, contaminating the local water supply for 35 years.”
By the mid-1980s, the base finally got around to shutting the two wells off. For a while, anyway. Once the water became acceptably non-toxic, they turned the wells back on, in violation of the EPA’s rules. Because what kind of snowflake hippies think that it is harmful for human beings to drink and bathe in water containing a freakishly high concentration of dry cleaning solvents?
As a result of this contamination, veterans who served on the base during the years the water was contaminated have had severe health complications, including multiple cancers, Parkinson’s, ALS, fatty liver disease, infertility, miscarriages, etc. etc. Toxic peripheral polyneuropathy is not listed on any sites as a common complication, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t caused by it.
Bobbitt, as you may know, became super famous in the 1990s after his wife, then-24-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Lorena Bobbitt, cut his penis off in the middle of the night and then drove off and threw it out the window into a field. Why? Well, he says it was because she was just so jealous and afraid that he would leave her (because people normally stay with people who cut their body parts off, right?), but she maintains it was because he was physically and emotionally abusive and violently raped her on a regular basis. She was acquitted by a jury, who determined that the crime was an “irresistible impulse” caused by temporary insanity.
He, unfortunately, did not learn from his mistakes and was arrested several more times for domestic violence against at least two other women, resulting in a single conviction that landed him in prison for 15 days.
While Bobbitt is still half-maintaining that he never did nothing to Lorena to make her want to cut his dick off, that somehow the whole thing was orchestrated by Lorena’s boss, Janna Bisutti, for no reason, and that he was the real domestic abuse victim in the situation, he also told The Sun that Camp Lejeune may have been responsible for some of his relationship issues.
While Bobbitt says he has “three sets” of attorneys fighting for his rights, he’s adamant the deep mental and physical scars caused by his time at Lejeune were a contributing factor to his stormy relationship with Venezuelan Lorena.
“I wasn’t behaving the way I should have,” he said.
“Maybe I would have made better decisions if my cognitive functioning wasn’t distorted by the chemicals.”
Neurobehavioral effects are actually listed as one of the more common conditions suffered by those who served at Camp Lejeune.
In 2022, President Biden signed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, designating $1 billion to compensate veterans like Bobbitt who have suffered ill-effects from having come into contact with the very, very toxic water, although they only have up until August of this year to file a claim. So if you were stationed there, you better go do that now!
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