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The headaches began just after Hermogenes Marrero arrived on Vieques, the small Puerto Rican island where the young U.S. Marine guarded stores of Cold War-era chemical weapons. The retired sergeant, now 57 and terminally ill with cancer and other ailments, blames exposure to toxins released while he was stationed there from 1970 to 1972. By coming forward to support similar claims by island residents, he has become the public face of a new and bitter battle over Vieques, the Navy bombing range-turned-tourist destination off the U.S. territory's east coast. "I've been sick since I left Vieques," said the wheelchair-bound Marrero, who now lives in an apartment cramped with life-support equipment in this small town in northwestern Puerto Rico.

The headaches began just after Hermogenes Marrero arrived on Vieques, the small Puerto Rican island where the young U.S. Marine guarded stores of Cold War-era chemical weapons. The retired sergeant, now 57 and terminally ill with cancer and other ailments, blames exposure to toxins released while he was stationed there from 1970 to 1972. By coming forward to support similar claims by island residents, he has become the public face of a new and bitter battle over Vieques, the Navy bombing range-turned-tourist destination off the U.S. territory's east coast. "I've been sick since I left Vieques," said the wheelchair-bound Marrero, who now lives in an apartment cramped with life-support equipment in this small town in northwestern Puerto Rico.

President Barack Obama should instruct his administration to fulfill his campaign pledge to clean up the Navy's toxic mess in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and to help the victims of Vieques who suffer from a suite of health problems caused by the military's 50-plus year bombardment of the island. Back in February 2008, candidate Obama wrote a letter to then Governor Anibal Acevedo Vilá and the people of Puerto Rico in which he promised to "actively work" to clean up Vieques and to help those suffering from the health effects of toxic heavy metals, chemicals and radioactivity associated with the Navy's use of Vieques for target practice and live-fire training since World War II.

Residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques celebrated at the weekend after a US agency dropped claims that no health hazards had been caused by decades of US military exercises on and around the island. Some 7,000 past and current Vieques residents have filed a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in compensation for illnesses that they say are linked to the use of the island as a bombing range. The US Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has now admitted that it must "modify" its earlier research on Vieques, which had purported to show that there had been no health risks generated.

Residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques celebrated at the weekend after a US agency dropped claims that no health hazards had been caused by decades of US military exercises on and around the island. Some 7,000 past and current Vieques residents have filed a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in compensation for illnesses that they say are linked to the use of the island as a bombing range. The US Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has now admitted that it must "modify" its earlier research on Vieques, which had purported to show that there had been no health risks generated.

A U.S. agency has overturned its 2003 research that said no health hazards were caused by decades of military exercises on Vieques, a bombing range-turned-tourist destination off Puerto Rico's east coast. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said Friday it intends to "modify" some of its earlier research on Vieques, where the U.S. and its allies trained for conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq. The agency, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used its own studies to conclude in 2003 that there was essentially no health risk from the bombing range - a conclusion widely criticized by academics and residents on the 18-mile-long island of less than 10,000 people.

A U.S. agency has overturned its 2003 research that said no health hazards were caused by decades of military exercises on Vieques, a bombing range-turned-tourist destination off Puerto Rico's east coast. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said Friday it intends to "modify" some of its earlier research on Vieques, where the U.S. and its allies trained for conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq. The agency, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used its own studies to conclude in 2003 that there was essentially no health risk from the bombing range - a conclusion widely criticized by academics and residents on the 18-mile-long island of less than 10,000 people.

Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Orlando, spoke today before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Health and Environment, advocating for a full environmental cleanup of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The island served as a bombing range and military exercise ground for the Navy until the base was shut down in 2003, following protests from Puerto Ricans and their supporters on the island and the mainland. Speaking to the HispanoSphere today, Rep. Grayson said he took it upon himself to bring up the subject of Vieques in that agency's hearing because he wants to keep a spotlight on the issue. Many Puerto Ricans live in his Orlando district, Grayson said, and because the island does not have voting members in Congress he feels he should speak for those U.S. territory citizens as well. "In a sense, I am the Congressman for Puerto Rico," Grayson said.

The United Nations and both houses of the Puerto Rican Legislature have now passed resolutions supporting the people of Vieques in their struggle with disease, contamination and neglect from the United States Navy's 60-year bombardment of the island. When will the Obama Administration follow through on Obama's campaign promise to clean up the island and provide justice for the Vieques residents sickened by the Navy's actions?

"Vieques is a small island with a big problem. And the Obama administration is fighting to keep it that way. A municipality of Puerto Rico just a few miles east of the main island, Vieques has the lamentable distinction of being the venue of six decades of training exercises and weapons testing by the U.S. Navy. Starting around the outbreak of World War II, our military has tested all manner of munitions there, from napalm to depleted uranium to Agent Orange. It has also released immense quantities of jet fuel, flame retardants, and other toxic substances. The place is contaminated. Not surprisingly, Vieques's 9000 residents - American citizens by birth - are a sickly bunch. Cancer rates are 30 percent higher than they are on Puerto Rico's main island. In the case of diabetes, the figure is 41 percent; for hypertension, nearly 400 percent. And roughly 80 percent of residents test positive for heavy metals like lead, mercury, and arsenic in their hair."

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico: After gathering samples from an underwater nuclear bomb target - the USS Killen -- since 1999 in the small island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, University of Georgia Ecologist James Porter thought he would find evidence of radioactive material but instead discovered that unexploded munitions in the waters around the island are leaking cancer causing matter. These carcinogenic materials are absorbed by marine life and could very well be transferred to humans when they eat seafood, fished in the area. In addition, data revealed that the closer corals and marine life were to unexploded bombs from the World War II vessel and the surrounding target range, the higher the rates of carcinogenic materials.

When Hermogenes Marrero was in Marine boot camp, he recalls being the only recruit who didn't panic during simulated-chemical-warfare drills. "I'd sit there calmly with my gas mask on," Marrero says, "while a lot of other guys got scared and ran away." It was 1969, and Marrero, a New Yorker born in Puerto Rico, was fresh out of high school at the age of 17. But his composure caught the eyes of Marine instructors - and the next year, he says, he was at Camp Garcia on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, helping guard for 18 months chemical agents being tested by the U.S. Navy.

"Vieques is a small island with a big problem. And the Obama administration is fighting to keep it that way. A municipality of Puerto Rico just a few miles east of the main island, Vieques has the lamentable distinction of being the venue of six decades of training exercises and weapons testing by the U.S. Navy. Starting around the outbreak of World War II, our military has tested all manner of munitions there, from napalm to depleted uranium to Agent Orange. It has also released immense quantities of jet fuel, flame retardant, and other toxic substances. The place is contaminated. Not surprisingly, Vieques's 9000 residents -- American citizens by birth -- are a sickly bunch. Cancer rates are 30% higher than they are on Puerto Rico's main island. In the case of diabetes, that figure is 41%; for hypertension, nearly 400%. And roughly 80% of residents test positive for heavy metals like lead, mercury, and arsenic in their hair."

"Nearly 40 years ago, Hermogenes Marrero was a teenage U.S. Marine, stationed as a security guard on the tiny American island of Vieques, off the coast of Puerto Rico. Marrero says he's been sick ever since. At age 57, the former Marine sergeant is nearly blind, needs an oxygen tank, has Lou Gehrig's disease and crippling back problems, and sometimes needs a wheelchair. "I'd go out to the firing range, and sometimes I'd start bleeding automatically from my nose," he said in an interview to air on Monday night's "Campbell Brown." "

"On March 31, retired Sgt. Hermogenes Marrero was told during a visit to the Veterans Affairs (VA) outpatient clinic in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, that he didn't have cancer - or at least, his official VA computer file no longer showed any record of cancer. But Marrero was not relieved. He had been diagnosed twice before with colon cancer and suffers today from a dozen other illnesses, including Lou Gehrig's disease, failing vision, a lung condition that keeps him on oxygen around the clock, not to mention tumors throughout his body. The terminally ill and wheelchair-bound, 57-year-old veteran immediately suspected that the U.S. government had manipulated his medical record."