Word: marrero
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...Most Vieques residents - who, as Puerto Ricans, are all U.S. citizens - would agree with Marrero. In 2007, more than 7,000 of them filed a federal suit, Sanchez v. United States, claiming that in the nearly 60 years after World War II that the Navy used a portion of the island as a firing range and weapons-testing ground it negligently exposed Vieques' population of 10,000 to dangerous levels of toxins. The community, according to several independent medical studies, has a cancer rate 30 times higher than that of Puerto Rico's main island to the west...
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...
...Today Marrero, at 57, believes he was too poised around those hazardous materials for his own good. In an affidavit filed last month in the U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico, where Marrero now lives, he says he is legally blind, uses a wheelchair, has battled colon cancer and chronic pulmonary illnesses, and was recently diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, among other ailments. "I've been sick in some form or another since I was 25," says Marrero. He was stationed on Vieques, he adds, "for too long...
...Marrero said that, generally speaking, committee work will entail negotiation...
...reauthorization process and the committee markup process is for providing an opportunity weigh the pros and cons of the proposals,” Marrero said. “Part of the goal is to look at what will be the best use of federal resources, to look at what will expand college access and be good for student borrowers...