They protested the denial of care to veterans and talked about the rates of suicide, incarceration and invisible wounds such as post-traumatic stress disorder, affecting more than 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

According to investigators, hundreds of thousands of Marines and their families living on base were exposed to well water contaminated by cleaning solvents between 1953 and 1987. The Camp Lejeune Justice Act, part of the PACT Act signed this month, lets military families who lived on base during that time sue for relief.

Tillis rejected the law because it directed the Veterans Administration to oversee the implementation of the act. The VA, in its own words, told lawmakers it was already overburdened with current obligations.

A bill that’s awaiting a minor technical change and the president’s signature will finally provide a legal avenue for those who got sick or had family members who got sick and died. Lawyers aren’t waiting for the president’s John Hancock. They’re paying for a flurry of online commercials and television ads to recruit plaintiffs.

Veterans try to convince the Veterans Administration that their post-service illnesses were linked to their time in the military.