It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God such men lived.
— General George S. Patton
Living conditions at Patrol Base Alcatraz are very austere. There are no showers, laundry facilities, chow hall, or pretty much anything else one would think of as a necessity of modern life… the camp or water bottle shower remains the best we can do to keep clean and cool.
— Letter from the commanding officer, June 1, 2011
Provided by the HunterSeven Foundation
Just days before the commanding officer wrote the above message, the men of the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion had landed at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, after a 36-hour layover in Manus, Kyrgyzstan. Prior to stepping off, the men laid out their gear, soaked from the downpour they had experienced in Okinawa. They would be tasked with pushing further into Regional Command South (RC South) by establishing a new patrol base on key enemy supply routes, intended to disrupt insurgent activity and increase security for the local populace.
“Austere” was a mild description of the new base; it was a run-down set of formerly vacant buildings with barrier walls offering just a few feet of concrete above the Marines’ heads. The troops used makeshift sinks for daily hygiene, slept on sand-covered cots, and shaded themselves from the 120-degree heat in old huts.
On June 6, 2011, the men of Bravo Company, 3rd Recon Battalion, patrolled a local village in Sangin Valley. While doing their assignment, women and children suddenly began fleeing the streets. Even the livestock fled as if they knew what was about to occur. The Marines were left standing alone in the village.
Within minutes, a barrage of 20-30 enemy combatants began firing on the Marines, who quickly were surrounded. According to one report, the enemy utilized 14 known fighting positions and, at one point, had enveloped Bravo Company by 200 degrees and closed the coordinated attack on the Marines from 375 meters to just 36. After nearly an hour of fighting, one commander ordered a “danger-close” (in close proximity to friendly troops) drop of a 500lb GBU-54 laser-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) to neutralize the enemy combatants. Despite requests by others for a less-lethal solution — to protect the Marines on the ground — the commander ordered the JDAM strike.
The JDAM dropped within 36 meters of the Marines, exposing the entire platoon to significant, brain-injurious blast waves and a slew of airborne toxins. The JDAM failed to neutralize the combatants and two High Mobility Artillery Rocket (HIMAR) warheads followed. According to the Marines, they survived only because of a canal inlet they were able to jump into for some protective cover.
One of those men from Bravo Company was Marine Corps Sgt. Dominic Hall, a 21-year-old from Appleton, Wisconsin. This would be Dominic’s first of two overseas deployments to Afghanistan. In a conversation I had with Dominic about this incident, he briefly touched on the physical “shock” the JDAM sent, but was very humble about his role in the operation — for which he would earn a valorous medal.
I met Dominic in fall 2021, but the impact he has had on me will be everlasting.
He was just 31 years old, recently separated from the military, a husband to his beautiful wife, Jacole, and a father to their two sons, Victor and Thorin. Even after separating from military service, Dominic, a true man of God, had a passion to serve others. He was a sworn member of the Appleton Police Department, serving in its SWAT and sniper units. In an incident on July 25, 2019, Dominic and his trainee saw a man who appeared highly intoxicated. While Dominic was speaking to him, the man pulled a knife and began stabbing himself in the neck. Despite the man’s life-threatening injuries, Dominic and two other officers saved his life. For this, Department honored Dominic and the two other officers with its “Life Saving Award.” This is just one example of Dominic’s selfless and heroic actions.
Dominic didn’t brag about his service or accomplishments. In fact, one would never know how much he had accomplished. We found out how incredible he was through candid discussions with his wife, Jacole. Unfortunately, our meetings were under tragic circumstances.
Dominic neither drink nor smoke. He was fit and healthy, exercised often, and ate well. Because of this, the medical staff and care team were perplexed when this 30-year-old man arrived at the Emergency Department in May 2021 with severe abdominal pain and stomach upset. Oddly, the young veteran had a significant level of liver enzymes and an elevated bilirubin level at six times the normal limit — an odd situation for a man of his background. Days later, Dominic had his blood drawn again, but his levels continued to exceed the normal limit. Eventually, an imaging scan identified an ill-defined mass on the pancreas, consistent with malignancy (cancer). Fortunately, it was localized, but did have vascular involvement.
The diagnosis for 30-year-old Dominic was stage 1B pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Despite the presence of cancer, his care team thought the tumor was “borderline” resectable, and decided the best route would be an in-house clinical trial with neoadjuvant therapy. His care team assumed that because of his demographics and not meeting the “usual” profile of an individual with pancreatic cancer, he was the victim of a genetic mutation related to a familial disposition (Lynch syndrome).
Nearly two months into treatment, Dominic’s side effects were too severe, and his medication was switched multiple times. His symptoms — excessive nausea and vomiting, weight loss, and pain — worsened and were so severe he had to step away from his job as a police officer. At this point, we began working to ensure Dominic had the most inclusive, evidence-based care possible and reached out to Dr. Thomas Abrams at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. Around the same time, the cancer had begun to spread to Dominic’s liver. By January 2022, a liver biopsy confirmed the worst — metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma with liver involvement. I sat back and wondered how his cancer could go from stage 1B to stage 4 so quickly.
The liver biopsy result came back, and genomic profiling showed a few mutations. Oddly, however, the suspected “genetic” marker was absent. There was no sign of the suspected Lynch syndrome his care team initially hypothesized. While reading this, I took a deep breath and let a long sigh out.
While sitting and speaking with Dominic and Jacole, attempting to find answers, solutions, and possible avenues to help cure this man, I began to learn who exactly Dominic Hall was.
In 2008, Dominic enlisted into the U.S. Marine Corps as a reconnaissance Marine candidate. Graduating from boot camp at the School of Infantry-West in December 2008, he completed the basic recon course by March 2009 and found himself at the 3rd Recon Battalion in Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Japan, by April 2009. Dominic spent a significant amount of time in the Pacific, including time stationed abroad on the USS Essex and the USS Harpers Ferry, and even served on the USS Ronald Reagan following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
When Dominic mentioned the latter event, which took place in March 2011, I had no idea what he was talking about. I decided to read up about it and found that those who responded to the incident were potentially exposed to radiation. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a report finding that between March and September 2011, radioactive materials — including Iodine-131, Cesium-134, and Cesium-137 — had been released into the air and ocean.
Just like most chemicals, radioactive substances have a “half-life.” Half-life refers to the time taken for the radioactivity of a specific isotope to fall to half its original value. Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8.1 days and its risks can be mitigated through iodine tablets (which the Navy supplied most service members). The half-life of Cesium-134 is two years, whereas Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years. Thus, to this day, some Cesium particulates lie dormant on the beaches surrounding Fukushima.
I searched the National Library of Medicine to learn about this unfamiliar exposure. I found a September 2021 report by Dr. Sebastiano Venturi in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The report noted an increase in pancreatitis and pancreatic cancers among Japanese residents near Fukushima following the nuclear incident. Additionally, the report noted a correlation between radioactive Cesium and pancreatic cancer:
The pancreas is metabolically a very active organ…. The pancreas has high blood perfusion from the pancreatic arteries and can accumulate inside its cells a considerable amount of radioactive 137-Cs able to damage cell DNA.
My heart sank into my stomach, and I felt as if I was going to vomit. Shockingly, I had never heard of this and wondered how many others were affected by this exposure. The list of cancers and cancer-related deaths is quite long. Focusing on Dominic, I opened an Excel worksheet and began to document his potential exposures since boot camp. We tracked the time, location, exposure duration, and amount as recorded in whatever documents we could find using artificial-intelligence programming.
Months after the Fukushima incident, Dominic was deployed to Afghanistan for the first time. His purpose was to counter increasing insurgency and provide safety to the locals. Only days into his mission, Dominic came within meters of being hit by JDAMs, as recounted at the beginning of this article, and endured constant firefights. I continued through Dominic’s military records file and came across a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement with Valor award dated August 5, 2011. It stated:
On 5 August 2011, while conducting a five-day, company-sized clearing operation in the village of Malozai, one of Sergeant Hall’s Marines was shot while providing security from a rooftop overwatch position. Without hesitation or concern for his own safety, Sgt. Hall bolted to the rooftop position where the casualty was, took control of the M240B on post and provided covering fire and overwatch, allowing the platoon to pull the casualty off of the roof. In the same position where his fellow Marine was just shot, Sgt. Hall stayed behind the machine gun to provide suppressive fire without regard to his own safety, which led to the successful evacuation of combat wounded… Later that same day, an enemy fragmentation grenade was thrown into his platoon’s compound by a well-concealed enemy fighter. The grenade sent fragmentation into two Afghan National Army soldiers, both whom received critical injuries. Despite having a grenade explode within 10-feet of him, Sgt. Hall immediately provided life-saving aid to the first ANA soldier and both would survive their injuries solely due to Sgt. Hall’s treatment…
I thought, “wow, that is a lot to take in less than 24 hours.” But Dominic was stoically unphased and set his mind on the mission. As someone with a trauma medic/nursing background, this is heavy to witness and can sear the minds of even the most battle-hardened men — but not Dominic. His heart, mind, and soul were as pure as they could possibly be.
In December 2011, Dominic returned to Okinawa. He spent a few months in Japan before moving to the Marine Corps Reserves and heading back stateside. In the meantime, Dominic’s passion for serving continued. He wanted to do more, and the reserves weren’t cutting it. So, in December 2012, Dominic re-enlisted into the Ohio Army National Guard as a special-forces (18X) candidate. By August 2015, Dominic had earned the infamous “Green Beret” and graduated with high honors.
In Ohio, Dominic was assigned to Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group as Special Forces Weapons Sergeant. During that time, he met his soon-to-be wife, Jacole. If you knew them both, you’d know they were made for each other. While waiting for orders to re-deploy to Afghanistan, Dominic was assigned some smaller tasks within the unit. Looking through his records file, we found orders placing the young soldier on “Demolition Duty” that rated as “Hazardous duty pay.” Dominic had interesting stories from this experience.
Meanwhile, our list of Dominic’s potential exposures grew, becoming quite impressive. The newly promoted staff sergeant stepped off for a second rotation to Afghanistan, this time to RC East with the 19th and 7th special forces groups. Within the first few days, Dominic received his Combat Infantryman Badge as his ODA began taking constant fire in the Sahak Village in Paktia Province. Additionally, he received a Bronze Star, Army Commendation and Achievement Medals, and Valorous Unit Awards — too many awards to keep track of.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, January 2022.
Dominic was told his cancer had progressed to stage 4 and had spread to his liver. He was only 32 years old and, as mentioned, nothing about his cancer made sense. I sat at my desk at night, sometimes as late as 1 a.m., looking for answers, asking questions, and searching for the best pancreatic cancer providers in the nation. I even reached out to Dr. Kelly Lafaro — one of the most highly recommended providers at Johns Hopkins — via LinkedIn and asked Dr. Thomas Abrams from the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute to review his case. It meant that much to me.
Our exposure roster continued growing; we found over 50 chemical compounds, exposures, heavy metals, isotopes, and toxins to which Dominic was likely exposed. We knew the exposure, dates, specific event, and locations. We had documentation to provide evidence that this specific veteran was exposed. We even knew the route of exposure, as ingested has the outcome of a different system than dermal. We knew Dominic was exposed to Cesium-137 via ingestion at 6,340 bq/kg on March 15, 2011, and that the JDAM exposed Dominic to airborne 2,4-Dinitrotoluene on March 6, 2011.
As the year progressed, so did Dominic’s cancer. His local care team said it wasn’t possible to operate. His wife told me his condition was deteriorating quickly, and his care team said he most likely wouldn’t see the end of September.
By mid-August, the chemotherapy and active treatments had been discontinued. Dominic had just turned 33 in late August, and saw his oldest son off to his first day of school.
During this time, Dominic said, “If things don’t work out, I am prepared to accept that. Ultimately, from what I am gathering, the liver going into failure is what will take my life. There are a lot of nights that I don’t sleep because of the pain, but knowing that people are out there praying for me, I can’t put into words how much it touches my heart and how much it means to me that people are taking time out of their day to pray… it gives me so much hope.”
We often thought of Dominic and his wife and children during this period. On September 2, I received a text from Jacole. She told me Dominic was in the hospital and was more comfortable and peaceful. I asked what I could do and what she needed; she replied by asking that we pray for a peaceful rest for Dominic. My heart shattered. The strength of this woman was a match for her strong, stoic husband.
Dominic was called home by God on September 4, 2022 at 12:23 p.m. His last words, whispered to his wife, were “I love you too.”
I told Jacole months ago, that Dominic’s story created a new way for medical providers to review toxic exposures using evidence-based findings, artificial intelligence, and rapidly-producing machine learning. Undoubtedly, if we knew the plethora of Dominic’s exposures beforehand, his treatments would have been vastly different. Dominic was “veteran zero,” the first-ever veteran to be tracked through this next generation of methods. I told his wife that this will impact so many lives for the better and provide insight into cancers that could be stopped.
A man of honor, stoicism, pride, dignity — in a tragic situation, Dominic chose to look at his ordeal in a positive light. In a statement to The Compass newspaper less than a month before passing, Dominic stated:
In my heart, I feel that something good is going to come from this, God’s ways are not our ways. Ultimately, he’s going to use my death to spur something. I’m offering up my suffering for other people who are sick or suffering. I just know there’s something good coming from my death because God’s plans are for good, not for ill.