About Robert O'Dowd

Robert O’Dowd was born and raised in Darby, PA. At age 19, he volunteered for the Marines, serving on active duty for 52 months with the 1st, 3rd and 4th Marine Aircraft Wings in the 1960s. Robert is a disabled Marine veteran, surviving three cancers from environmental toxins at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, CA. At El Toro, he was assigned to Marine Wing Services Group 37, “Spook Corner,” the area where CIA proprietary C-130s, offloaded cocaine in the 1980s and 1990s. After the Marines, Robert graduated from Temple University with a BBA in accounting. He held several financial management positions with the Department of Defense, including Deputy Comptroller, Defense Contracts Management District (DCMD) Mid-Atlantic. 

Retiring from the Defense Department, Robert teamed up with Tim King, Marine veteran and founder of Salem-News.com, to write about the environmental contamination at U.S. military bases, and the health effects to veterans unknowingly exposed to toxic chemicals. Robert wrote several years as the Environmental and Military Reporter for Salem-News.com (Salem, Oregon). The environmental contamination story at El Toro led him to the sensational murder and government cover-up of Marine Colonel James E. Sabow, the sabotage of Arrow Air 1285, a military chartered DC 8-63, other murders and the trafficking of cocaine into El Toro, the fuel for the crack cocaine epidemic.