VA Denies Solider Disability Pay

[LiberalinNC]

A soldier's cancer By Shae Crisson
(11/15/07 -- JOHNSTON COUNTY) - Greg Gaines says he brought more than nightmares and battle scars home with him. He believes he got cancer there too, and he says he's not the only one.

Gaines talks about his time in the war zone, "This is a picture of our sleeping quarters that actually got hit by a mortar that came right through the roof. We got hit on a couple of occasions from RPG's. At least eight or nine of my own company's vehicles that got hit with IEDs, small arms fire constantly."

During his 10 months in Iraq, Gaines, who lives in Johnston County, says he saw lots of combat and lots of chemicals. "There was one time, we saw it coming from a distance it was a big cloud of yellow smoke that looked like a dust storm at first then it just kept on getting closer and closer and you can definitely tell it was a concentrated yellow cloud. I was sick quite a few times while I was there," Gaines said.

And when he came home, Gaines says he had a bizarre bug bite that wouldn't go away.

"That's the scar from the sand flea that bit me while I was in Iraq," he said. "I was receiving treatment for that for a couple of months and my lymph nodes on my left side were all swollen. I had Hodgkin's lymphoma. When they did further testing and found out that it was actually in late stage four, then the doctor told me that if they didn't find it now, I would've been just a couple weeks away of calling it a day."
Eyewitness News asked Doctor Mohamed Abou-Donia, a cancer biology professor at Duke, if it stands out to him that three out of four men develop cancer.

Dr. Abou-Donia said, "It's clear that it can't be just a coincidence and it is not a genetic factor." Doctor Abou-Donia studied Gulf War Syndrome in the 90s and found that the stress of war weakened soldiers' immune systems. He says it could be happening again.

"In this case, it seems that it most likely to be exposure to some kind of chemicals in addition to stress that the soldiers became very susceptible and developed the cancer," Dr. Abou-Donia said.

However, Gaines says the VA isn't saying that. The hospital believes the cause of his cancer is undeterminable.

Gaines filed for disability pay in April 2005. His claims have been denied twice because the VA says his cancer was diagnosed more than a year after his discharge. The VA also says there's no evidence his cancer was caused by his service.

Link: http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=local&id=5763911