VETERAN CLAIMS WORK AROUND HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS LED TO TERMINAL ILLNESS

WHITE CITY, Ore. (AP) -- Dennis Marshall doesn't figure he'll live
long enough to benefit from the military disability pension he seeks.

"I'm doing this for her and for them," he said, nodding toward his
wife and their four children.

Marshall, 43, is in the final stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease and suffers from congestive heart failure.

He and his doctors believe his illness is connected to exposure to
formaldehyde during the three years in the early 1970s that he worked
as a mortician at the Army's medical facility at Fort Sam Houston,
Texas.

"I remembered getting ill," he said of breathing in formaldehyde fumes
throughout each work day. "But I was in the medical field. You don't
go to sick call."

The result was that he was never treated in the military for the
nausea, dizziness or shortness of breath he experienced at work.

He figured he was being a good trooper. Now he believes he is paying
for his military work ethic with his illness.

Two years ago, after he could no longer work, he applied for a
service-connected disability pension.

But the Department of Veterans Affairs, which had initially granted
him the pension only to immediately withdraw it, continues to deny his
request. The department concluded that his smoking likely caused his
health problems.

His case is now before the Board of Veterans Appeals in Washington,
D.C.

Tom Furukawa, the service center manager in the regional VA office in
Portland, said he could not discuss the specifics of the case because
of privacy laws.

As the name indicates, a service-connected disability pension must
have originated in the service or be determined to have been
pre-existing disability while in the service.

In making the determination, the agency combs the veteran's service
medical records.

Congressman Bob Smith, R-Medford, has joined the battle for Marshall,
urging the department to reconsider its findings.

In a letter to the VA last month, Smith noted that Marshall is
relatively young, yet a doctor has determined his internal organs have
deteriorated to the condition of someone more than 80 years old.

Noting that Marshall worked in the military morgue with large
quantities of formaldehyde without the benefit of any breathing
protection, Smith observed that, unlike the 1970s, experts now concur
that the chemical is very toxic to humans.

Marshall spent eight years in the Army before he was discharged in
1979. Three of those years were spent helping to train Army physicians
in the military morgue at Fort Sam Houston.

"I worked 12 to 15 hours a day, sometimes six days a week," he
recalled. "I did everything. Brain removal, eyes. The doctors needed
the organs as part of their training."

He routinely inhaled the fumes from the toxic chemical used to
preserve the cadavers. The fumes were never pleasant, but he said he
got used to it.

After a military tour of duty in Germany, he was discharged. He
returned to Medford and worked at what is now Rogue Valley Medical
Center as a nurse's technician for about a year.

He and his family later returned to Germany, where he worked as a
truck driver for a decade.

But Marshall began noticing shortness of breath that wouldn't go away
in the late 1970s.

In 1981, a German doctor started treating him for lung
disorders.

Marshall has a non-service-connected disability pension but, because
he receives Social Security benefits, he receives no money from the
pension. His wife works as a housekeeper.

"It's real tough to make it," he said, noting the family often doesn't
have enough money to buy medications he needs. "We just barely get by
now."

If the disability is determined to be service-connected and is 100
percent, a single veteran receives $1,964 a month, regardless of any
other income. A married veteran with children receives more benefits,
which would continue to benefit the family after his death.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry